Peabody Symphony opens with a bang
The Peabody Symphony Orchestra kicked off its 2008-2009 season at the Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall with an exceptional performance Saturday night, featuring last year's Macht Orchestral Composition Competition's winning work.
The winning piece, titled "Shadows of the Infinite," was composed by recent Peabody alum Geoff Knorr. Knorr earned a B.Mus. in music composition, a B.Mus. in recording arts and sciences, and a M.Mus. in music composition. He has received a number of awards and has had his works performed by many orchestras around the country. "Shadows" starts off with a strong downbeat on the timpani, which immediately launches a journey that doesn't end until the very last note. The work lacks any traditional form: For example, there is not one rest the entire piece.
This gives it a very flowing feel that keeps the listener's ears moving the entire time. Assistant conductor Ruben Capriles led the orchestra in this first piece, and he succeeded in evoking the deep emotion clearly embedded in the work. According to the concert program, Knorr himself describes the piece as having an "overall sense … of majesty, awe and mystery," which is exactly the feelings the audience was left with at the end of the performance. After a round of applause for the orchestra, Knorr got up on stage to take a rightfully deserved bow. Knorr currently resides in Baltimore, pursuing various freelance projects in composition and audio engineering.
The rest of the concert featured late romantic/early modern composers Richard Strauss and Jean Sibelius. Director Hajime Teri Murai took over the conductor's stand, commanding the orchestra through Strauss's "Don Juan Op. 20." Strauss started work on the piece when he was only 23 years old, and it is considered to be one of the first pieces to show the composer's maturity and complexity with which would compose for the rest of his career.
The piece, based on a poem by Nikolaus Lenau, is one of Strauss's first "Tone Poems," a one-movement piece of music based on some non-musical narrative such as a poem or painting. Strauss composed a significant amount of his work with literary or dramatic inspirations. Murai, who has been Director of Orchestral Activities at Peabody since 1991, was full of energy as he led the performers through the beautifully melodic "Don Juan."
The winning piece, titled "Shadows of the Infinite," was composed by recent Peabody alum Geoff Knorr. Knorr earned a B.Mus. in music composition, a B.Mus. in recording arts and sciences, and a M.Mus. in music composition. He has received a number of awards and has had his works performed by many orchestras around the country. "Shadows" starts off with a strong downbeat on the timpani, which immediately launches a journey that doesn't end until the very last note. The work lacks any traditional form: For example, there is not one rest the entire piece.
This gives it a very flowing feel that keeps the listener's ears moving the entire time. Assistant conductor Ruben Capriles led the orchestra in this first piece, and he succeeded in evoking the deep emotion clearly embedded in the work. According to the concert program, Knorr himself describes the piece as having an "overall sense … of majesty, awe and mystery," which is exactly the feelings the audience was left with at the end of the performance. After a round of applause for the orchestra, Knorr got up on stage to take a rightfully deserved bow. Knorr currently resides in Baltimore, pursuing various freelance projects in composition and audio engineering.
The rest of the concert featured late romantic/early modern composers Richard Strauss and Jean Sibelius. Director Hajime Teri Murai took over the conductor's stand, commanding the orchestra through Strauss's "Don Juan Op. 20." Strauss started work on the piece when he was only 23 years old, and it is considered to be one of the first pieces to show the composer's maturity and complexity with which would compose for the rest of his career.
The piece, based on a poem by Nikolaus Lenau, is one of Strauss's first "Tone Poems," a one-movement piece of music based on some non-musical narrative such as a poem or painting. Strauss composed a significant amount of his work with literary or dramatic inspirations. Murai, who has been Director of Orchestral Activities at Peabody since 1991, was full of energy as he led the performers through the beautifully melodic "Don Juan."
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