Joel Sachs
Joel Sachs is the founder and director of the New Juilliard Ensemble – the chamber orchestra for new music at the renowned New York conservatory – and co-director of the internationally acclaimed new-music ensemble Continuum, Dr. Sachs has appeared in hundreds of performances in New York, nationally, and internationally, throughout Europe, Asia, and Latin America. He has also conducted orchestras and ensembles in Austria, China, El Salvador, France, Germany, Iceland, Israel, Mexico, Switzerland, and Ukraine, and held new-music residencies in Berlin, Helsinki, London, Salzburg, and Curitiba (Brazil). He has conducted the distinguished Icelandic contemporary music ensemble Caput in a program of music from Ukraine, Uzbekistan, the United States, and Iceland, and a concert of music by Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen. They also recorded a CD of works by the Icelandic composer Askell Masson. With Continuum he has performed world-wide including four tours to Uzbekistan, six to Mongolia and concerts in Tajikistan and Kazakhstan In December 2006 he conducted Continuum in Jakarta, Indonesia, where they presented Tony Prabowo’s opera The King’s Witch in full staging, his piano concerto Psalm -- both of which were composed for and premiered by the New Juilliard Ensemble -- and music by American composers. In May, 2007 he conducted a concert of American music at the Shanghai Conservatory including the Chinese premiere of Ives’ Symphony No. 3. In October, 2007 he conducted the Danube-Hudson Project, comprising works by Juilliard and Liszt Academy composition students, at the Liszt Academy in Budapest as part of the Budapest Autumn Festival. He appeared with Continuum in Odessa in April 2008, and in Mongolia for the sixth time in June, 2008. In March 2009 he was be in residence at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. In June 2009 he brought the New Juilliard Ensemble for four concerts in Tokyo. Joel Sachs’ recordings with Continuum appear on the Advance, CRI, Naxos, New Albion, Nonesuch, and TNC labels. A CD of music of the Americas with La Camerata de las Americas (Mexico City) was released by Dorian. He also directs concerts by Juilliard students at MoMA Summergarden.
A member of Juilliard’s music history faculty, Joel Sachs is writing a biography of the American composer Henry Cowell, to be published by Oxford University Press, and appears on radio as a commentator on recent music. He has been a regular delegate to Netherlands Music Days and other international music conferences. He is a graduate of Harvard College and received the M.A. and Ph.D. in musicology from Columbia University. He has published extensively on 19th and 29th century topics, including a book about Johann Nepomuk Hummel. Before joining the faculty of Juilliard he taught at Columbia University, the Johns Hopkins University, and the City University of New York.
