Overview
The American Music Festival wrapped up with an array of world premiere performances, commissioned especially by WNYC as part of a station-wide New Americans project. From Cuba to Italy and from Argentina to Tibet, music from around the world filled the air and airwaves for a live studio audience in the Greene Space. Get in on the action and hear the whole evening as it unfolded.
Listen to the entire, uninterrupted evening of world premieres, WNYC commissions and interviews with our featured artists.
Cuban-born drummer and composer Dafnis Prieto and his ensemble Si O Si share the world premiere performance of his haunting “Sueno de Amor” with singer Vennisa Santi.
Paola Prestini claims Italy and Mexico as her heritage but she now considers herself a New Yorker. Listen for the world premiere performance of “Spell” for clarinet, cello, vibes and laptop.
Evening Music host David Garland and Overnight Music host Haleh Abghari get in on the performance as vocalists in a special live version of Ezequiel Vinao’s WNYC commission, “Three Versions of a Dream” (After a reading of Borges).
Tibetan-born singer Yungchen Lhamo gets the audience involved by asking them to lay down a vocal drone over which she improvises a melody for peace and understanding.