Composer Missy Mazzoli “is in Australia for the premiere of Dark with Excessive Bright, a new concerto for double bass and string orchestra” by the Australian Chamber Orchestra with soloist Maxime Bibeau, writes Harriet Cunningham in Thursday’s (2/1) Sydney Morning Herald. “In 2016 … Bibeau [and Mazzoli were discussing] ideas for a new work to mark his 20 years as principal double bass with the ACO. It was when Bibeau told Mazzoli about the remarkable instrument he plays—a 450-year-old creation of master luthier Gasparo da Salo—that inspiration struck. ‘Imagine what it would sound like if it were possible for the instrument to accumulate all the melodies and sounds and events that it had lived through for 450 years and then to spin it into its own piece,’ he said. And so Mazzoli set out to tell stories from the life of a 450-year-old double bass…. ‘The solo bass becomes a character,’ [says Mazzoli]…. The result, she explains, is heavily influenced by the baroque era, when the instrument was made, but incorporates contemporary sounds…. Bibeau and the Australian Chamber Orchestra will give the world premiere of Dark with Excessive Bright … on an Australia-wide tour.”
Posted February 6, 2018
