Carlos Simon Extends Composer-in-Residence Contract with Kennedy Center

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Carlos Simon Releases brea(d)th - Landmark Work Recorded Live with the Minnesota Orchestra

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Carlos Simon Announced as Inaugural Composer Chair with Boston Symphony Orchestra

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'Requiem for the Enslaved', Carlos's debut album on Decca, out now.

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'Together', Decca Classics, with first single 'Near the Cross' Out Now.

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“Simon refashions musical history as excitable new realms with an unmistakable musical purpose essential for our times.”

– Los Angeles Times

“Carlos Simon’s propulsive and galvanizing ​“Fate Now Conquers” nodded to Beethoven, but on his own brazen terms.”

– new York Times

About Carlos Simon

"Carlos Simon is a young composer on the rise, with an ear for social justice."
–NPR Music

Carlos Simon is a GRAMMY-nominated composer, curator and activist. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, his compositions range from concert music for large and small ensembles to film scores with influences of jazz, gospel, and neo-romanticism. Simon is the Composer-in-Residence for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

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Latest Album

Recordings

Four Symphonic Works

August 23, 2024

Recorded live from the Kennedy Center by the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, this compilation is the first full-length recording of Carlos Simon’s orchestral works. The album features Tales: A Folklore Symphony, The Block, Songs of Separation (featuring J’Nai Bridges), and Wake Up! Concerto for Orchestra. Released in August 2024.

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Works

Featured
for Orchestra
2023

Four Black American Dances

Orchestral

Dance has always been a part of any culture. Particularly in Black American communities, dance is and has been the fabric of social gatherings. There have been hundreds, perhaps thousands of dances created over the span of American history that have originated from the social climate of American slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow. This piece is an orchestral study of the music that is associated with the Ring Shout, the Waltz, Tap Dance and the Holy Dance. All of these dances are but a mere representation of the wide range of cultural and social differences within the Black American communities.

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For Violin, Cello, Flute/Piccolo/Alto Flute, Clarinet/Bass Clarinet in Bb, Trumpet, Piano Spoken Word Artist
2021

Requiem for the Enslaved

Chamber Music

Requiem for the Enslaved explores the sacred and historical, and honors the lives of those bought and sold. Original text by Marco Pavé.

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Orchestra
2020

FATE NOW CONQUERS

Orchestral

This piece was inspired by a journal entry from Ludvig van Beethoven’s notebook written in 1815: “Iliad. The Twenty-Second Book But Fate now conquers; I am hers; and yet not she shall share In my renown; that life is left to every noble spirit And that some great deed shall beget that all lives shall inherit.”

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“A modern major composer: an artist whose windows are thrown wide open to the world, and whose musical scope of late lands like a grand panorama of American life.”

– The Washington Post

Schedule

Upcoming
Complete Schedule

June 12-14, 2025

Minnesota Orchestra

Orchestra Hall
Minneapolis, MN

SIMON Four Black American Dances
PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 3
RACHMANINOFF Symphonic Dances

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June 21, 2025

Knox Galesburg Symphony

Orpheum Theatre
Galesburg, IL

Joan Tower: Island Rhythms

Carlos Simon: Tales: A Folklore Symphony

Antonín Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World,” Op. 95

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News

Latest
NEWS
February 14, 2025

Statement on My Role as Kennedy Center Composer in Residence

Carlos Simon

© Carlos Simon. All rights reserved.

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