Contemporary/Twenty-First Century

Michael Torke’s “Last Year”: Music for Solo Violin and String Orchestra

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Last Year by American composer Michael Torke (b. 1961) suggests the beautiful melancholy of a cold, overcast winter day. The solo violin’s contemplative melody emerges over frigid, unrelenting pizzicati. As the music develops, the concertmaster picks up the melody and enters into a duet with the soloist. To my ears, there are echoes of the music of Tchaikovsky at its loneliest and most brooding. This is part of a collection of twelve meditative …

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Andy Akiho’s Timpani Concerto: Leonardo Soto, Juraj Valčuha and the Houston Symphony 

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In March, the Houston Symphony premiered an exiting new Timpani Concerto by American composer Andy Akiho (b. 1979). The performance, led by Music Director Juraj Valčuha, featured the Orchestra’s Principal Timpanist, Leonardo Soto. The Concerto was co-commissioned by the Houston Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Brevard Music Festival. Written in collaboration with Soto and the Houston Symphony, “the piece reimagines the timpani as a melodic soloist, featuring prepared drumheads, an inverted …

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Ingram Marshall’s “Authentic Presence”: Timo Andres

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In search of what he called “the dark and the beautiful and the endless,” American composer Ingram Marshall (1942-2022) blended electronic and acoustic elements to create awe-inspiring soundscapes. The Listeners’ Club archive includes Marshall’s atmospheric Fog Tropes (1982) and Wanderer’s Night Song (1992). Timo Andres made this impromptu recording of Marshall’s 2002 solo piano work, Authentic Presence, following the composer’s death. He wrote the following program note: Ingram Marshall was one of my graduate …

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Lera Auerbach’s “Cetera Desunt,” Sonnet for String Quartet No. 3: Aftertones of Shostakovich

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Cetera desunt translates from Latin as “the rest are missing.” Russian-American composer Lera Auerbach (b. 1973) chose this title for her String Quartet No. 3, composed in 2006. She describes the work as a “sonnet for string quartet.” Its eight sections, each bearing a Latin title, mirror the form and rhyme scheme of a strambotto romagnuolo sonnet, a poetic structure which dates back to 12th century Sicily. Cetera desunt is an homage to the …

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Andy Akiho’s “Pentalateral I”: Sandbox Percussion

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The music of American composer Andy Akiho (b. 1979) is infused with the sounds of the Caribbean. Based in Portland, Oregon and New York City, Akiho is a virtuoso percussionist whose primary instrument is the steelpan, a drum developed in Trinidad and Tobago in the 1930s. According to his biography, As a pannist, Akiho has a deeply physical relationship with playing, which undoubtedly informs his compositions. His style is further shaped by …

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Gabriella Smith’s “Maré”: yMusic

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“Maré” translates as “tide” in Portuguese. It is the title of a brief chamber work by American composer Gabriella Smith (b. 1991). Scored for flute, clarinet, trumpet, violin, viola, and cello, it was written in 2017 for the New York-based sextet chamber ensemble, yMusic. It is included on the group’s fourth album, Ecstatic Science. Smith explains, I wrote it on an island in Brazil when I was staying at an artists’ colony. …

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Gabriella Smith’s “Tumblebird Contrails”: Ecstatic Wings

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A vivid experience in nature formed the inspiration for Tumblebird Contrails, a work for orchestra composed in 2014 by American composer Gabriella Smith (b. 1991). In her program note, Smith writes, Tumblebird Contrails is inspired by a single moment I experienced while backpacking in Point Reyes, sitting in the sand at the edge of the ocean, listening to the hallucinatory sounds of the Pacific (the keening gulls, pounding surf, rush of approaching waves, …

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