From left to right: BSO Flutist Marcia Kämper, Kevin Puts, Agata Zubel, Marin Alsop, Malek Jandali, BSO Principal Timpanist James Wyman
A NEW
TUNE
Marin Alsop recruits talent from near and far for a unique music festival experience.
B Y DEVON MALONEY
With the launch of the inaugural New Music Festival in July, BSO Music Director Marin Alsop further solidified her role as an artistic visionary. Never one for playing it safe, Alsop took a chance, challenging the idea that classical-music audiences prefer familiar pieces by initiating an event full of fresh, exciting programming.
“ You know more people are writing music today than probably during the entire last century,” says Alsop.“ You may think you
don’ t know anything about new music, but that’ s not true because there’ s new music being created every day around us. When you go to a film, for example, that’ s all new music— it’ s just been written.”
Co-curated by Alsop and cellist Inbal Segev, the New Music Festival celebrated contemporary composition with three days of performances, a community block party and a panel discussion. As a champion of new music, Alsop understands the importance of promoting the work of living composers to the Baltimore audience in such a highly visible way. Devoting not only one concert, but an entire weekend’ s worth of programming to current composition shows her commitment to new music and her confidence in the city’ s desire to support it.“ There’ s so much excitement, there’ s so much creativity, there are so many artists, and I think we have a public that’ s curious about new things and willing to take chances,” says Alsop of hosting the festival in Baltimore.
Featured in the festival were two composers with ties to the Baltimore area: Kevin Puts and Christopher Rouse. Both winners of the Pulitzer Prize, Puts and Rouse have had previous work commissioned and premiered by Alsop and the BSO. Rouse’ s haunting Rotae Passionis( Passion Wheels), inspired by Christian liturgy, concluded the festival’ s opening-night chamber concert in dramatic fashion. The piece calls for 14 hammer strikes— percussive blows issued by BSO player John Locke that shook the walls of the performance space at Peabody Conservatory. Puts saw the BSO Premiere of his Quintet for Piano and Strings as well as the reprise of his orchestral work, The City. With an accompanying film by Director James Bartolomeo that takes viewers through a historic journey around Baltimore, The City provided an uplifting
8 OVERTURE / BSOmusic. org