[ROULETTEKIDS] FACE THE MUSIC

About

The teens and tweens of Face the Music kick off the [ROULETTEKIDS] season with Heavenrunner, a spectacular new work for film and live music. Written by a 16­-year-­old member of the ensemble, Heavenrunner brings together NASA footage and an inspiring score. The program will also feature Roulette alum Neil Rolnick’s Oceans Eat Cities, which uses data from rising sea levels as the basis of a two­-movement tone poem about climate change and humanity’s potential to stop it.

Praised for “stunning performances” by The New York Times, Kaufman Music Center’s Face the Music is the only youth ensemble in the country solely devoted to the music of living composers. Advancing Kaufman Music Center’s commitment to modern music, Face the Music draws over 200 students from all over the New York region.  

Face the Music performs music for large groups (orchestra, jazz band, improvisation ensemble); cultivates, workshops and performs music by its own member-composers; and partners with the Kronos Quartet in a one-of-a-kind string quartet program devoted to contemporary music. Face the Music is the only youth group among the Legacy Partners for Kronos Quartet’s groundbreaking new commissioning initiative “Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire.”  

Under the direction of conductor and founder Dr. Jenny Undercofler, Face the Music has played at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, Roulette, BAM Café, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, and the Bang On A Can Marathon; and has worked with professional musicians such as the JACK Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, David Robertson, and Vijay Iyer. Now in its eleventh season, Face the Music has been featured on WQXR’s Young Artist Showcase, NPR’s All Things Considered, and has been the subject of feature stories in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.