In Sunday’s (9/19) Asbury Park Press (New Jersey), Carlton Wilkinson writes, “It looks like a boom year for composers working in New Jersey. A couple weeks ago, we were talking about the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra’s newly reborn commitment to composers with a local connection under new director Jacques Lacombe. Not to be outdone, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, under its own new director Rossen Milanov, will feature music by two composers currently working in Princeton in its upcoming season. The first is longtime Princeton University professor Steven Mackey, whose work ‘Beautiful Passing’ will be performed Oct. 3 with famed violinist Leila Josefowicz as soloist. The second is Derek Bermel, the young artist-in-residence at the Institute for Advanced Study. Bermel’s ‘Thracian Echoes’ will be played March 20 on a program that also includes Bartok’s famously demanding ‘Concerto for Orchestra.’ … Mackey is something of a classicist in that his compositions usually have more to do with the music itself than with an extramusical program. But in this composition, Mackey has written that the title and structure refer to his mother’s death. … Also on the Oct. 3 program will be Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony and Mozart’s overture to the ‘Magic Flute.’ ”
Posted September 22, 2010
