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New Sounds Live presents “American Pie,” the grand finale to the American Composers Orchestra's SONiC Festival at the World Financial Center’s Winter on Saturday, October 22, 2011 at 7PM.  The National's Bryce Dessner will perform with Aaron Dessner as guitar soloists in Bryce's new orchestral piece, "St. Carolyn by the Sea." Based on American novelist and Beat poet Jack Kerouac's "Big Sur," "St. Carolyn by the Sea" will be premiered by American Composers Orchestra (ACO), which commissioned the piece. Admission is FREE.

Then there's "Unstuck" by Andrew Norman, inspired by a line from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, “Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time." In the work, Norman makes the orchestra "spend a considerable amount of time and energy trying to free itself from these moments of stuckness."   Plus, the challenge of translating  blocks of sound from vibraphone clusters to the orchestra in Suzanne Farrin's work, "Infinite Here" (NY Premiere.)

Also on the program, Ruby Fulton's "Road Ranger Cowboy" (NY premiere); Paul Yeon Lee's world premiere "Echo of a Dream," and Ryan Gallagher's "Grindhouse" (NY Premiere, EarShot winner.)

SONiC (Sounds of a New Century 2011) is a nine-day festival, featuring 16 ensembles and more than 100 composers, devoted to music written in the 21st century by composers age 40 and under.  SONiC is co-curated by composer Derek Bermel and pianist Stephen Gosling, and is a production of American Composers Orchestra and The Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University. SONiC is presented in partnership with Carnegie Hall and Miller Theatre at Columbia University.

Watch a festival preview:

This performance will be recorded for later broadcast on WNYC 93.9 FM and wnyc.org.