Labor of Love

"When you come from the kind of background that I do, and this may sound naïve, but you just don't realize like you must if you've been in the classical world all of your life how different every string group is," says composer Wayne Horvitz (shown), who made his name in the 1980s as a keyboardist and producer on the experimental and improvisational downtown New York jazz scene.

"When you grow up essentially as a rock and a jazz musician, you look at classical players as somewhat homogenous, which could not be further from the truth," he adds with a laugh. "Everyone has a different sound, everyone has a different concept of how a piece should be played. The common element is that no matter what the genre, as a composer you're still dealing with personalities and with people's concept of expression."

These days, this 49-year-old Seattle transplant—who has steadily built a reputation as a gifted string composer and whose work has been performed and recorded by the Kronos Quartet, among others—is blending his improv side with his emerging interest in string composition. Since 1998, when the Vienna Jazz Festival asked him to write a piece for a string orchestra that included an improvisational part, Horvitz has focused on string music and especially through-composed music that accommodates improvisational players. "I suddenly found myself writing a body of through-composed work and pieces that made room for an improviser," he says.

He recently completed Whispers, Hymns, and a Murmur, for string quartet, electronics, and improvisational strings, which premiered in March with members of the Seattle Symphony and solo violist Eyvind Kang. He also wrote a quartet piece for the Standing Wave Ensemble that allows the cellist Peggy Lee to explore freely.

Horvitz's latest, and by far most ambitious, piece is Joe Hill: 16 Actions for Orchestra, Voice, and Soloist, a 90-minute composition based on the life of the charismatic Swedish immigrant and labor organizer executed in 1915 by the state of Utah. At press time, Joe Hill is scheduled to debut on October 30 as part of the University of Washington's World Music Festival and feature performances by guitarist Bill Frisell, and singers Robin Holcomb, Danny Barnes and Rinde Eckert, as well as members of the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera, Seattle Chamber Players, and conductor Christian Knapp (assistant conductor for the Seattle Symphony).

Tour dates are being planned.

The music draws, in part, from the British and Swedish hymns to which Hill penned his stirring lyrics. In some ways, the authorities were the inspiration for Hill's influential songwriting; in an effort to drown out labor organizers, the police often sent local Salvation Army bands to perform at labor rallies conducted by Hill and the radical International Workers of the World union (known as the Wobblies). Hill turned the tables on the police by writing lyrics and using the bands to help further the Wobblies' cause.

And how does Horvitz feel about composing the lofty string parts for the lefty Joe Hill project?

"Well, I'm going to say the dumbest thing," he replies, "it's strings! There's just nothing more satisfying than hearing your music played by a great group of string players. It's absolutely amazing!"

—Greg Cahill

Photo by Robin Laananen

Maestra Marin Alsop (above) is planning to conduct more than 50 performances of Brahms orchestral works during the current concert season. The centerpiece of the season will be performances of Brahms' four symphonies and her first installment of his symphonic cycle with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, which will be released in the US this spring: the Symphony No. 1, "Academic Festival" Overture, and "Tragic" Overture.

Alsop, now in her third season as principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, says of her experience as a young violinist discovering Brahms' music, "I first heard his Sextet for Strings in Bb when I was 12 years old and thought I had experienced heaven! I started learning about his works by devouring his chamber music, then his violin sonatas, and finally his orchestral and choral music."

Between mid-December 2004 and the end of February 2005, Alsop will perform all four of Brahms' symphonies as a guest conductor in the Hague, New York, Baltimore, and Dallas.

She sums up her interest in and devotion to the music of Brahms: "There is magic in all of it!"

Photo by Simon Fowler

Three's Company

The Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra has found an innovative way to settle the question of which talented candidate will fill the shoes of former maestro Mariss Jansons, who conducted his last concert with the PSO last May. The orchestra has announced that instead of hiring a full-time music director, a three-man rotating lineup will share the baton. Under the three-year plan, similar to an arrangement at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis would become artistic adviser, taking the lead in programming concerts with a committee of staff and players; Yan Pascal Tortelier (pictured above), a son of the cellist Paul Tortelier, would be principal guest conductor; and Marek Janowski would assume an endowed chair as a guest conductor. They also will split the repertory duties: Davis will handle British and American composers and lead a Dvorák festival; Tortelier will focus on French composers, contemporary music, and overlooked 20th-century works; and Janowski will concentrate on the core Germanic repertory.

And the Winner is . . .

Violinists Gabriela Diaz and Beverly Shin, both graduate students at the New England Conservatory of Music, have become the first musicians chosen to receive the prestigious Boston Albert Schweitzer Fellowship Program, usually reserved for students in health-related fields. Diaz, who was treated for Hodgkin's Disease at age 16, is organizing concerts in hospital oncology wards and in charity benefits; Shin, who has degrees in both performance and Suzuki pedagogy, will enlist other NEC students to create "miniresidencies" at Boston-area elementary schools. . . . Orianna Webb, acting composition department head at the Cleveland Institute of Music, is the recipient of the 2004 Raymond and Beverly Sackler Music Composition Prize. The $20,000 prize will allow Webb to develop a chamber orchestra composition for strings and single winds/brass, which will be performed at the University of Connecticut in March.

ASTA Bash

Regina Carter and Rachel Barton Pine (below) will entertain string teachers venturing to the 2005 American String Teachers Association convention held between February 23 and 26 in Reno, Nevada. Jazz violinist Carter will perform with the Arizona State University Symphony Orchestra. In addition, Midori Goto will lead a collegiate-level master class, one of many offered at the event. The conference also features music-industry exhibits, the ASTA National Orchestra Festival, the National High School Honors Orchestra, and the Alternative Styles Awards.

Meanwhile, Pine has been appointed as artistic director of the Musicorda Chamber Music Institute and Festival, entering its 19th season in Western Massachusetts. Pine replaces founding artistic director Leopold Teraspulsky, who cofounded Musicorda in 1987 with Jacqueline Melnick to create a performance-based, international community of gifted young students of string and piano, prominent faculty artists and guest artists, and audiences that would join them in a summer-long festival of concerts.

Encore

Cellist Patrice Jackson, first-place laureate of the 2002 Sphinx Competition, will perform with the Sphinx Symphony at the senior division finals concert on January 30. The Detroit-based competition features top young black and Latino string players from around the country competing for over $100,000 in prizes and scholarships, as well as performances by the professional all-black and Latino Sphinx Symphony.

Passings

Bassist Vernon Alley, hailed by his peers as the dean of San Francisco Bay Area jazz, died October 2 after a long illness. He was 89. Alley, a Nevada native and lifelong San Franciscan, enjoyed a distinguished career. In 1940, Alley joined the Lionel Hampton band and recorded the swing-era classic "Flying Home." He later became a member of the Count Basie Orchestra and over the years played with Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and other jazz greats. Alley, denied the chance to become a police officer as a young man because of racial barriers, also served on the San Francisco Human Rights Commission.