Symphony presents ‘blues-drenched’ Ellen Zwilich

By C.S. GILBERT

FEATURE WRITER

On Thursday, American contemporary composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Shadows for Piano and Orchestra is featured in the South Florida Symphony Orchestra’s final Master Concert of the season at the Tennessee Williams Theatre. The world-class orchestra, born the Key West Symphony in 1998, is under the baton of Key West Conch Sebrina Maria Alfonso, its founding maestra. Pianist Jeffrey Biegel is soloist.

Critics of Biegel’s previous performances of Shadows called the number “blues-drenched,” with the pianist contributing “Gershwin-honed chops.”

The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. and is preceded by an illuminating lecture by Edward Pitts at 6:30. Pitts will speak about all the works being performed that evening; his knowledge of music history is encyclopedic. Also on the program are Mozart’s Symphony No. 35, Haffner, and Schumann’s Symphony No. 1, Spring.

Alfonso, who has made it a practice to introduce women composers to Key West classical audiences, calls Zwilich”one of America’s most prominent living composers” period.

In her own few words, the composer wrote Shadows “to evoke ‘the recollection of remnants of the past – the recalling of ancestral, religious, and cultural roots in the constant migration of people around the world.’ Other than this statement, the composer refrains from describing the work in any further detail – ‘I see it as truly belonging to the listener, who will respond and understand it in relation to his or her own emotional and experiential background,’” according to Lauber.

Shadows was commissioned by pianist Biegel and an international consortium of orchestras that includes the South Florida Symphony, Lauber wrote. “It had its world premiere in October 2011, performed by Biegel and the Louisiana Philharmonic. Of that performance, Chris Waddington of the Times-Picayune said, ‘Zwilich’s blues-drenched, three-movement Shadows for Piano and Orchestra was packed with ear-catching effects. How often do you hear en masse strumming from three string sections — cellos, violas and double-basses? … (Biegel) brought Gershwin-honed chops to a composition that lofted Tin Pan Alley into deep space with tart harmonies, glassy tone clusters and keyboard-spanning runs.’”

After its Thursday debut in Key West, SFSO will reprise the program at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday and at the Delray Beach Center for the Arts on Monday, March 31.

Of Zwilich’s other work, her “Quintet, the 2011 premiere of which was presented by the La Jolla Music Society, was called ‘a jazzy delight’ by the San Diego Union Tribune,” Lauber reported.

At press time, tickets were still available for the Key West performance at Keystix.com.

 

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