S ushi Station
BY BRETT CAMPBELL
ESO plays Jennifer Higdon’s
Concerto for Orchestra,
Jan. 15, Silva.
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30 JANUARY 8, 2004
Young Americans
Music from classical music’s
next generation comes to town.
D
uring breaks between pieces at the
Oregon Mozart Players’ fall concert,
Music Director Glen Cortese an-
nounced the score of the Yankees playoff game
in progress, which he monitored backstage each
time the orchestra left the stage. On Jan. 10 and
11, the OMP’s concerts will provide further evi-
dence of the New York-based conductor’s love
for his home when his Eugene orchestra per-
forms his “Mannahatta.”
Inspired by poems of another New Yorker,
Walt Whitman, the piece (originally a piano
solo) is “a musical interpretation of the feeling I
experienced from reading these poems and liv-
ing in this great city,” Cortese says. “I think a lot
in visual images when I compose, and Whitman
talks about the coastline, the waves, the shore,
and those images influenced my musical ideas.”
The concert continues the Americana theme
with the ever-popular suite Aaron Copland
arranged for chamber orchestra of the music
from his Appalachian Spring ballet, and then a
pair of winsome works for flute and orchestra by
its namesake — Mozart’s Flute Concerto K.314
and “Andante” K. 315.
It’s great to see Cortese continuing the
OMP’s commitment to contemporary music,
and even more welcome to see Music Director
Giancarlo Guerrero maintaining the Eugene
Symphony’s long-nurtured national reputation
for programming new sounds.
On Thursday, Jan. 15 the ESO performs two
powerful 20th century concertos for orchestra. I
first heard Jennifer Higdon’s music when Marin
Alsop brought her to the Cabrillo Festival last
year for a performance of an impressively rum-
bustious piece. Still in her early 40s, Higdon has
recently become one of the most acclaimed com-
posers of her generation, winning praise from
musicians and audiences alike for her tonal
music’s populist yet non-pandering appeal and
its echoes of Bernstein, Ravel, and Bartók.
Higdon’s breakthrough work, the half-hour
concerto we’ll hear next Thursday, changes
moods from motoric to mystical, and features an
all-percussion movement; critics in Philadelphia
and her home base of Atlanta called it her mas-
terpiece, noting influences of Copland,
Messiaen and Stravinsky. And, thanks to
Guerrero, we’re lucky enough to hear it here in
its West Coast premiere, with the composer pres-
ent, just a year or so after its premiere — an
amazing coup for a town this size.
The other piece of the program, Witold
Lutoslawski’s 1954 Concerto for Orchestra, re-
flects the great Polish composer’s interest in his
nation’s folk music, and, like Higdon’s, rushes to
an exciting climax. Influenced by 20th-century gi-
ants Bartók, Stravinsky, Debussy and Prokofiev,
it’s considered a landmark 20th-century work.
This concert, along with the wonderful Aaron
Kernis showcase that opened the season and the
John Corigliano show coming this spring, demon-
strates Guerrero’s admirable commitment to mod-
ern music, and the orchestra’s ability to handle un-
usual forms. I hope local listeners will repay
Guerrero’s intrepid and insightful programming
by taking a chance on music that may be unfamil-
iar, yet will likely prove at least as rewarding as —
and more exciting than — yet another perform-
ance of the usual warhorses.
There’s also some first-rate classical and
contemporary music coming up at the UO this
month. On Thursday, Jan. 8 the school’s
Chamber Music Series presents the renowned
chamber orchestra I Musici de Montréal playing
music by Borodin, Bruckner, and “Coup
d’Archet” (“Bow Strokes”) by the Montreal-
based composer Denis Gougeon, who’s won
plaudits for his dynamic, melodic music, partic-
ularly that written for the stage. As with every
ensemble in this long-running series, this concert
offers some of the finest smaller-scale music
around; the group has recorded many CDs and
played some of the world’s finest venues.
Still more of today’s art music is on tap at a
free recital by acclaimed pianist Jeffrey Jacob at
Beall on Sunday, Jan. 10. He’ll play works by
Bartok and other 20th-century composers, in-
cluding the second volume of the great George
Crumb’s landmark “Makrokosmos” for ampli-
fied piano, and a piece by Crumb’s son, David,
who’s a UO faculty member and a noted com-
poser in his own right.
Yet another distinguished visitor comes to
the school when the violinist Diane Monroe ar-
rives for a residency and presents two concerts
— one with the Oregon Jazz Ensemble on Jan.
16 and another with the Oregon String Quartet
on the 22nd, when she’ll play a quintet by
Brahms and David Baker’s “Sonata for Jazz
Violin and String Quartet.” Monroe’s impecca-
ble jazz credentials — she’s been a member of
the great String Trio of New York (where her
predecessors included Billy Bang and Regina
Carter), the Uptown String Quartet, and Max
Roach Double Quartet — make her show a must
for Eugene jazz fans, and it’s great to see another
fine musician here who breaks down the barriers
between genres.
ew