FEATURE: A Wealth of New Works
Pandemic Postponements, Fresh Perspectives Bring a Wealth of New Works This Spring by KEN SMITH
The Covid pandemic has blurred many memories, but CSO Music Director Louis Langrée still vividly recalls the moment he first encountered Julia Adolphe’s music. Back in November 2017, Adolphe—not yet 30 and still fresh from winning ASCAP’s Morton Gould Young Composers Award that spring—was in Cincinnati for the world premiere of Equinox, her second commission for the May Festival Chorus, to celebrate the reopening of Music Hall. That evening, Langrée had led Bach’s Magnificat and Brahms’ Triumphlied, a two-tiered tribute to Music Hall’s inaugural season. But in between, Adolphe’s a cappella piece was conducted by May Festival Director of Choruses Robert Porco, leaving Langrée free to relish the 12-minute premiere. “The piece was simply mesmerizing,” he recalls, “filled with colors and shapes, such power and yet such subtlety. Immediately I knew I had to conduct her music.” By the end of her stay in Cincinnati, Langrée had “showered her with questions” and quickly
established both musical and personal rapport. Although he would later hear Adolphe’s Dark Sand, Shifting Light and her viola concerto Unearth, Release, both written for Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic, Langrée had already become fixated on commissioning Adolphe to write an orchestral piece for the CSO’s 125th Anniversary season in 2019–2020. Actually getting to conduct her music, though, proved more elusive. Adolphe’s Paper Leaves on Fields of Clay, paired with Mahler’s Third Symphony, was originally scheduled for the season finale in mid-May, 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic had other plans, however, and during the statewide cancellation of public gatherings of more than a hundred people, Adolphe’s premiere was postponed until the end of October 2020. That date proved unsuccessful as well. “Our biggest advantage,” Langrée says, “was that once we knew we had to cancel, it gave us plenty of time, and Julia had much more room to polish the music”—a far more serene description than the composer offers about her creative
Music Director Louis Langrée leads a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 in November 2021. Credit: Mark Lyons
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