In Saturday’s (2/26) Kansas City Star, Steve Paul writes, “Adam Schoenberg, a young composer at the beginning of his professional career, has a goal for his creative happiness. ‘My dream would be to score one feature film and write one major orchestral work each year,’ Schoenberg said in a recent interview from his Los Angeles home. Schoenberg, 30, wrote his dissertation on movie composer Thomas Newman, so he’s a student of the genre as well as a fan. And it turns out he’ll soon be working on music for an independent feature, though, alas, it’s more or less an unpaid gig. As for the other side of the dream, this week brings a great leap forward when the Kansas City Symphony premieres his recently completed ‘American Symphony.’ It’s Schoenberg’s first professional, full-length symphony. Along with the musical accomplishment, it represents a continuing relationship with the local orchestra and with music director Michael Stern. They met at the Aspen Music Festival in 2003. Three years later, Stern gave Schoenberg his first commission, inviting him to create a work for the IRIS Orchestra in Tennessee, which Stern founded a decade ago. That was ‘Finding Rothko,’ a 16-minute, four-part meditation on the paintings of Mark Rothko.”
Posted February 28, 2011
