New Amsterdam Records

New Amsterdam Records was founded in 2007 as a record label to serve the needs of New York’s burgeoning post-genre new music community. New Amsterdam has quickly grown into an artists’ service organization that, in addition to releasing over 75 highly-lauded recordings of original new classical and jazz music, has presented over 150 concerts of groundbreaking new music since 2008, featuring world premieres, semi-staged operas, record releases, special one-off shows, music festivals, and chamber music series.

Past curatorial highlights have included the Undiscovered Islands and Archipelago series in Brooklyn, the String Theory Festival in Minneapolis, the Ecstatic Summer series presented by Arts Brookfield, a residency with the Indianapolis Symphony and a curatorial partnership with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Recent projects include a number of large-scale productions including The Colorado project, co-presented by VisionIntoArt, featuring John Luther Adams, Shara Worden, and Glenn Kotche (among others), a new fully-staged opera by Judd Greenstein, and an electronic music festival in partnership with MoMA’s PS1.

New Amsterdam actively partners with other organizations and is an associate presenter of the Ecstatic Music Festival, presented by the Kaufman Center at New York’s acclaimed Merkin Concert Hall. This unprecedented event, which has been called “…the most bracing combinations of adventurous, fulfilling music in recent memory” by NPR’s Joel Harrison, brings together artists with classical and non-classical backgrounds for collaborative evenings that allow participants to explore new musical territory. Collaborations have included Dan Deacon with So Percussion (2011); tUnE-yArDs, William Brittelle, and Caleb Burhans with Roomful of Teeth (2011); Dan Deacon with NOW Ensemble and the Chiara String Quartet (2012); Rhys Chatham and Oneida (2012); Deerhoof and Dal Niente (2013); William Basinski and Man Forever (2014) and Victoire and Glenn Kotche at Carnegie Hall (2014), and many more. In addition to the yearly festival, New Amsterdam recently helped expand the Ecstatic programming into the summertime by partnering with Arts Brookfield and the World Financial Center to present Ecstatic Summer. Year one included a series of three free in-and-outdoor concerts that included pairings such as the Grammy-nominated Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society with acclaimed Brooklyn disco group Escort; and Oneohtrix Point Never with David Lang. Year two included eight newly commissioned site specific works for unamplified brass and percussion by Susie Ibarra, Holly Herndon, Greg Saunier, and others. New Amsterdam is also a presenting partner with Liquid Music Series in Minneapolis and recently co-presented it’s first European music festival - Apples and Olives in Lucerne, Switzerland. In recent years, NewAm has also partnered with other like-minded organizations, including Cantaloupe Music (the label of Bang on a Can), MATA, WYNC/Q2, Galapagos Art Space, Nonclassical (UK), the Manhattan New Music Project, Search and Restore, and AMC’s Counterstream Radio.