The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra gave the world premiere of Kevin Day’s Concerto for Trombone and Piano on May 31 with pianist Constanze Hochwartner and trombonist Peter Steiner, led by Music Director Robert Spano. Photo by Karen Almond.
In Saturday’s (5/1) Dallas Morning News, Scott Cantrell writes, “It was worth the ticket price, and then some, to hear Gerald Wood Friday night at Bass Performance Hall. I can’t think I’ve ever heard the big horn solos in Mahler’s Fifth Symphony more stirringly, more elegantly played than by the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s principal. His fellow horns played splendidly, too—as did the rest of the orchestra under music director Robert Spano…. The program also included the world premiere of a double concerto for trombone and piano by Arlington native Kevin Day. It opened with river sings a song to trees, a tone poem by Jennifer Higdon, one of today’s most performed American composers…. Composer, conductor and jazz pianist, Day is a Texas Christian University alumnus who’s done further study at the universities of Georgia and Miami. His considerable output includes orchestral, band, chamber and solo works. Departures is a co-commission by the FWSO, TCU and the International Trombone Association … Nineteen minutes long, Departures is unapologetically populist … The opening ‘New Horizons’ mingles music jolly, lyric and angularly jazzy. ‘Confrontation’ belies its title with aria-like writing for the trombone, until some slashing strings intervene…. The nimble ‘Dance Hall’ does indeed dance.”
