Christopher Theofanidis Rainbow Body (2000)
Christopher Theofanidis As Dancing is to Architecture (1996)
Han Lash Zero Turning Radius Concerto for Orchestra (2024) *
Jeremy Gill Four Legends from the Silmarillion (2024)*
I. Ainulindalë
II. Narsilion
III. Tinúviel
IV. Eärendil
*BMOP commission/World Premiere
Gil Rose, conductor
Sunday, May 4, 2025, at 3:00 p.m. ET
New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough Street, Boston, MA
Program is subject to change.
Celebrating the diversity, profundity, and versatility of the orchestra, composers Chris Theofanidis, Han Lash, and Jeremy Gill present virtuosic handlings of this enormous, instrumental assemblage, de- and re-constructing its history, sound, and power.
In a blossoming of metaphors, two compositions from Chris Theofanidis bring together disparate concepts into artistic collisions: “Rainbow Body was the coming together of two ideas -- one, my fascination with Hildegard of Bingen's music (especially her chant, "Ave Maria, O Auctix Vite") and two, the Tibetan Buddhist idea of "Rainbow Body:" that when an enlightened being dies physically, his or her body is absorbed directly back into the universe as energy, as light.” And in what is technically only a preposition, As Dancing is to Architecture leaves in suspense what music might become in a sonically constructed space: inviting listeners into an exploration of motion, time, and acoustic presence.
Han Lash’s Zero Turning Radius began with a question (how can the orchestra continue to be relevant?); a challenge (“I must now do my utmost to remove a delimiting frame”); and a “prayer sent out to the future that the orchestra – such a beautiful, multi-limbed, amphibious creature – can be a playground in contexts and for musics that remain yet unimagined and can be created in any number of different ways." This composition marks a threshold of ability for Lash’s compositional experience, a level at which the orchestra can now be wielded with both tremendous power and deftness. “Zero Turning Radius is about the joy of steering a powerful, enormous, and fleet entity like an orchestra: shifting and dancing, turning on a dime. The idea for the piece was inspired while using a zero turning radius mower.”
Jeremy Gill takes us behind The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, where there lies a quiet masterpiece, a mythological labyrinth of history, society, and power: The Silmarillion is J.R.R. Tolkien’s posthumously published creation myth – that of the world in which the now more famous sagas take their course. After years of encouragement from a childhood friend, Gill has finally taken up the task of setting the opening section of The Silmarillion to music. Divided into four tone poems, the set represents the “Ainulindalë” (music of the Ainur), “Tolkien’s creation myth, in which the creation of our world is effected through music,” and the four elements of ancient civilizations: water, air, earth, and fire. Four Legends from the Silmarillion sojourns, in the vehicle of the symphonic tone poem, through a sprawling epic that spans from the unseen deeps of the ocean to “the uttermost rim of the world” – from the ultimate future to the “place among the stars… before the Earth was created.”
– from the words of Chris Theofanidis, Han Lash, and Jeremy Gill
THIS IS A FREE EVENT
