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This week, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra will perform world premieres by two composers who have become familiar names in Symphony Hall. Not so long ago, these two were kicked around by the critical establishment — considered artistic lightweights by some and outright dismissed in Europe. But the true-believer fervor and durable commitment shown by the orchestra and conductor Robert Spano is a heartening thing, and, as we’ve reported on many occasions, the ASO actually sells more tickets when contemporary music is on the program than for standard repertoire.

The latest work from Jennifer Higdon is “On a Wire,” which boasts a playfully birdy title and is a sort of concerto grosso for the new-music ensemble Eighth Blackbird and the orchestra. It’s the ASO’s second commission from Higdon, following “City Scape” in 2002. The ASO has also recorded several of her pieces and plans to record “On a Wire” this weekend, produced by Elaine Martone. (Photo of Higdon and cat in her Philadelphia studio by Candace DiCarlo.)

The other premiere is Michael Gandolfi’s “Q.E.D.: Engaging Richard Feynman,” the composer’s first-ever work for chorus and orchestra. It, too, is a second commission from the ASO, following “The Garden of Cosmic Speculation” in 2007, which was recorded.

As I wrote in a preview article, Higdon and Gandolfi are market leaders in what’s now firmly the norm in 21st-century American classical music. A generation ago, even a decade ago, composers who wrote music specifically to please an audience were labeled panderers, or trash, by fans of avant-garde modernism. The goal of serious art was to challenge and provoke. To them, the concept of a reputable composer writing “accessible” music was anathema.  (In lower photo, Gandolfi stands in front of Roger Kizik’s painting “The Confederacy of Dunces.”)

Higdon, 47, and Gandolfi, 53, reject that negativity: their music is tonal, usually hummable, often rhythmically alive. They’re not retro or neo-Romantic, but they are alert to popular styles from the 20th century, from Stravinsky and Copland to Hollywood and the Minimalists. Although they both teach at prestigious schools — Higdon at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music and Gandolfi at Boston’s New England Conservatory — neither writes for what is dismissively labeled “academically protected styles,” where professors compose music for one another, with a detachment from the ticket-buying public and an inevitable winnowing of ideas.

Instead, Higdon and Gandolfi write for the concert hall and regular symphony audiences. A key to success: their music is highly digestible on first listen. In sum, these composers are not experimenters but craftsmen, who work largely within the boundaries of what audiences already know and like about classical music.

One Comment

1. Chris Ferebee

   1

   I could not agree more. The modernist, and some of the successive ‘post-’ genre’s, approach of essentially holding the audience in disdain (if not outright ignoring them) for the sake of the more important ‘higher’ art is essentially an outdated mode of thinking and is therefore, from at least one perspective, largely irrelevant. This is not to say that this idea is necessarily wrong as it is an irrevocable aspect of much of the modernist aesthetic. Nevertheless, there seems to be a trend in composition, and in art, that places an artistic priority on the general audience which, I think, will continue to replace the older aesthetic.

   Modernism in all its ideas, facets, and incarnations, is an irrevocable part in the Western musical canon. However, as music is (along with just about every other aspect of society) evolutionary, people must be prepared to progress, despite how egregious one might find the changes. Let us not forget that it was once the modernists and post-modernists who were tearing down the walls of the tonal establishment. Well, now they are the ‘establishment’ and those that continue to hold to outdated modes of thinking will be left behind and relegated as an unwilling, living relic of the past.

   I am a native Atlantan and have studied composition in the US as well as in Great Britain where I am currently a DPhil student and I should say that there are many of my own professors and fellow students who agree with the importance of the audience – and not as a simple means to an end. To us, the audience is an integral and essential part of the musical process – as important as the composer and the performer. To simply write-off music that prioritizes the audience as pandering or ‘less-than’ is merely ignorance that stems from a stonewall of elitism and arrogance.

   I am currently writing my dissertation on Robert Spano, the ASO, and the Atlanta School of Composers (as well as the Punch Brothers, Valentin Silvestrov, etc.) and I think that this article hits the nail on the head. These are extremely important points on an emerging style that I think will be a force to be reckoned with in generations to come. If any empirical proof is needed (and yes, there is such a thing as empirical data in relation to composition), lets see how many tickets are sold in the next few days.

   01 Jun

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