It's an evening of anticipated firsts with one world premiere commission, one U.S. premiere and one West Coast premiere. Opening the concert is a new work by Gabriella Smith, a young composer from the San Francisco Bay Area who started composing at the age of eight. Smith was selected by renowned composer John Adams in an ongoing partnership with the Festival to identify the most promising of the next generation of creators.
The evening continues with the West Coast premiere of John Adams' Saxophone Concerto, featuring Timothy McAllister, a soloist known and admired by Festival audiences. With this work, Adams brings to the forefront an instrument that is often an outlier in the world of classical music. Adams, whose father played in swing bands, grew up hearing the saxophone almost every day, and he explains that the source of this concerto was his "life-long exposure to the great jazz saxophonists, from the swing era through the likes of Coltrane, Eric Dolphy and Wayne Shorter." McAllister is hailed as "one of the foremost saxophonists of his generation" (The New York Times) and was both an inspiration and an ideal soloist for this concerto. The Baltimore Sun's Tim Smith wrote that Adams' score "deftly fuses classical and jazz elements to create a cohesive, arresting experience."
The U.S. premiere of Fire Music, a work by Australian composer Brett Dean, closes out the program. Dean wrote Fire Music in response to the "Black Saturday" bushfires of 2009, a catastrophic series of fires that took place across the Australian state of Victoria, and resulted in the country's highest ever loss of life from a bushfire. Dean wrote, "whilst the 2009 fires obviously had utterly disastrous consequences, fire can also cleanse and replenish these thoughts, as well as its use in ritual, informed aspects of my Fire Music." As The Australian proclaimed, "augmented by electric guitar and percussion, its sonic canvas is huge and sophisticated...It is a towering masterpiece."
DISCLAIMER: Our aim is to continuously provide our
progressive audience with an open and interactive medium to view
and share relevant,
beneficial and interesting "career, economic, lifestyle and
networking" listings, ads, content and resources.
While the above information may be accurate and viable, the role
of Minority Professional Network, Inc. (MPN) is
strictly as a communications medium, and we do not
accept any responsibility for
cancellation, changes, errors, omissions, inconveniences, or any other form
of liability for any content
displayed or disseminated via our web sites, or e-marketing or social media
promotional services.
If there are any
doubts, we
encourage you to conduct additional research or contact the listed host or responsible entity.
CLICK HERE to inform us about any ads, listings or content
which appear to be
inappropriate,
fraudulent or misleading, or inconsistent with our theme and focus.