Titus Underwood will perform the West Coast premiere of Nigel Westlake “Spirit of the Wild” oboe concerto with the Portland Columbia Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Antonio Minifield.
In Monday’s (11/6) Oregonian, James Bash writes, “The Portland Columbia Symphony Orchestra has taken an adventurous stance with its upcoming concert, which only features works by living composers: Joseph Schwantner, Nigel Westlake, and Anna Clyne. The selections tap into aspects of spirituality that will resonate with audiences yearning for deeper connections. The oldest piece on the program is Schwantner’s ‘New Morning for the World: Daybreak of Freedom,’ which he wrote in 1982. It ingeniously blends text from Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches from the civil rights movement with orchestral music. ‘Schwantner’s piece has a sense of force and power as well as the sublime,’ said PSCO Music Director and Conductor Steven Byess … The orchestra will perform the West Coast premiere of ‘Spirit of the Wild,’ an oboe concerto that was written in 2016 by Australian composer Westlake…. Soloist Titus Underwood, principal oboist of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, is ready to tackle the tour-de-force concerto…. PSCO will open the concert with the West Coast premiere of ‘This Moment’ by British composer Anna Clyne. It was commissioned by the League of American Orchestras commission through the Toulmin consortium for women composers and given its world premiere in July by the Philadelphia Orchestra … Clyne’s piece marvelously uses percussion instruments in a gentle, shimmering way … to support the concert’s theme of spiritual moments.”
