“Violinist Tessa Lark remembers composer Michael Torke’s question: ‘If I wrote a bluegrass-inspired violin concerto, would you perform it?’ ” writes Cathalena Burch in last Wednesday’s (10/23) Arizona Daily Star. “ ‘I’m pretty sure I said, “Duh,” ’ Lark said last week. But there was one hitch: Torke, who has been composing [for many] years, was not fluent in bluegrass…. So he turned to Lark, the Kentucky native for whom he had written a bluegrass-inspired violin-piano sonata called ‘Spoon Bread’ in 2016. She was from Kentucky; she grew up on bluegrass…. The Tucson Symphony Orchestra is one of 11 orchestras—10 in the United States, one in Europe—that eventually signed on as co-commissioners of the concerto. The Albany (New York) Symphony performed the world premiere and recorded the piece in August; the recording came out last month.” The Tucson Symphony performed the work last weekend. “Torke composed banjo picking patterns transcribed for violin, which means you hear cross rhythms and cross patterns that are complex sounding coming from a violin but would slide off a banjo…. ‘There are a lot of techniques that in subtle ways are unlike anything else I’ve approached in my musical training,’ Lark said.”
Posted October 30, 2019
