Jennifer Koh and friends re-imagine a centuries old form for the modern day

Violinist Jennifer Koh has made commissioning and championing new music a central part of her artistic mission through her nonprofit organization, Arco Collaborative. By partnering closely with living composers, she has helped bring dozens of new works into the repertoire, expanding the possibilities of the violin in our time. Cedille Records has been honored to work with Jennifer on these deeply personal projects for over two decades, and we are thrilled to present her next musical exploration.

Jennifer Koh’s The American Concerto is a multi-season commissioning project that examines the form of the violin concerto and its potential to address meaningful and relevant socio-cultural topics. The project invites composers to re-examine the conventional musical form of the concerto and establish a new form for the 21^st century.

Koh posits: “What is America today? How can the field of classical music draw upon the cultural richness contained within our country? True representation of today’s America on our stages has the potential to inspire and motivate the next generation of musicians and audiences. There is space in our world for every story.”

Cedille Records is excited to document this multi-album musical exploration. Koh just recorded part one, comprising Vijay Iyer’s Trouble and Courtney Bryan’s Syzygy, in January with the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble (Koh is an Oberlin alumna) conducted by Tim Weiss.

Iyer’s Trouble explores issues of discrimination and the immigrant experience, frequent topics of conversation between Koh and the composer in recent years. The piece attempts to tackle the difficult subject matter of racial violence through music. Trouble contains a movement dedicated to Vincent Chin, the Chinese-American man who was beaten to death in Detroit in 1982 by two men who blamed Japan for stealing American jobs and mistook him as Japanese. Although just five years old at the time, Koh remembers the response as one of the first Asian-American political movements in her life. The work creates a journey that traverses birth, realization, an elegy for Vincent Chin, and the gathering of a multitude of voices within the ensemble, with the violin leading the call to assemble. 

Syzygy is inspired by three female artists of color and their work: painters Alma Thomas (1891–1978) and Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) and designer, architect, and visual artist Maya Ying Lin (b. 1959). Each movement corresponds to a separate work of art by each of these artists.

Cedille is eager to release the first installment of this important project later this year.