Dec. 5: Celebrate the Holidays with a Performance of Duke Ellington’s The Nutcracker Suite and Oliver Nelson’s Arrangement of Peter and the Wolf
The New School's College of Performing Arts – Mannes, Jazz, Drama
Presents Duke Ellington’s The Nutcracker Suite and
Oliver Nelson’s Arrangement of Peter and the Wolf
Performed by the New School Studio Orchestra led by Keller Coker
Thursday, December 5, 2024 at 7:30pm
John L. Tishman Auditorium | 63 Fifth Ave., N.Y.C.
Free with registration
Information: www.newschool.edu/performing-arts
For press tickets, contact Christina Jensen: christina@jensenartists.com
New York, NY – The New School's College of Performing Arts – Mannes, Jazz, Drama will celebrate the holidays on Thursday, December 5, 2024 at 7:30pm, with special performances of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s The Nutcracker Suite and Oliver Nelson’s arrangement of Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf by the New School Studio Orchestra (NSSO featuring guest artists including guitarist Steve Cardenas, led by Keller Coker, Dean, School of Jazz and Contemporary Music. Coker also adapted the text, which will be narrated by Ramsey Faragallah. This event is open to the public and free with registration.
Ellington and Strayhorn’s The Nutcracker Suite features jazz interpretations of themes from Tchaikovsky’s beloved 1892 ballet score. The Smithsonian writes, “Ellington and Strayhorn did not simply place jazz rhythms over Tchaikovsky's music. Instead, they picked up the notes, recast the beats, communed with the themes, and recreated the work, turning it into something that was at once completely their own and completely Tchaikovsky's. In doing so, they showed that while music may be the universal language, it is spoken with many accents (and therein lies the fun).”
Of the 1966 Peter and the Wolf recording of Oliver Nelson’s arrangement of Sergei Prokofiev’s iconic work, AllMusic writes “Oliver Nelson arranged a variety of themes from Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf into a swinging suite featuring the great organist Jimmy Smith. Although there is no verbal narrative on this LP, Nelson's liner notes tell the story, which can actually be followed through the music, and Smith pays respect to the original melodies while making strong statements of his own. [It’s] a classic of its kind.”
The College of Performing Arts’ newest large ensemble, the New School Studio Orchestra (NSSO), is composed of students from the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music and Mannes School of Music, and performs music from a wide variety of genres including jazz, soul, pop, and improvised music. The NSSO kicked off its three-concert season on October 24, 2024 with an evening dedicated to the compositions and arrangements by the great jazz trombonist and composer Bob Brookmeyer. On May 2, 2025, the U.S. premiere of Carla Bley’s rarely performed but hugely influential Escalator Over the Hill, described by Rolling Stone as “an international musical encounter of the first order,” will be the epic close to this season’s series, led by GRAMMY®-winning composer, pianist, and conductor, Arturo O'Farrill and Keller Coker.
"This is an exciting season for the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music,” says Keller Coker, Dean, School of Jazz and Contemporary Music and Associate Dean, College of Performing Arts. “The New School Studio Orchestra presents the U.S. premiere of Carla Bley's rarely performed Escalator Over the Hill in May and starts off the fall in a big way with music by Bob Brookmeyer in October and Ellington's beloved Nutcracker Suite in December – I can't wait for people to hear this group. We have a boygenius Ensemble for the first time, and our Fall Ensemble Festival features Reggie Workman's John Coltrane Ensemble, the Carla Bley Ensemble directed by Arturo O'Farrill, and the Waterfalls 90s R&B Ensemble directed by Marlon Saunders, as well as groups helmed by Immanuel Wilkins, Jane Ira Bloom, Joel Ross, Mary Halvorson and more. Folks should come get in the room with these talented musicians."
Performances by students and faculty at the College of Performing Arts break new ground, pushing the boundaries of convention and reinventing traditional forms. Additional highlights for the College this season include (Un)Silent Film series presenting Tod Browning’s classic film Dracula with Philip Glass’s score performed by Orange Road Quartet, the Cuker and Stern Graduate String Quartet-in-Residence, with pianist and guest conductor Michael Riesman on October 25; the Namekawa-Davies Duo (Maki Namekawa and Dennis Russell Davies) in Pianographique featuring music by Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, and Steve Reich, with real-time visualizations by Cori O’Lan, on October 26; Mannes Opera’s double bill featuring one-act operas by David T. Little and Kamala Sankaram on November 8 and 9; performances by celebrated Mannes/School of Jazz Ensembles-in-Residence The Westerlies, Sandbox Percussion, and JACK Quartet throughout the season, including Sandbox Percussion’s world premiere of Michael Torke’s BLOOM on December 11; the New School Studio Orchestra performing Duke Ellington’s The Nutcracker Suite on December 5; and multiple performances of the Mannes Orchestra at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, including Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light to the silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc with The New York Choral Society on November 1, the U.S. premiere of Augustus Hailstork’s Ndemera on December 9, and Sandbox Percussion in Viet Cuong’s percussion concerto Re(new)al paired with John Zorn’s violin concerto Contes de Fées performed by Stefan Jackiw on April 11. The New School Studio Orchestra presents the U.S. premiere of jazz great Carla Bley’s rarely heard landmark album Escalator Over the Hill on May 2.
The College presents approximately 900 performances each year, nearly all of which are free and open to the public, creating an incredible performing arts resource for New Yorkers and visitors alike.
Additional Upcoming Events from The School of Jazz and Contemporary Music
November 3-December 12: The School of Jazz and Contemporary Music Fall Ensemble Festival
Jazz Performance Space at The New School | 55 W. 13th St., N.Y.C.
Walk-up/First come, first-served seating
Event Schedule
Featuring ensembles led by Reggie Workman, Immanuel Wilkens, Joel Ross, Mary Halvorson, Jane Ira Bloom, Arturo O'Farrill, and many more. Don't miss these artist led ensembles featuring the musicians of now and tomorrow, in the intimate setting of the Jazz Performance Space at The New School.
May 2 at 7:30pm: The New School Studio Orchestra – Carla Bley’s Escalator Over the Hill
John L. Tishman Auditorium | 63 Fifth Ave., N.Y.C.
Free with registration
On May 2, the NSSO led by Arturo O'Farrill and Keller Coker, presents the U.S. premiere performance of Carla Bley’s landmark 1971 album, Escalator Over the Hill. J.D. Considine captures the essence of Bley’s iconic work, writing in TIDAL magazine, “Whenever the topic of Great Albums of the 1970s crops up, certain titles invariably recur. There’s Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions, the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St., Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall. But while reading through the recent tributes to the great jazz composer and pianist Carla Bley, who died on Oct. 17, [2023] at age 87, I was reminded of the masterwork that’s always missing from those lists: Bley’s Escalator Over the Hill…Escalator Over the Hill goes well beyond the usual boundaries of genre. In addition to bracing bursts of free jazz, there are cabaret songs, snatches of country music, deep dives into jazz fusion, an excursion into Hindustani pop, elements of ambient music and nods to New York minimalism.”
For a complete overview of performances at The New School’s College of Performing Arts, read the 2024-2025 season press release here.
Performances at The New School’s College of Performing Arts are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted. Some events require advance registration. View the full calendar of performances at the College of Performing Arts – including Mannes School of Music, School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, and School of Drama – for details on how to attend.
About The College of Performing Arts at The New School
The College of Performing Arts at The New School was formed in 2015 and draws together the Mannes School of Music, the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, and the School of Drama. With each school contributing its unique culture of creative excellence, the College of Performing Arts is a hub for vigorous training, cross-disciplinary collaboration, bold experimentation, innovative education, and world-class performances.
The 1,000 students at the College of Performing Arts are actors, performers, writers, improvisers, creative technologists, entrepreneurs, composers, arts managers, and multidisciplinary artists who believe in the transformative power of the arts for all people. Students and faculty collaborate with colleagues across The New School in a wide array of disciplines, from the visual arts and fashion design, to the social sciences, public policy, advocacy, and more.
The curriculum at the College of Performing Arts is dynamic, inclusive, and responsive to the changing arts and culture landscape. New degrees and coursework, like the new graduate degrees for Performer-Composers and Artist Entrepreneurs are designed to challenge highly skilled artists to experiment, innovate, and engage with the past, present, and future of their artforms. New York City’s Greenwich Village provides the backdrop for the College of Performing Arts, which is housed at Arnhold Hall on West 13th Street and the historic Westbeth Artists Community on Bank Street.
Founded in 1916 by America’s first great violin recitalist and noted educator, David Mannes, and pianist and educator Clara Damrosch Mannes, the Mannes School of Music is a standard-bearer for foundational excellence and radically progressive music education, dedicated to supporting the development of creative and socially engaged artists. Through its undergraduate, graduate, and professional studies programs, Mannes offers a curriculum as imaginative as it is rigorous, taught by a world-class faculty and visiting artists. As part of The New School’s College of Performing Arts, together with the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music and the School of Drama, Mannes makes its home on The New School’s Greenwich Village campus in a state-of-the-art facility at the newly renovated Arnhold Hall.
The School of Jazz and Contemporary Music is renowned across the globe as a center for progressive, innovative artists. Considered the most innovative school of its kind, it offers students an artist-as-mentor approach to learning. The world’s leading contemporary and jazz musicians, like Matt Wilson, Mary Halvorson, Linda May Han Oh, Jane Ira Bloom, and more, work with students to hone their craft and create groundbreaking music. This is a rare place where students can pursue what makes you a unique contemporary musician. We encourage students to explore their own talents and reach across disciplines to construct new rhythms, inventive compositions, and original means of expression. There are nearly 80 ensembles students can play in each semester. Outside the classroom, New York City becomes a performance hall. Play in clubs, concert halls, and venues throughout New York and in festivals and exchange programs around the world. Start your professional performance career now through our Gig Office; we have the largest music internship program in New York. You can work with producers, editors, and recording artists of the highest caliber. Students will be immersed not only in the newest music but also in the nuances of how the music industry runs. Our curriculum allows students to infuse their music education with elements of design, literature, history, journalism and more. You can take courses offered at the Mannes School of Music, Parsons School of Design, and Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts. In addition, we have created a number of project-based interdisciplinary classes, such as an exploration of sound-image relationships in early 20th-century multimedia art, offered by Parsons and Jazz. The results of this university-wide interconnectivity can be seen in the success of our alumni in a range of genres and categories of creative work, both in and outside of music.
Founded in 1919, The New School was established to advance academic freedom, tolerance, and experimentation. A century later, The New School remains at the forefront of innovation in higher education, inspiring more than 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students to challenge the status quo in design and the social sciences, liberal arts, management, the arts, and media. The university welcomes thousands of adult learners annually for continuing education courses and public programs that encourage open discourse and social engagement. Through our online learning portals, research institutes, and international partnerships, The New School maintains a global presence.