Princeton Town Topics reviews Scores: New Orchestral Works

July 20, 2016

Town Topics reviews Scores: New Orchestral Works, which capped the weeklong NJSO Edward T. Cone Composition Institute with the NJSO premieres of works by the four composers of the 2016 Institute, as well as a work by Institute Director Steven Mackey, under the baton of guest conductor David Robertson:

Vermont native Matthew Browne reached back to the 19th-century form of the tone poem for Farthest South, a musical depiction of British explorer Ernest Shackleton’s early 20th-century expedition to Antarctica ... Browne’s orchestral color was shaded with raindrops of percussion, a punctuating harp, and lean strings, as well as sweet melodies from violist Frank Foerster, cellist Ted Ackerman, and concertmaster Eric Wyrick. In the full symphonic sound of the NJSO, one could sense the wonder of the unexplored Antarctic terrain.

Composer James Anderson, a native of the Pacific Northwest, brought nature from a different part of the world to life in Places With Pillars, a work not about structures, but depicting the pillars of life toward which people strive. Anderson found inspiration for this work on the beaches of southern California, creating a strong and powerful work. Heavy with percussion, Places With Pillars often moved forward breathlessly ...

Korean native Jung Yoon Wie [captured] how light passes through a prism, creating a rainbow. ... Water Prism traveled through three musical registers [representing the sacred, human and deeper emotions]. The orchestral color of Water Prism became more “human” as the work progressed, with lush orchestral writing contrasting with scattered pitches depicting light. The musical effects within this work were poignant, as orchestral light filled the hall at the work’s close.

New Hampshire composer Will Stackpole created …Ask Questions Later as a response to the gun violence in this country in 2015 — a musical social commentary even more appropriate a year after the piece’s composition. Stackpole described his piece as “music based on a tempestuous onset, followed by serene music that is cut off before the thought is completed.” Stackpole’s music was jarring, unsettled, and urgent, with sharp strokes aided by percussion and periodic solo trumpet — the universal instrument of tragedy ...

[Institute Director Steven Mackey’s] Turn the Key was a play on words in Mackey’s use of a 7-beat clave rhythm (also the Spanish word for “key”) in a piece which inaugurated the acoustics of a new concert hall. Turn the Key had many textures, as the musical “keys” tumbled into one another in a perfect ending to an evening of very accessible new works which hopefully will have future lives in the concert repertory.

» Read the full story at www.towntopics.com.

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