Esa-Pekka Salonen Featured in Apple Ad

Finnish composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen has been an enthusiastic fan of Apple products for a while. In 2012 he helped develop the Orchestra app, designed as an exciting resource to demystify classical music for a new, tech-savy generation. Now he is featured in Apple’s new “Your Verse” iPad campaign. This website shows how the iPad has become an important tool for Salonen as a composer and performer.

Alex Ross talks about the cultural significance of the campaign:

The very phrase “classical music,” implying an art devoted exclusively to the past, banishes it into limbo. But I imagine that many composers will be pleased at the sight of Salonen’s mass-market breakthrough. Very simply, it says: We exist.

Apple, a company rooted in beautiful design, has created a visually stunning ad which cleverly depicts the birth and development of a musical motive. The music is part of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Violin Concerto, written for Leila Josefowicz and premiered in 2009 in Los Angeles. A new recording of the concerto has just been released to coincide with the campaign.

Here is the ad:

https://youtu.be/OFMEFxZ4YWs?list=PLW8ukq05aIFevQyoQDTrz4zikwT_ZPPx6

You can listen to the complete Violin Concerto here. From the virtuosic opening, it embraces the violin’s ethnic fiddle tradition. Splashes of color blend with occasional rock drum elements. Esa-Pekka Salonen discusses the piece here.

Another interesting Salonen piece I’ve been listening to this week is Nyx (2010). The title refers to the shadowy goddess of the night from Greek mythology. You might hear echoes of Sibelius, Bartók, Mahler and Strauss mixed with the atmospheric sounds of a movie soundtrack.

To develop the material takes time. Is this a beginning, end or middle? The best moments are the ones where I realize that the piece wants to go into a certain direction and perhaps it was a direction I wasn’t even aware of.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

About Timothy Judd

A native of Upstate New York, Timothy Judd has been a member of the Richmond Symphony violin section since 2001. He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music where he earned the degrees Bachelor of Music and Master of Music, studying with world renowned Ukrainian-American violinist Oleh Krysa.

The son of public school music educators, Timothy Judd began violin lessons at the age of four through Eastman’s Community Education Division. He was a student of Anastasia Jempelis, one of the earliest champions of the Suzuki method in the United States.

A passionate teacher, Mr. Judd has maintained a private violin studio in the Richmond area since 2002 and has been active coaching chamber music and numerous youth orchestra sectionals.

In his free time, Timothy Judd enjoys working out with Richmond’s popular SEAL Team Physical Training program.

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