Face the Music‘s very own Samurai Mama Big Band performs Lock the Door, Swallow the Key, by French-Canadian composer Nicole Lizée, along with PUJA, composed by Indian-American composer, Aakash Mittal, specifically for Face the Music!

Additionally, the ensemble gives world premieres of new pieces composed specifically for the group by its own performer-composers!

Face the Music is America’s only ensemble for teenagers that creates and performs classical music by living composers. Called a “force in the new music world” by The New York Times, Face the Music has grown, in eight years, from an after-school club of eight kids to a massive group of over 190 students from all over the tri-state area who convene every Sunday to practice and perform together. Under the direction of Dr. Jenny Undercofler, Face the Music performs between 35 to 45 concerts each season in venues around the city ranging from schools, to museums, to concert halls. Highlights from recent seasons include performances on the Bang On A Can Marathon, Ecstatic Music Festival, and the River to River Festival, opening for the Philip Glass Ensemble. Face the Music has collaborated with many professional artists, including most recently, the JACK Quartet, with whom we performed Steve Reich’s Triple Quartet at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Face the Music has been broadcast multiple times on WNYC and WQXR and has been featured on All Things Considered. In 2011, Face the Music was honored with the ASCAP Aaron Copland Award. ​

Face The Music is a performance of [ROULETTE KIDS], a family-friendly, kid-approved educational programming series that fosters enrichment, curiosity, and wonder through music and the free-play of imagination, experimentation and creative interaction.