The American Concerto, Volume One

The American Concerto Project

Notes by Jennifer Koh

What does it mean to represent America today through classical music? How can we draw upon the cultural richness of our country and engage in a dialogue that reflects the multiplicity of experiences that shape our lives? I believe that when our stages more fully reflect the world around us, classical music becomes stronger, more relevant, and more capable of inspiring future generations of musicians and audiences. There is space in our musical life for all of us and for all of our stories.

The American Concerto grew out of these questions. Through this ongoing commissioning project, I invite composers to engage with the traditional form of the violin concerto as a way of exploring contemporary American life. Each composer is asked to draw from personal experience and to consider how the concerto — a centuries-old form centered on the relationship between the individual and the collective — can speak to the realities of the 21st century.

The project is both an exploration of cultural identity and an examination of the concerto itself. I ask composers to reconsider long-held assumptions about the form: Is the soloist still the heroic figure inherited from the Romantic tradition, or can the relationship between soloist and orchestra take on new meanings? How might the concerto reflect collaboration rather than opposition, community rather than individualism? The dynamic between one voice and many voices offers a powerful metaphor for contemporary society, and the composers in this project are uniquely positioned to explore its expressive possibilities.

Trouble for Violin and Chamber Orchestra

Notes by Vijay Iyer

“Good trouble,” “necessary trouble” — these are favorite phrases of U.S. Representative John Lewis, referring to the strategies and tactics of the Civil Rights movement and ongoing struggles for equality and justice over the last six decades.

As I met with Jennifer Koh during the year of composition to discuss the details of this piece, I often found it difficult to focus. Typically, we found ourselves, instead, recoiling in horror at the events of any given day. This pattern only intensified after January 20, 2017, as we found our communities, our country, and our planet in greater peril with each passing hour. In creating the piece, I found myself both channeling and pushing against the sensation of extreme precarity that continues to pervade our moment.

I didn’t want to rehash the typical concerto narrative, positioning a heroic individual over or against a multitude. Ms. Koh told me that the soloist could instead be viewed as someone willing to be vulnerable, to venture publicly where most people won’t, to accept a role that no one else will accept, to bear the unbearable. In other words, the soloist can embody the relationship of an artist to her community: not so much a “leader” or “hero,” but something more like a shaman, a conduit for the forces in motion around us.

The third movement is dedicated to Vincent Chin, whose murder in the early 1980s signaled an ongoing pattern of violent hate crimes against people of color. His death became a watershed moment for antiracist activism, which is as urgently needed today as it has ever been.

Syzygy

Notes by Courtney Bryan

I wrote Syzygy for Jennifer Koh and the Chicago Sinfonietta as part of Jennifer’s The American Concerto project. The piece grew out of my admiration for the work of three artists, whose creativity, vision, and engagement with the world have long inspired me: painter Alma Thomas (1891–1978); painter Frida Kahlo (1907–1954); and designer, architect, and artist Maya Lin (b. 1959).  

The title Syzygy refers to the nearly straight-line configuration of three celestial bodies in a gravitational system, such as the sun, moon, and earth during a solar or lunar eclipse. Across the concerto’s three movements, I explore different manifestations of eclipse, drawing on the imagery, symbolism, and visual perspectives found in the following works: Thomas’s The Eclipse (1970), whose vivid colors and imagery suggest both illumination and obscurity; Kahlo’s Tree of Hope, Keep Firm (1946), with its symbolism of sun and moon; and Lin’s Eclipsed Time (1994), an installation that transforms a familiar public space through shadow and light. Throughout the concerto, Jennifer’s violin serves as a connective thread, guiding the listener through these three artistic worlds.