Behind the Score: When the World Stopped, These Artists Didn’t

When the World Stopped, These Artists Didn’t

by KEN SMITH Leila Josefowicz and Matthias Pintscher

For years, Leila Josefowicz had been pursuing Matthias Pintscher for a violin concerto, and for years Pintscher always turned and ran in the opposition direction. “I’ve always admired Leila, the way she gives everything in the moment,” he says. “We can play three shows and each of them will be completely different. I find that very appealing.” But as for composing a piece, Pintscher had written two violin concertos within 10 years and didn’t feel he had enough material for a third. Soon, orchestras started calling with the same request. Then Covid hit. He was sitting in his West Village apartment in New York when she called again.

“Leila asked, ‘Are you also sitting at home, not doing anything? Why don’t you at least write me a solo piece?’ I said, ‘Honey, I’m going to sit down and write it tonight.’” Josefowicz soon livestreamed the premiere of Pintscher’s La Linea Evocativa for solo violin from New York’s Hauser & Wirth Gallery, in collaboration with the artist George Condo, whose work was on exhibit. Then she called Pintscher again: “Matthias, don’t you think there’s enough great material here for your third concerto?” “She tricked me,” Pintscher exclaims, laughing. “But I realized she was absolutely right.” It was the right call, at precisely the right time. After 20 years of being constantly on the road as a conductor and musical curator, Pintscher Leila Josefowicz performed Thomas Ades’ Violin Concerto, found his life put abruptly on pause. “After the initial shock, and then several very dark months, Concentric Paths, in February 2019 with Louis Langrée conducting. Credit: Lee Snow this was a lifesaver,” he says. “That constant interaction with Leila gave me the structure to stop drowning in anxiety and just get up and write. Alliances like Leila and Cincinnati that reinforce your sanity and trust are always important, but after the past two years they’re more valuable than ever.”

continued, p. 54

Jennifer Koh and Missy Mazzoli

Violinist Jennifer Koh and composer Missy Mazzoli’s first meeting in 2009 resulted in Dissolve, O My Heart, a solo riff on a Bach Chaconne that became Mazzoli’s first truly high-profile commission (from the Los Angeles Philharmonic) and a cornerstone in Koh’s “Bach and Beyond” project. But what both New Yorkers remember most about that night was the food. “Dinner at Grand Sichuan and cupcakes at Billy’s Bakery,” Koh recalls. “A whole culinary tour of Chelsea,” Mazzoli muses.

They also discovered a kindred sense of esthetics and social calling, which later led to compatible non-profit endeavors. Koh created her Arca Collaborative to generate a more inclusive range of new repertory; Mazzoli co-founded the Luna Composition Lab to address gender imbalance among professional composers. “It’s always rewarding to work with people with a mission,” Koh maintains.

“I should add, we’re also great friends and call each other all the time,” says Mazzoli. “We gossip, we commiserate. Ideas for projects just come up naturally and organically in conversation.” Enough works, in fact, to fill full collaborative evenings (most recently in late October at San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre).

So when Koh called to check in with Mazzoli earlier this year in the midst of the pandemic, their chats soon turned to a new collaboration. “I’d already written a violin concerto, a reworking of my double bass concerto,” Mazzoli says. “But I really wanted to write a long, meaty work for violin and orchestra, and I wanted it to be for her.”

Mazzoli also wanted to embrace the pandemic—or at least deal with the emotional trials of the past year in a healthy and productive way. “I’m interested in how we’ve reacted emotionally to situations like this historically,” she says. “We now have a new and vivid connection to the rituals we’ve created in the past to ward off, deal with, or accept cataclysmic events.”

In her Violin Concerto, Mazzoli positions her continued, p. 54

Missy Mazzoli, ©Marylene Mey