Dogs of desire

The Albany Symphony’s genre-bending new music fusion group

Featured Performances

No. 17, Wayfaring Stranger...

by Michael Daugherty | This Land Sings (Inspired by the Life and Times of Woody Guthrie)

Lizardman: Fallen Angel (Part 1)

by David Mallamud | The Wild & Whimsical Worlds of David Mallamud

Lizardman: Fallen Angel (Part 2)

by David Mallamud | The Wild & Whimsical Worlds of David Mallamud

Recent Events

June 3, 2022 – 7:30pm

At the American Music Festival

Commissioned world premieres by Natalie Draper, Jack Frerer, Bobby Ge, Loren Loiacono and Andre Myers.

 

Dedicated to exploring and celebrating the intersection between the raucous terrain of American popular culture, traditional Western instrumental music, and music traditions from around the world, the Albany Symphony’s 18-member new music ensemble, Dogs of Desire, has commissioned and performed more than 200 new works by America’s most exciting emerging composers. 

Founded by GRAMMY®-winning conductor David Alan Miller with members of the Albany Symphony in 1994, Dogs of Desire has gained a national reputation as an incubator for the most inventive musical creators of our time, extending to collaborations with filmmakers, choreographers, Ghanian percussionists, Broadway stars, Rock-n-Roll icons, and a robot builder.  

 

The group is featured annually at the Albany Symphony’s American Music Festival, an international hub for new American music, and has performed in New York City, Washington D.C, and throughout New York State. The group’s most recent recording, of Michael Daugherty’s Woody Guthrie homage, “This Land Sings,” was released in May, 2020, on NAXOS Records.

Projects

Projects

Watch one of our latest works below with composer Carlos Bandera, from our project, Hot w/Mustard.

Alexis C. Lamb – “Look Through”

“Look Through” was initially inspired by a quote from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden: “Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?” 

Annika Socolofsky – “Light of a Clear Blue Morning”

I’ve chosen to arrange Dolly Parton’s “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” for the Dogs of Desire–an optimism anthem if there ever was one! The symphony meets pep band in this celebratory bop. As Parton puts it, “I can see the light of a clear blue morning, and everything’s gonna be alright. It’s gonna be ok.”

Carlos Bandera – “The Vast Hour”

All essences of sweetness from the white
Warm day go up in vapor, when the dark
Comes down. Ascends the tune of meadow-lark,
Ascends the noon-time smell of grass, when night
Takes sunlight from the world, and gives it ease.
Mysterious wings have brushed the air; and light

Andre Myers – “Pulp Anthem: Reflected Glory”

Pulp Anthem: Reflected Glory is a nurse’s anthem. I refer to it as a Pulp Anthem because I composed it quickly, and because it is meant to be broadly distributed, like the old pulp paperback books of the twentieth century.