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Composer/violinist Jessie Montgomery hosted the latest installment of Music Now on Sunday afternoon at Symphony Center. Montgomery is the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Mead Composer-in-Residence. Using CSO musicians and conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya from the Chicago Opera Theater, Music Now presented a wide variety of music by contemporary composers. This included the world premiere of Montgomery’s delightful Concerto Grosso.
The program highlighted the music and performance of New York composer/violinist Curtis Stewart, who really made the experience truly memorable. Using virtuoso violin playing, electronica, multimedia, and audience participation, he brought full-scale entertainment to the classical milieu. It is always nice to hear classical music presented in a different way, and that’s what we got on Sunday.
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Things opened with chamber music, starting with Tania León’s Arenas d’un Tiempo (Sands of Time), a trio for clarinet, piano, and cello. León wrote in the program notes that she was inspired by the movement of sand on the beaches in Rio de Janeiro. The piece started out with very quiet notes that Chris Wild played on the cello, soon imitated by Susan Warner on clarinet. Daniel Scholssberg overlaid quick, seemingly random notes on the piano. Eventually the motives were interchanged, with the piano playing rills that imitated sand blowing on the beach. The performance was great, with the players meshing well.
Curtis Stewart next performed three pieces from Of Love, a larger work released in 2023. In remarks from the stage, he characterized it as a digital requiem commemorating his mother. He was her primary caregiver for four years before she died in 2021, and he wrote it in the room next door from where she rested.
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Onstage by himself, Stewart overlaid passionate violin playing, vocalizations, and whistling on top of violin and other sounds provided electronically. All the while, a video screen had shifting images overhead. The juxtaposition of the live playing with the recorded sounds was fascinating. The first piece was an especially mournful melody. The others were a bit more upbeat. It was an enjoyable display.
This was followed by Tyshawn Sorey’s For Fred Lerdahl in commemoration of that composer’s retirement in 2019. It was scored for muted viola, two vibraphones, and piano. Danny Lai opened the work with quiet viola passages, with Cynthia Yeh and Ian Ding on vibraphone, and Schlossberg on piano providing sharp chords. In the only sag in Sunday’s performance, the chords on vibraphones and piano were not struck in perfect unison, which detracted from the overall effect.
An expanded ensemble conducted by Yankovskaya took the stage for Montgomery’s Concerto Grosso, a work in two-movements. As she explained, this piece adopts a practice from the Baroque era of incorporating improvisation by the soloist in Concerto Grosso. Curtis Stewart had the honors on the violin, backed up by a larger ensemble of strings, an oboe, and harp. This combination of instruments provided an interesting aural texture, especially when the oboe stood out over the strings.
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For the final two works to end the concert, Stewart applied his performance and compositional techniques to larger ensembles. For Embrace, he was backed up by a string quintet, electronics, and four-part vocalizations from the audience. Before starting, Stewart rehearsed the audience and developed a lovely rapport.
Resonance was an example of a more traditional piece of music without the added electronica. Joined by 12 members of the CSO, conducted by Yankovskaya, Stewart gave a riveting performance of what will be the first movement of his violin concerto. In playing this frenetic work, he showed off tremendous virtuosity and an animated stage presence.
Following the concert, everyone was treated to Jet’s pizza and drinks in the Symphony Center’s back lobby. In addition to pre-concert performances, it made for a lovely afternoon/evening.
This weekend Symphony Center hosts violinist Gil Shaham and the CSO, conducted by Jakub Hrůša, for Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and music by Richard Strauss and Lutosławski, March 7, 8, 9, and 12. On Sunday, March 10, pianist Benjamin Grosvenor gives a recital that includes the excellent piano sonatas by Chopin and Liszt . The Civic Orchestra of Chicago will be performing a free concert of women composers, including Jessie Montgomery and Florence Price. at Hinsdale Central High School. For times and ticket information, click here.