Machine —Jennifer Higdon Higdon’S Career Is Booming Right Now with Commissions from a Variety of Distinguished Symphony Orchestras and Virtuosi

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Machine —Jennifer Higdon Higdon’s career is booming right now with commissions from a variety of distinguished symphony orchestras and virtuosi. She has a degree in flute performance and was graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with an MA and a PhD. She went on to study composition at the Curtis Institute; her composition teachers include the distinguished composers George Crumb and Ned Rorem. She was a relatively late bloomer—she points to musical influences from Peter, Paul and Mary, the Beatles, and Simon and Garfunkel. With four Grammy nominations under her belt, she is also a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her Violin Concerto. It would be hard, indeed, to think of many contemporary American composers whose compositions are played more frequently than are hers. She’s won just about every important award for music composition, and is a member of the faculty of the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Machine began life as an encore not printed in the program; but it will open this concert. It’s a short composition—less than three minutes—and was one of a series of “encores” commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra to surprise folks at the end of each of the concerts in the 2002-2003 season. Premièred in March of 2003, it takes its cue from the composers represented on the main program that night—Mozart and Tchaikovsky. Higdon says that the composition is a “tribute to composers like Mozart and Tchaikovsky, who seemed to be able to write so many notes and so much music that it seems like they were machines”! Well, it's a vigorous work, all right, and zips in a frenzy, in a thick din of accents, ripping glissandi, and motoric rhythms, to a bang of a quick end. It’s all in good fun, and just shows that musicians and composers have a good sense of humor. Hold on to your seats! ©Wm. E. Runyan .

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Jennifer Higdon-Large Full
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. Despite these obstacles, Jennifer has become a major figure in contemporary Classical music. Her works represent a wide range of genres, from orchestral to chamber, to wind ensemble, as well as vocal, choral and opera. Her music has been hailed by Fanfare Magazine as having “the distinction of being at once complex, sophisticated but readily accessible emotionally”, with the Times of London citing it as “…traditionally rooted, yet imbued with integrity and freshness.” The League of American Orchestras reports that she is one of America's most frequently performed composers. Higdon's list of commissioners is extensive and includes The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Chicago Symphony, The Atlanta Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Minnesota Orchestra, The Pittsburgh Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well such groups as the Tokyo String Quartet, the Lark Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, and the President’s Own Marine Band. She has also written works for such artists as baritone Thomas Hampson, pianists Yuja Wang and Gary Graffman, violinists Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Jennifer Koh and Hilary Hahn. 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. Upcoming commissions include a chamber opera for Opera Philadelphia, a string quartet for the Apollo Chamber Players, a double percussion concerto for the Houston Symphony, an orchestral suite for the Made In America project, and a flute concerto for the National Flute Associations’ 5oth anniversary.
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Women Pioneers of American Music Program
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Jennifer Higdon Composer
COMPOSER BIOGRAPHY JENNIFER HIGDON COMPOSER 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. Despite these obstacles, Jennifer has become a major figure in contemporary classical music. Her works represent a wide range of genres, from orchestral to chamber, to wind ensemble, as well as vocal, choral and opera. Her music has been hailed by Fanfare Magazine as having “the distinction of being at once complex, sophisticated but readily accessible emotionally”, with the Times of London citing it as “…traditionally rooted, yet imbued with integrity and freshness.” Her first opera, Cold Mountain, won the prestigious International Scott J.D. Photo: Opera Award for Best World Premiere in 2016; the first American opera to do so in the award’s history. Upcoming commissions include a chamber opera for Opera Philadelphia, a string quartet for the Apollo Chamber Players, a double percussion concerto for the Houston Symphony, an orchestral suite for the Made In America project, and a flute concerto for the National Flute Associations’ 50th anniversary. Higdon received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto, with the committee citing the work as “a deeply engaging piece that combines flowing lyricism with dazzling virtuosity.” 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.
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My Father Knew Charles Ives Harmonielehre
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Download Program Notes
Notes on the Program By James M. Keller, Program Annotator, The Leni and Peter May Chair blue cathedral Jennifer Higdon orn in Brooklyn, Jennifer Higdon grew my for her Percussion Concerto; and, in 2018, Bup in Atlanta and in rural Tennessee in the Nemmers Prize of Northwestern University. a counterculture family — both parents were Although she has written a number of visual artists — for whom art happenings choral and solo vocal pieces, not to mention and experimental film festivals were the the 2015 opera Cold Mountain, Higdon is norm. She thought she might become a writ- principally an instrumental composer, hav- er and didn’t have any involvement with mu- ing produced an impressive body of works sic until she started teaching herself to play for orchestra and for various chamber for- the flute at the age of 15. In the course of her mulations. Her teacher George Crumb has education at Bowling Green State University acknowledged specific qualities that go to (Ohio), the Curtis Institute of Music, and the the heart of her music: its “rhythmic vitality, University of Pennsylvania she developed interesting coloration, and sensitivity to nu- her exceptional talent as a composer. ance and timbre.” These are indeed her musi- Today her dance card for commissions is very cal fingerprints, but beyond what are essen- full, and at least one of her orchestral works, blue tially technical matters one also hears in her cathedral, seems destined to become a classic, scores an immediacy of contact, a genial and having already been performed more than 600 sincere desire to connect with the listener.
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COLD MOUNTAIN Based on the National Book Award–Winning Novel by Charles Frazier
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The 2016–17 Concert Season at Peabody
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Program Notes
Program Notes for kids Blue Cathedral Saturday, March 17, 2018 8:00 p.m. Michigan Theater Higdon Blue Cathedral Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1 Intermission Schumann Symphony No. 1, “Spring” Blue Cathedral Fun Facts Higdon uses two non-traditional by Jennifer Higdon percussion instruments in Blue Ca- thedral: Chinese Refl ex Bells and About the Music Tuned Glasses. What kind of piece is this? Blue Cathedral is a tone poem. A tone poem (also often called a symphonic poem) is typically a single-movement piece of music that is inspired by a non-musical idea or story. Blue Cathedral was also created as a commission from the Curtis Institute of Music, where Jennifer Higdon Listen for... teaches. A commission is when a person or group of people pay a composer to write a brand new piece of music. Often, Watch for the back row of brass that piece is written for a specifi c event or to honor a per- players to set down their instru- son or place. In the case of Blue Cathedral, this composi- ments and pick up water glasses. tion does both. The Curtis Institute asked Higdon to write How are they playing these glasses? a piece for a celebration of the Institute’s 75th anniversary. She chose to write about the inspirational story of her and What sounds are the glasses mak- her brother’s journey through life. ing? What is it about? Do all of the glasses sound the same? This piece was written after the death of Jennifer’s brother, Andrew Blue. The solo fl ute & clarinet voices are used to represent Jennifer and her brother.
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