American Composers Orchestra Releases "MODERN YESTERDAYS" Album Featuring Premieres

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The live recording pairs compositions by three contemporary creators with guitarist and composer Kaki King as soloist.

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The American Composers Orchestra released its latest album, Modern Yesterdays, digitally via Platoon. Led by conductor Daniela Candillari, the live recording pairs Carlos Simon's Fate Now Conquers with the world premiere performances of Carlos Bandera's Materia Prima and four movements from guitarist and composer Kaki King's Modern Yesterdays, heard here in new orchestral settings by D.J. Sparr with King as soloist. The album was recorded live in performance at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York on March 17, 2023.

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This program includes the world premiere orchestral renderings of Kaki King's compositions by D.J. Sparr, including music from her album Modern Yesterdays, which explores the boundaries of the guitar and our attempts to find meaning within the patterns of the world. The work is a refinement of King's now-signature guitar-projection mapping performance. Bridging future-forward modernity with contemplative longing, Modern Yesterdays sends audiences on an audiovisual journey reset by our recent past, arriving at the emotional place we yearn to visit.

Carlos Bandera, who first connected with ACO through the Underwood New Music Readings, now EarShot, takes his inspiration for Materia Prima from the mythological motif of the cosmic ocean, a motif found in the creation stories of a strikingly wide variety of cultures and religions, describing the primordial and often chaotic waters from which the universe was created. The title is Latin for "prime matter," or "original matter," and refers to the substance viewed as the material cause of the universe. "There are two musical elements that form my piece: sustained sounds and brief impulses," writes Bandera. "The impulses act as drops of water in a still, vast sea, creating waves of activity that disrupt the stability of the sustained material." The harmonic structure is built on a similar opposition, set between the harmonic series of a low B-flat and the notes of the string instruments' open strings, particularly the violin's open A, the note from which the entire piece emerges. "The piece unfolds through gradual processes of transformation as it attempts to reconcile these opposing materials. At its core, Materia Prima strives to find serene spaces in a turbulent and chaotic world."

Modern Yesterdays marks ACO's fourth release with Platoon, part of a multi-year commitment to release commercial recordings of ACO's programming. ACO's world premiere recording of Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang's An American Soldier, released May 23, 2025, was nominated for a 2025 GRAMMY Award for Best Opera Performance, and was followed by America in Weimar: On the Margins, released July 24, 2026 and 2023 EarShot Readings, out Friday, August 21, 2026.

Total Time: 00:47:59 *World premiere

Kaki King, guitar Daniela Candillari, conductor American Composers Orchestra

Credits: This recording was captured live in performance at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, New York, New York, on March 17, 2023. Photographer: Alfred Kan Engineer: Wei Wang Booklet Designer: Steven Alesso

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwclassical/article/American-Composers-Orchestras-MODERN-YESTERDAYS-Album-Out-Now-20260923)._