eighth blackbird plays Higdon concerto with Cleveland Orchestra

On May 27, eighth blackbird presents the Cleveland premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Jennifer Higdon’s new concerto On a Wire with the Cleveland Orchestra and its music director Franz Welser-Möst. This high-profile engagement at Severance Hall crowns a season in which the concerto for sextet and orchestra has figured prominently. After giving the piece its world premiere in Atlanta last June, eighth blackbird went on to tour On a Wire with orchestras across North America, and earlier this spring an album headlined by the Grammy Award-winning group’s premiere performance of the concerto launched the Atlanta Symphony’s new CD label, ASO Media. Two days after the Cleveland performance of On a Wire – this time without the orchestra – eighth blackbird makes a second appearance in Cleveland, playing its whimsical “Still Life” program, which includes music by Missy Mazzoli, Stephen Hartke, Pierre Boulez, and Philip Glass. eighth blackbird recently recorded this repertoire for a new album, due for release next season. “Still Life” is also scheduled for the sextet’s May 20 appearance at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
 
At the world premiere of On a Wire in Atlanta last June, “The audience erupted, hollered, stood, smiled, [and] laughed with communal euphoria” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution). Since then the sextet has reprised Higdon’s work at the Cabrillo Festival, where it impressed the San Francisco Chronicle as an “exuberantly beautiful and inventive group concerto, which left the audience exhilarated,” and where the ensemble’s performance was “dispatched with dazzling flair,” making it “hard to imagine another sextet playing it with such energy and precision” (San Jose Mercury News).
 
The last year has been a momentous one for Jennifer Higton (b. 1962), one of the most prolific and frequently performed American composers alive today. In February 2010 her Percussion Concerto was awarded the Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition; two months later she won a Pulitzer Prize for her Violin Concerto; as the New York Times observed, “Higdon’s vivid, attractive works have made her a hot commodity.” On a Wire was commissioned for eighth blackbird by a consortium of orchestras including Cleveland’s. As Higdon explains:
 
Having already written two chamber works for eighth blackbird, I am familiar with [its members’] ability to do all sorts of cool things on their instruments, from extended techniques, to complex patterns, to exquisitely controlled lyrical lines. I also admire the pure joy that emanates from their playing.
 
The group’s world premiere performance of On a Wire, recorded at Atlanta Symphony Hall in June 2010, headlines the inaugural release of ASO Media, the Atlanta Symphony’s new in-house CD label. The album features eighth blackbird with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and its music director Robert Spano. It was Spano’s commitment to contemporary music that led the orchestra to found the Atlanta School of Composers, of which Higdon is a leading light; his recordings with the Atlanta Symphony have to date amassed eight Grammy Awards, including one for Higdon’s City Scape. Higdon’s Zaka and Zango Bandango, both composed for eighth blackbird in 2003, have proved similarly successful.and are staples for the ensemble. strange imaginary animals, the album that won the sextet two Grammy Awards in 2008, features the premiere recording of Zaka, which was also nominated for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.
 
The May 27 concert in Cleveland, which marks the sextet’s debut with the Cleveland Orchestra and its music director, Franz Welser-Möst, takes place in Severance Hall. On May 29, in the same city, eighth blackbird makes a solo appearance at Reinberger Chamber Hall with “Still Life,” featuring works by Missy Mazzoli, Stephen Hartke, Pierre Boulez, and Philip Glass. eighth blackbird recently recorded this repertoire for a new album, due for release next season. The sextet’s May 20 appearance at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC will also feature “Still Life,” including two works by Hartke: the world premiere of Netsuke, a new work for violin and piano, and Meanwhile, the eighth blackbird commission that was a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. According to the Financial Times’s Martin Bernheimer, the group’s recent performance of “Still Life” at Carnegie Hall “proved that musical modernism [could] thrive without dour pretension.” Bernheimer’s five-star review praised the sextet’s “impeccably balanced, usefully annotated program,” and concluded: “The blackbirds… performed…with bracing insight and nonchalant virtuosity. Clearly, they know how to handle noble accents and lucid, inescapable rhythms.”
 
Details of eighth blackbird’s upcoming performances in Cleveland and Washington, DC follow, and much additional information about On a Wire is available at the group’s web site: www.eighthblackbird.com/projects/concerto.
 
 
eighth blackbird in Washington, DC and Cleveland:
 
May 20, Washington, DC
“Still Life”
Missy Mazzoli: Still Life with Avalanche (2008)
Stephen Hartke: Netsuke for violin and piano (world premiere, 2011)
Philip Glass: Music in Similar Motion (1969)
Philippe Hurel: …à mesure (1996)
Thomas Adès: Catch (1991)
Stephen Hartke: Meanwhile (2007)
Library of Congress
 
May 27, Cleveland, OH
Cleveland Orchestra, Franz Welser-Möst
John Adams: Doctor Atomic Symphony)
Jörg Widmann: Flute Concerto, with Joshua Smith
Jennifer Higdon: On a Wire
Severance Hall
 
May 29, Cleveland, OH
“Still Life”
Missy Mazzoli: Still Life with Avalanche (2008)
Pierre Boulez: Dérive 1 (1984)
Philip Glass: Music in Similar Motion (1969)
Philippe Hurel: …à mesure (1996)
Thomas Adès: Catch (1991)
Stephen Hartke: Meanwhile (2007)
Reinberger Chamber Hall

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