Patrick Conlon, the Fort Smith Symphony’s principal second violin and a composer, “was accorded 23 minutes of the season’s final concert to premiere a new piece of music” called Wubwubwub, writes Becca Martin-Brown in Sunday’s (5/5) Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock, AR). “Q: What inspired this piece of music? Conlon: Wubwubwub was sort of a culmination of all of the things that I am into…. There are influences from fiddle techniques, hip-hop, trap, reggaeton, dubstep and a bunch of other electronic dance music and EDM-adjacent genres. It’s also a duo-concerto for myself and my partner-in-crime, [Fort Smith Symphony clarinetist] Christina Giacona…. It’s a pretty standard four-movement big romantic concerto structure. I’m also doing an homage to Luciano Berio’s ‘Sinfonia’ in the third movement…. This piece really tries to emulate electronic and analog production techniques through purely acoustic orchestrations. Q: What’s it been like working with [Music Director John Jeter] and the symphony to bring it to its first performance? Conlon: This is the sort of supportive and collaborative relationship with a music director that you dream of having as a composer. An orchestra letting you write a full 23-minute piece is really an incredible honor, investment and risk that they’re taking in your work.”
Posted May 7, 2019
