“Mary Ferrillo, who joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s viola section last fall … doesn’t remember what magic phrase led her to the website of the American Composers Alliance, but that’s where she discovered [Ulysses] Kay’s Sonatine for viola and piano,” writes Zoë Madonna in Friday’s (7/31) Boston Globe. “She’d been looking for a piece to perform for Tanglewood’s BSO Musicians in Recital virtual concert series [on July 31], and this looked like a perfect fit…. Kay had studied at Tanglewood in 1941…. Ferrillo and her fellow BSO musicians were eager to showcase more works by composers of color like Kay…. However, Ferrillo noticed, the 1939 piece was said to be withdrawn [by Kay]…. With Friday’s BSO Musicians in Recital program, Kay’s Sonatine will finally see its world premiere, more than 80 years after its composition…. Kay was very given to self-criticism… Over the course of his career, he withdrew many pieces.… Kay, who died in 1995 at age 78, wrote more than 140 compositions during the course of his life.… But the Sonatine dates from before all that, during Kay’s graduate studies at Eastman (where he earned his master’s degree in 1940, while still in his early 20s). And it’s ‘a gem’ of a piece, Ferrillo said.”
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