“On Saturday, Sept. 24, the Oak Ridge Civic Music Association will present the world premiere performance of an original orchestral composition by Mark Harrell to be performed by the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra,” writes Joan-Ellen Zucker in Friday’s (8/12) Oak Ridger (Tennessee). “The piece, titled ‘π to the Sky: Tribute to Discovery,’ will honor a half century of scientific achievement in Oak Ridge.” Harrell, a French hornist in the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra and the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, “is a well-known regional composer whose work has been performed by the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra, Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, Symphony of the Mountains, the Olympia Symphony Orchestra.” Describing his approach to composition, Harrell says, “I may begin with a single voice, perhaps carried by one instrument. I then start to listen to the other players, other instruments, each with their own voice like the characters in a play. I know the voices well because I am a horn player in the center of the conversation. Then a ‘sonic’ picture begins to form so that I can begin to grab it and transfer it to paper. A ‘sketch’ takes shape, much as a painter would begin a canvas.”
Posted August 15, 2016
