On Saturday, Gerard Schwarz will lead North Carolina’s Eastern Festival Orchestra and New York Philharmonic Principal Viola Cynthia Phelps in a performance of Julia Adolphe’s new viola concerto, writes Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane in Thursday’s (7/14) News & Record (Greensboro, N.C.). “Hearing her viola concerto at EMF will give her the opportunity to make any needed orchestration changes before its New York premiere, [Adolphe] said…. Her work caught the attention of the New York Philharmonic in 2014. She won the EarShot competition that led to the orchestra premiering her ‘Dark Sand, Sifting Light’ … Phelps, her manager and the New York Philharmonic had sought a composer to write a piece for Phelps. … The philharmonic and the League of American Orchestras commissioned Adolphe to write a viola concerto, with financial support from the Virginia Toulmin Foundation that increases opportunities for female composers.” In October, Phelps will perform the concerto with the USC Thornton Symphony. Says Adolphe, “Sometimes, as much as you can imagine it in advance, you really need to experience it from start to finish with the full orchestra to understand what it is that you have created.” Click here to read about the League of American Orchestras’ Women Composers program in Symphony magazine.
Posted July 15, 2016
