Tag: Composers

Pittsburgh Symphony’s Return to Carnegie Hall Reveals How the Orchestra is Faring, Onstage and Off

Posted on December 5, 2025 by - News Briefs

In Friday’s (12/5) New York Times, David Allen writes, “I’m not sure I’ve ever been as scared in a concert hall as I was on Wednesday night when the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra played Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony at Carnegie Hall…. Shostakovich wrote it in 1937, at a time when his career and even his life were in danger, a year after Soviet authorities had denounced him … [Music Director Manfred] Honeck made that pressure, that inhumanity, above all that pain, physically palpable … This was an unsparing demonstration of how orchestral sophistication of the highest order can be put to profound aesthetic ends—a testament not only to what musicians can do, but also to why they must do it. The Pittsburgh Symphony flew in to Carnegie on a high, making its first appearance in 11 years … Melia Tourangeau, its president and chief executive, said … that the problems the organization has faced are broadly those that others confront … Last month, though, the orchestra announced strong results for the past season, including a surplus of $2.3 million … and a 17 percent increase in ticket sales…. When Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony play [as they did for the Shostakovich], they play with a primal sort of mastery.”

World Premiere by Matthew Aucoin at Chicago Symphony Orchestra Gives Voice to the “Disappeared” in Pinochet’s Chile

Posted on December 4, 2025 by - News Briefs

In Monday’s (12/1) Chicago Sun-Times, Graham Meyer writes, “About a year ago, the composer Matthew Aucoin was working on a commission for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra…. He looked at the election results and felt the country was pointed in a ‘scary’ direction. Having already just a few sketches in place for the piece, he found the poetry of the Chilean dissident Raúl Zurita…. Zurita’s text brought the piece its voice. Even though Zurita wrote the text in 2003, referring back to his detention in the 1970s …  in Chile, Aucoin found resonance between Zurita’s experience and [today’s] U.S. government … The finished piece, ‘Song for the Reappeared,’ has its world premiere with the CSO from Dec. 4 to 7. Zurita was arrested on the morning of the 1973 coup that brought the dictator Augusto Pinochet to power…. Zurita survived and was released, but many others detained under the Pinochet regime were killed, and their deaths for many years officially unacknowledged…. The piece was composed as a sort of concerto for voice for soprano Julia Bullock … Aucoin also had in mind the particular sound of the CSO, an ensemble he knows well from serving as the Solti Conducting Apprentice with the orchestra from 2013 to 2015.”

Next Year, Mahler Will Be Everywhere at Korean Orchestras

Posted on December 3, 2025 by - News Briefs

In Monday’s (12/1) Chosun Daily (South Korea), Kim Sung-hyun writes, “Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) …believed that ‘a symphony must be like a world that encompasses everything.’ This conviction seems to have resonated: next year will be a Mahler harvest. Following the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Jaap van Zweden) and the KBS Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Chung Myung-hoon), the Incheon Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Choi Soo-yul) is also joining the Mahler symphony series. The Mahlerian Orchestra (conducted by Jin Sol), the first private ensemble to perform Mahler’s complete symphonies, has elevated Mahler to the status of the most popular composer among Korean orchestras. The Seoul Philharmonic will continue its ‘Mahler odyssey’ next year after performing Symphony No. 1 last year, Symphony No. 2 (‘Resurrection’) and No. 7 this year…. Van Zweden, who became the Seoul Philharmonic’s music director last year, stated, ‘I plan to perform and record all of Mahler’s symphonies over my five-year tenure.’… Next year, Mahler’s monumental [Symphony No. 8] will resonate across the country. The Busan Philharmonic (conducted by Hong Seok-won) will perform Symphony No. 8… on June 18. The Mahlerian Orchestra, founded by conductor Jin Sol, will also perform Symphony No. 8 … on April 30.”

Composer Liza Lim Wins 2026 Grawemeyer Award

Posted on December 2, 2025 by - News Briefs

In Tuesday’s (11/2) Limelight (Sydney, Australia), Maddy Briggs writes, “Australian composer Liza Lim has been announced as the winner of the 2026 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. Presented by the University of Louisville [Kentucky], the award is among the world’s richest classical music honors, with a cash prize of $100,000 USD. Lim has earned the award for her new cello concerto, A Sutured World. Written for German-French cellist Nicolas Atstaedt, the work was co-commissioned by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO), the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Amsterdam Cello Biennale and Casa da Músico Porto. It earned its world premiere in October 2024 with the BRSO, and its Australian premiere with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in March 2025…. Currently Composer-in-Residence with the MSO and Casa da Músico Porto, Lim is the recipient of the 2026 Roche Commission, which sees her writing a new work to be premiered at the 2026 Lucerne Festival…. Lim is the sixth woman and second Australian winner to take home the music award.… ‘I hope this recognition helps to shine a light on the vital role that music can play in shaping our understanding of the world and in responding to the urgent challenges we face,’ Lim said.”

New List from Alliance of European Orchestras Highlights Compositions Focusing on the Natural World

Posted on December 1, 2025 by - News Briefs

The European Broadcasting Union, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France have joined forces to create “Renew Reuse Recycle,” a list of repertoire that evokes and explores nature, climate, and sustainability. The extensive list, posted as a downloadable spreadsheet, includes scores by composers past and present working in a richly diverse range of styles and forms. The introduction states: “Thoughtful programming can engage audiences with the natural world and our impact upon it. As cultural institutions it can be tempting to commission our way into an issue; however, composers have been engaging with these topics for centuries. What follows is intended as a living list of works to spark programmers’ imaginations. We intend to update the list regularly.” The introduction cites as one example “Lei Lang, a Chinese American composer whose piece A Thousand Mountains, a Million Streams won the 2021 Grawemeyer Award. He writes: ‘It meditates on the loss of landscapes of cultural and spiritual dimensions. The work implies an intention to preserve and resurrect parallel landscapes, where we and our children can belong.’ The list includes some standard repertoire works which complement the more recent work.”

Lisa Bielawa’s “Pulse” Violin Concerto for Tessa Lark Gets Cincinnati Symphony Debut

Posted on December 1, 2025 by - News Briefs

In Friday’s (11/28) Cincinnati Business Courier, Janelle Gelfand writes, “How do you write a classical violin concerto for a star violinist who is also steeped in bluegrass? That was the challenge faced by … composer Lisa Bielawa, who was asked to write a violin concerto for Kentucky native Tessa Lark. Lark grew up in Richmond, Ky., playing both classical violin and Appalachian fiddling, and she continues to impress in both worlds. ‘The first thing you do is you just listen to an enormous amount of music in these traditions that are outside of my own experience,’ said Bielawa, also a professional singer who has toured for three decades with the Philip Grass Ensemble…. Lark will perform the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra premiere of Bielawa’s Violin Concerto No. 2, ‘Pulse’ in concerts conducted by Cristian Măcelaru Nov. 29 and 30 … The composer [is] a Guggenheim Fellow and Rome Prize winner … The title, ‘Pulse,’ refers partly to Lark’s inner rhythmic pulse … Bielawa also wanted to put her finger on the pulse of America at a time of seismic change as the country approaches its 250th birthday…. ‘Pulse’ is a CSO co-commission with the Koussevitsky Foundation, Library of Congress, and a consortium of orchestras and other supporters.”

Review: LA Phil and Sheku Kanneh-Mason in World Premiere of Edmund Finnis’s Cello Concerto

Posted on December 1, 2025 by - News Briefs

In last Monday’s (11/24) San Francisco Classical Voice, Richard Ginell writes, “The Los Angeles Philharmonic often plays host to interesting combinations of headliners. This past weekend, it was the celebrated British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and a less well-known Spanish conductor, Roberto González-Monjas. Their concert, on Friday, Nov. 21, sandwiched the world premiere of a new cello concerto written for Kanneh-Mason by British composer Edmund Finnis between two examples of theme-and-variations … Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Theme and Variations, Op. 42, was the Austrian composer’s last original work, written in Los Angeles in 1953…. González-Monjas gave the score a lean, fast, and almost neoclassical treatment…. The [Edward] Elgar work was, of course, the Enigma Variations … It was a chance for González-Monjas, 37, who worked without a score, to leave a big physical impression—as well as a musical one—with his wide circular conducting motions and impulsive energy…. Against the spectacular Enigma Variations, Finnis’s concerto was overmatched. The composer, 41, has an impressive resumé of work in classical and electronic music in England … The piece itself low-key and dark, in a broad tempo, until the orchestra rouses itself to a brief burst of near cacophony before falling back into torpor…. The tempo … gratefully picks up in the finale as the harmonies grow denser…. Kudos to Kanneh-Mason for venturing into new territory.”

Review: Saint-Saëns Gets the InsideOut Treatment with Park Avenue Chamber Symphony

Posted on November 26, 2025 by - News Briefs

In Monday’s (11/24) Front Row Center (New York City), Edward Kliszus writes, “The DiMenna Center for Classical Music once again proved why it has become a sanctuary for adventurous musical experiences. On this particular evening, the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, under the visionary direction of David Bernard, unveiled Scintillating Saint-Saëns: The Full InsideOut Concerts Experience, a program that stitched together history, virtuosity, and the irresistible charm of French Romanticism. [In] Bernard’s trademark pre-concert talk … he framed Saint-Saëns not as a museum relic but as a living, breathing spirit whose music still shimmers with immediacy. Bernard … reminded the audience … how the InsideOut format, which seats listeners among the musicians, transforms the concert hall … The concert opened with Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2” with soloist Maxim Lando, whose “touch was assertive yet supple … Saint-Saëns’ Third Symphony stands as a Showcase Symphony, a summation of his artistic life. With Paolo Bordignon at the digital pipe organ—voiced and spatially calibrated through a surround-sound system—the piece became a living organism of color and resonance….  [The Finale] was overwhelming in the best sense—seismic yet tender, monumental yet personal.”

Two World Premieres Plus Podium Debut at Dallas Symphony

Posted on November 24, 2025 by - News Briefs

In Friday’s (11/21) Dallas Morning News, Scott Cantrell writes, “The Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s Thursday night concert made news. Assistant conductor Shira Samuels-Shragg made her unscheduled classical series debut, subbing for music director Fabio Luisi … It was impressive indeed. The concert, at the Meyerson Symphony Center, also included world premieres of … Jonathan Cziner’s Clarinet Concerto, composed for and performed by DSO principal clarinetist Gregory Raden, and the sound of where I came from by Moni Jasmine Guo.” Also on the program were works by Beethoven and Mozart. “[Cziner’s] three-movement clarinet concerto is influenced by both sacred and secular Jewish music, with what Cziner has called ‘my own kind of American orchestral sound. It’s basically about the state of the world for a Jewish American … and how there’s so much conflict and violence and sadness. But the end of the piece is more celebratory.’… the sound of where I came from was inspired by [Guo’s] childhood dialogues with her Chinese grandmother. Motifs echoing cadences of their conversations give listeners aural hooks within often complex washes, swells and swirls of sound, the eight-minute piece finally vanishing in sonic vapor.” the sound of where I came from was commissioned by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Orchestral Commissions Program, an initiative of the League of American Orchestras in partnership with the American Composers Orchestra.

Hamilton Philharmonic Performs “Considering Matthew Shepard,” Oratorio About Slain Gay Man

Posted on November 21, 2025 by - News Briefs

In Thursday’s (11/20) Ludwig Van (Toronto), Anya Wassenbeg writes, “The Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra will present the oratorio ‘Considering Matthew Shepard’ in a concert featuring The Elora Singers on November 26. The oratorio by American composer Craig Hella Johnson is a moving work written as a response to the life of Matthew Shepard, tragically cut short by violence in 1998…. Just short of 22 years old, he was ambushed and attacked by two men, and left to die near Laramie, Wyoming. Tied to a fence in a remote area … he died … from the horrific head injuries he’d suffered during the attack…. The attack was motivated by anti-LGBTQ sentiment. The murder sparked legislation and several artistic creations … Johnson wrote his oratorio as a response to the murder, and more importantly, as a celebration of Matthew’s life. American choral conductor, composer, and arranger Craig Hella Johnson … served as a church organist in high school. He’d add conducting while studying towards his Bachelor’s degree in piano performance at St. Olaf College…. He [studied] at the Juilliard School, the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, and Yale University, eventually earning a Doctor of Musical Arts degree…. He is Professor and Resident Artist in Choral Music at Texas State University.” “Considering Matthew Shepard” premiered in 2016.