Professor Alan Terricciano’s Composition Performed at Carnegie Hall

Terricciano’s piece “Royal Denizens” served as the program-closing Carnegie Hall presentation with additional performances across the globe, marking a notable week for the composer, pianist and associate dean

UC Irvine Claire Trevor School of the Arts Professor of Dance and Associate Dean for Academic Personnel and Undergraduate Studies Alan Terricciano celebrated an important artistic milestone this November when his work “Royal Denizens” was performed by professional musicians at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. The composition served as the final piece of Resurgence, Vol. 2, a concert featuring cellist Ovidiu Marinescu and pianist Carl Cranmer in support of an album released earlier this year by Navona Records, a division of Parma Recordings.

Terricciano composed “Royal Denizens” for Dance Visions 2024, the Department of Dance’s annual showcase of original faculty choreography and student performance. Developed in collaboration with Department of Music faculty cellist, Sarah Koo and choreographer and Professor of Dance Vitor Luiz, the work originated in the rehearsal studios of UCI, a space Terricciano describes as integral to artistic research.

“"Royal Denizens," to me, is exemplary of the notion that the artistic work created at UCI in collaboration with our students is analogous to and on par with the laboratory research of our sciences. Our studios are our laboratories,” said Terricciano. “The resultant piece was danced entirely by UCI students on the stage of the Irvine Barclay Theatre. My rehearsal recording was strong enough for me to submit the composition to an open call from Parma Records, ultimately leading to its presentation as a concert work in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall.”

Image: Alan Terricciano onstage at Carnegie Hall.

Terricciano reflected on the performance from the audience — watching professional musicians interpret material he originally performed himself for Dance Visions, and experiencing the reception of his music in one of the world’s most recognizable concert venues.

The Carnegie Hall performance was one of three major professional engagements for Terricciano’s work during the week.

Along with his performance at Carnegie on November 11, the European new-music organization Phasma-Music live-streamed a chamber music concert featuring Terricciano’s wind quintet The Blue Trail, a 2024 composition inspired by the Connecticut woods of his childhood. The work appears on Phasma-Music’s recording of the same name and is one of 27 of his compositions the label has produced, many first premiered at UCI in both the dance department and chamber music setting.

Later in the week, organist David Ball performed Terricciano’s "Voices in the Quiet Cathedral" at Christ Cathedral in Anaheim as part of its 2025–26 concert series. The work was first used in Dance Visions 2021 in collaboration with UCI faculty choreographer Ama Wray. The Christ Cathedral presentation marked the first time the piece was performed live on the cathedral’s iconic pipe organ following the instrument’s extensive restoration.

Terricciano joined UCI in 1994 and has composed more than 100 scores for the concert stage, theater and dance. His work has been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, Northwestern University’s New Music Ensemble, New Swan Shakespeare Festival and venues across the United States, Europe and Asia. 

Video: Performance of “Royal Denizens” for Dance Visions 2024, choreographed by Vitor Luiz.

To learn more about Resurgence Vol. 2, visit here. To learn more about Alan Terricciano, visit his Department of Dance bio page here.