She has also received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts & Letters, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, The Independence Foundation, the NEA, and ASCAP. The first movement of this concerto, written for the violinist, Hilary Hahn, carries a somewhat enigmatic title of 1726. This number represents an important aspect of such a journey of discovery, for both the composer and the soloist. Sonorities at first familiar . Deutsche Grammophon 4778777 68:16. As the movement unfolds, these elements intertwine and elaborate. The concerto opens with high harmonics from the soloist's violin over those knitting needles, for instance, and then of course there is that tuba. Violinist Hilary Hahn, for whom the . She was born in Brooklyn, though her parents moved to Atlanta soon thereafter, and then to a farm in the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee. Shes won a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award. She has received many awards including the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto and a 2009 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for her Percussion Concerto. +1 (406)721-3194. Philadelphia-based composer Jennifer Higdon won the Pulitzer Prize for music with her Violin Concerto Monday. She played flute in her high school's concert band and percussion in marching band, but heard little classical music before her college years. The finale is "Fly Forward," a name that came to Higdon during the Olympics last year when she was working on the movement and which she thought an apt term to apply to what Hahn was going to play. The slow movement is called Chaconni (admittedly a neologism) to indicate that the movement has more than one repeated chord progression. "[9] While at Bowling Green, she met Robert Spano, who was teaching a conducting course there and who became one of the champions of Higdon's music in the American orchestral community. [1], She wrote her first opera based on Charles Frazier's 1997 novel, Cold Mountain with a libretto by Gene Scheer. Pulitzer Prize- and three-time Grammy Award-winning composer Jennifer Higdon is one of America's most frequently performed living composers. Violin Concerto in D Major 3 Igor Stravinsky Violin Concerto 1931 Play 17. And its quintessential Higdon, marrying simplicity with complexity, and stability with surprise. Higdon was recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Jennifer Higdon (b. 172614:23 2. Jennifer Higdon 's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra was written in 2008. To find out more about subscribing, please visit: gramophone.co.uk/subscribe, Bowling Green State University with Judith Bentley; Curtis Institute with Ned Rorem; University of Pennsylvania with George Crumb, Full-time composer (1992-present); Faculty member, Curtis Institute of Music (1994-present), A self-taught flautist who grew up in rural Kentucky, Higdon is anything but a classical music insider, her hallmark being that her unthreatening musical surfaces which recall Stravinsky, Nielsen and the more tranquil moments of Copland are a thin veil over music thats amiably subversive. (David Patrick Stearns), My job is to communicate. Its, to my ears, Higdon at her most memorably melodic. As part of this ethnographic approach, the very evolution of the work (including actual alterations before and after the premiere) is presented offering a distinct look at the processes of composition and performance in classical music. Higdon sets Jeanne Minahans emotionally layered poems so that every word can be understood; occasionally one senses its the violin and orchestra who are singing, not the choir. Hilary Hahn, Violin. Higdon received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts & Letters (two awards), the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, Meet-the-Composer, the National Endowment for the Arts, and ASCAP. Her Percussion Concerto was awarded a Grammy in 2010, and her Viola Concerto took a Grammy in 2018. [21] That concerto was part of an album dedicated to her music on the Naxos label, Higdon: All Things Majestic, Viola Concerto, and Oboe Concerto, which also won the 2018 Grammy for Best Classical Compendium. Orders can be placed by going to the Works/Orchestral section. 1962) Violin Concerto (Hilary Hahn, vn; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic; Vasily Petrenko, cond.) The pianos opening chords sound almost improvisatory, with leaps and contemplative pauses; the cello enters, ruminative, circling chant-like around a single tone; then, finally, the violin leads its partners in a yearning phrase built from slowly inching steps. By logging in, you may be able to gain additional access to certain collections or items. Besides Hahn, the concerto was commissioned by four orchestras: The Baltimore, Toronto and Indianapolis Symphonies, plus the orchestra at the Curtis Institute. On the occasions where she has set non-English texts, she tends to use both the text and translation in the piece, allowing the piece to more effectively communicate its message. Higdon has been a featured composer at many festivals including Aspen, Tanglewood, Vail, Norfolk, Grand Teton, and Cabrillo. This song sets a text by Walt Whitman, from When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd. Spiral bound score, 14 p. . Higdon will be in attendance for this exciting concert. Jennifer Higdon is one of America's most acclaimed and most frequently performed living composers. Pulitzer Prize and three-time Grammy-winner Jennifer Higdon (b. Brooklyn, NY, December 31, 1962) taught herself to play flute at the age of 15 and began formal musical studies at 18, with an even later start in composition at the age of 21. Higdon's Violin Concerto for Hilary Hahn won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music, and the composer said she found that out in a very 21st century fashion, when she noticed her cell phone was suddenly flooded with dozens and dozens of messages. Jennifer Higdon Violin Concerto World Premire Also on the program: Schumann's 4 th Symphony and Weber's overture to Freischtz Hilary Hahn, violin Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra/Mario Venzano Hilbert Circle Theatre, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA - February 6, 2009 The concerto was co . Higdon was born in Brooklyn, New York. true Jennifer Higdon's title blue cathedral refers to Higdon's younger brother's name Concertos for Violin & Orchestra. She's won a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award. So I guess I found out a little bit after everyone else., The other finalists in the music category were Fred Lerdahls String Quartet No. Some of her rhythmic and melodic repetition could be considered minimalist in nature. Higdons first opera, I believe that one of the most rewarding aspects of life is exploring and discovering the magic and mysteries held within our universe. "[6], "Despite Anxiety and Naysayers, Composer Wins Her Pulitzer", "Composer Jennifer Higdon pursues friendly music", "Sound That's Lush and Slow, Speedy and Precise", "HIGDON; TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concertos: Playing of great subtlety from Hilary Hahn in two well-contrasted concert", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Violin_Concerto_(Higdon)&oldid=1053643566, "Fly Forward" a fastpaced movement, Higdon imagined violinist Hilary Hahn racing in the Olympics as she was composing the piece, This page was last edited on 5 November 2021, at 03:52. The person presiding at the pre-concert forum wondered if Hahn would play from memory or from a score but, having (last spring in Milwaukee) asked Hahn if she had the score in hand and how long it would take her to learn it. A slow-building climax, capped finally by piercing trumpets, provides catharsis and makes the coda feel like a spiritually cleansing exhalation. 1962), imagines a series of divergent dreams. In a pre-concert forum Higdon suggested that one might be reminded of Hindemith, as she has played work of his for flute (her instrument.) Her first opera, Cold Mountain, won the prestigious International Opera Award for Best World Premiere in 2016; the first American opera to do so in the award's history. Jennifer Higdon's style, however, is direct and imaginative, filled with unique harmonic colors, solid thematic development, and a subtle and intimate lyricism. If you have questions about access or logging in, please use the form on the Contact Page. The opening of the concerto uses harmonics, a technique Higdon heard while listening to Hahn's recording of the Violin Concerto by Arnold Schoenberg. Open perfect fifths and parallel fifths can be found in most of her compositions. To tie into this title, I make extensive use the intervals of unisons, sevenths, and seconds throughout this movement. hide caption. It may well be Higdon's best work to date. Dr. Higdon also received the Nemmers Prize from Northwestern University, which is given to contemporary . 1962) is one of Americas most acclaimed and most frequently performed living composers. Jennifer Higdon's Violin Concerto: The Genesis of a Twenty-First Century Work, Williams, Max Brenton Harkey (author) This is very much a concerto for violin and (large) orchestra, in that the woodwinds, brass, percussion and other strings all have interesting things to say, often at the same time the line of the soloist is presenting something else. The Concerto for Orchestra put the composer on the musical map and serves as a thrilling link to the mid-century masterworks that inspired it. Site Map New Releases. Violin Concerto. Hablas espaol? And it was the Violin Concerto (2010), composed for Hilary Hahn, that earned Higdon the Pulitzer. "It's the extremes," Higdon says. She has employed such experimental touches in other works, as well, perhaps a reflection of her studies with George Crumb, who loved to create new timbres through special instrumental effects. Accessibility doesnt seem like a negative word to me.. [10], Higdon has received commissions from major symphony orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, the National Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, and the Dallas Symphony. Many of Jennifer Higdon's pieces are considered neoromantic. Her earliest compositions date to the early '80s, but she emerged as an important figure in the period of the new millennium with such orchestra works as blue cathedral (1999), City Scape (2002), and Concerto for Orchestra (2002). The music tells of some of the majestic parks in America: Jennifer Higdon *1962Violin Concerto - Dedicated to Hilary Hahn00:00 1. Higdon has won three GRAMMY awards for Best Contemporary Classical Composition: first for her Percussion Concerto in 2010, in 2018 for her Viola Concerto, and in 2020 for her Harp Concerto. The orchestration includes, besides the usual instruments, an English horn, piccolo (which both have noticeable utterances), tuba, harp and several tuned and untuned percussion instruments, including tubular bells and a glockenspiel struck with #10 knitting needles. Violin Concerto: I - Jennifer Higdon 2. Toccata - Walter Piston 5. Her orchestral work Blue Cathedral is one of the most performed contemporary orchestral works in the U.S. chamber music, Kammermusik [G], musique de chambre [F], musica da camera [I], musica cameralis [L] "Classical Music" for a small ensemble, generally 8 or fewer players with a canonical emphasis on 3-6 players. "For me, composing a concerto is like constant discovery," Higdon said immediately following the premier. There is also a wide range of pitch. Monday, March 20, 2017, Her music may be melodic and accessible, but probe beneath the surface and youll always be surprised, writesAndrew Farach-Colton. Some of the material in is restricted to members of the community. Jennifer Higdon: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra I. DG 146980-2, On todays date in 2009, Hilary Hahn premiered a new violin concerto by the American composer Jennifer Higdon, a work tailor-made for the violinist, according to Higdon: Shes got gorgeous tone in the top register, but also down really low, so I tried to utilize her entire range, her lyrical gift, her ability to play super fast and negotiate through complex meter changes., When asked if it wasnt intimidating writing a violin concerto in the 21st century, considering the incredible legacy of great violin concertos already written, Higdon said a little intimidation is a good thing: There's nothing like fear to get the imagination running. 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