In Wednesday’s (11/7) Saratogian (New York), Phil Drew writes, “It’s liberating for a contemporary composer of classical music to be blissfully free of the pressure of commissions. ‘I’m a living, breathing American composer, now 88 years old,’ said Ezra Laderman, currently on leave from the faculty at Yale’s School of Music. ‘But ever since the turn of the century, I’ve only been working on those pieces I want to work on.’ Not that it has ever been thus. Laderman knows his way around commissions, having done three for the Philadelphia Orchestra, a pair for the National Symphony, others for the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic and regional orchestras from Fort Worth to New Haven—even the Albany Symphony Orchestra. On Saturday, the Glens Falls Symphony, under the baton of musical director Charles Peltz, will venture to the Zankel Music Center on the campus of Skidmore College for a concert program which will include the premiere of Laderman’s ‘Canto V,’ a work for orchestra and solo voices with a text by former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky. … Peltz made Laderman’s acquaintance when tackling some of his vocal work, and when he learned two years ago that the composer was at work on a major vocal piece, he jumped at getting first crack at it when available for performance.”
Posted November 8, 2012
