Orchestras in Connecticut, Detroit, and Toronto are among those scheduled to give premieres this winter. On February 27 the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and Music Director William Boughton will celebrate the 50th birthday of Augusta Read Thomas—the NHSO’s former composer in residence as well as founder of its Young Composer Project—by giving the world premiere of her Hemke Saxophone Concerto (Prisms of Light), with soloist Frederick Hemke. Also on the program are two other works by Thomas: Absolute Ocean and Two e.e. cummings songs. The NHSO will also perform a new work by Connecticut-based composer Ben Scheer in tribute to Thomas, who mentored Scheer during her NHSO residency. During the 2014 New Music Readings for African-American Composers on March 9 and 10 at Orchestra Hall, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra will spotlight works by Jonathan Bailey Holland, Erica Lindsay, Kevin Scott, and Matthew Evan Taylor. The readings are being presented in partnership with EarShot, the National Orchestral Composition Discovery Network; EarShot is a partnership of American Composers Orchestra, American Composers Forum, New Music USA, and the League of American Orchestras. During its annual New Creations Festival in March, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Peter Oundjian will perform the world premieres of Kevin Lau’s Down the Rivers of the Windfall Light and Brian Current’s Three Pieces for Orchestra. Also planned during the festival (March 1-7, curated by John Adams) are the Canadian premieres of Adams’s Doctor Atomic Symphony, Absolute Jest, and Slonimsky’s Earbox; Zosha Di Castri’s Lineage; Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Violin Concerto, with soloist Leila Josefowicz; and Magnus Lindberg’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with Yefim Bronfman.
Posted February 27, 2014
