Jennifer Higdon: New Concerto

Jennifer Higdon will write a new work for eighth blackbird for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's next season (2009-2010) announced yesterday!
Higdon has said "For me, I like to imagine the performer playing the work, but I also get to know their playing before I ever even commit a note to the page. So, I investigate the kinds of things they do on their recitals and I talk to them, if I at all possibly can. Kind of funny though, sometimes they will make special requests, and it doesn't really compromise the composing, you can actually sit down and figure out a way to make your musical gestures fit their wants - what they would like to do on their instrument."
And also told me at Curtis: "If a composer is young and they've listened to Tchaikovsky all their lives, the only thing they're going to write is just more Tchaikovsky, so I tell them, try all kinds of things. If you don't like the music you're listening to, figure out why you don't like it because that'll teach you something too. So you know, I always tell them to look at as many scores as they can, to listen to as much music as they can and to write and try to get their pieces played because that's the thing that composers learn from the most."

We're looking forward to her upcoming Violin Concerto with Hilary Hahn this season, to be recorded for DG with the Tchaikovsky concerto.

Jennifer Higdon: New Opera

Jennifer Higdon will write her first opera, to be premiered in 2013. This commission by the San Francisco Opera was announced there yesterday.

From an interview we did at Curtis: "In a given year, I'll turn down on average 20 commission offers, but what I do is, I figure out which ones feel like they resonate within me, where I feel like I can actually write something that will work. Sometimes, I'll ponder the possibility, like I was asked once to write something for tap dancer and juggler and orchestra, and I thought, well, you know, I think I'll pass on this. I'm like how... what do you do for jugglers anyway? I can't figure this out. It was kind of an odd sort of request, but someone had an idea somewhere, I hope they found someone to write that."

The librettist is Gene Scheer, but no subject has been announced yet.