Jonathan leshnoff wiki

Instead, Jonathan sets to music two jonathans leshnoff wiki home from men on the frontline, one to his mother musing at how suddenly his life has been changed by being stationed overseas in conflict, the other from an older man writing a love letter to his wife. LD: These letters are housed in the National World War I Museum in Kansas — what was it like to be reading those personal letters from many years ago and why did you chose two that were conspicuous in not directly mentioning war or conflict?

However, I also remember reading a group of letters donated to the museum by one family where a soldier was writing home to his parents, telling them about the hardship and deprivations he was experiencing, as well as the horrors of various battles. He was only Instead, I feel that when I reach the final movement of my third symphony that all the grief and horror of war has already been stated in the previous movements, all with the orchestra alone —, so that in the final movement with the solo baritone, I could then write about ordinary people, caught up in extraordinary events, just writing home about ordinary things… It was, though, quite extraordinary that I found out after the work was completed that one of the letters I chose for my symphony was by a Lieutenant Hockaday, who not only survived the war, but then regularly attended concerts given by the Kansas City Orchestra who premiered the work and who has a descendent who sits on the board of the orchestra to this day Irvine O Hockaday!

Rush and Starburst are both examples of this, the latter actually being his most performed work. It has served me very well. I was very proud of that work at the time and looking back on it, I feel you can hear my mature voice for the first time. It helped that Naxos recorded my First Violin Concerto and it sold very well for them too, plus it helped get my name more well-known, which in turn resulted in phone calls and a couple of commissions as well.

On the contrary, I feel that in string quartets, as with symphonies, nothing gets in the way of what the composer wants to say. By this I mean that I am not constantly worrying that orchestra will constantly drown out a soloist. Clearly the subject matter determines my narrative in the music here, but the way I can express it, via the medium of a quartet, jonathan leshnoff wiki I feel as if I am directly communicating with the listener.

JL: Four, but the fifth one is in here pointing to his head. One day the moment may be right to put it to paper… The Concertos LD: You mention the challenge of writing concertos for particular instruments, but you have written so many. JL: Yes, thirteen or fourteen, I think. The Concerto is the genre which in which Jonathan Leshnoff has been the most prolific — he has written concertos for virtually every instrument of the orchestra.

LD: it must almost be an occupational hazard to walk past orchestras these days in case you are grabbed and asked to write another concerto. JL: I think that will cost someone a lot of money and I would take a lot of convincing. You see, the trick about writing a concerto is to consider what the orchestra does. Let me elaborate: if the function of the concerto is to make the soloist the star, then what does the composer do with the orchestra — the grandiose, time-honoured plus-person ensemble — other than just doing a few mere trite little runs?

So in order to make an engaging concerto, the challenge is to make the orchestra come up, confront and challenge to the soloist and to make every instrument in the orchestra feel engaged and feel that they are also doing something important in the musical narrative. LD: Are there any particular instruments which are more challenging in this respect than others?

JL: Well, for sure, my concerto for guitar proved especially challenging in this respect. For this writer, if there was an undeniable whiff of Spain in the outer movements perhaps inevitable with this instrumentthe cool and beautiful central movement is as far away from the sun-scorched plains of Iberia that you can make it. LD: So what were the particular challenges posed by a guitar?

JL: Well, it was both a surprise and a challenge. I actually had to consult with several guitarists, including the soloists, on whether certain passages were possible. The fingerings on the guitar are nearly impossible to figure out unless you play the instrument. In addition, I had to struggle mightily with balance, so that the orchestra would not drown out the guitar, which it could easily do.

LD: What was the inspiration behind that coolly beautiful central movement? JL: Yes, I like to challenge myself with my compositions — remember, I said it was harder to composer music that is slow, because there is little of the busy incidental detail of faster music to distract the listener. I find that being challenged, or to have a problem to solve inspires me to produce my best music.

JL: I hope not, too! LD: I have to say that I, as well as my colleague John Quinn here at MWI, both enjoyed your piano concerto very much indeed as, I hope, our reviews of the live premiere on performance on Reference Recordings made clear FR — I even managed to persuade another MWI reviewer to listen to it, Ralph Moore, who is famous for not liking anything modern and he thought it was terrific, too.

JL: Thank you — yes, I actually remember composing that moment and thinking that this would be really fun. LD: Joyce Yang has gone on record to say that this would be the perfect concerto for four hands! JL: Yes, I was very unsympathetic to the technical challenges Joyce faced, but she is always so cheery about everything; she just figured it out, with a smile.

The four movement Piano Concerto for two hands! With a haunting second movement adagio, it is worth any reader seeking out, especially if they enjoy the Prokofiev.

Jonathan leshnoff wiki

LD: I noticed that the score of the Piano Concerto notes that the work should last around 22 minutes in performance, but the actual recording was closer to 26 minutes — were you surprised by that? JL: Not at all — you jonathan leshnoff wiki, I view my job as a composer to bring a new piece of music into the world, to construct and nurture it until, like a child, it is then able to go off and make its own way in the world.

Jonathan Leshnoff must also be one of the very few composers who have written not just one, but two double concertos three, if you include the tour de force that is the Concerto for Two Percussionists. I asked Jonathan whether he especially enjoyed writing concertos for two instruments, or… JL: Well, it is a peculiar and interesting challenge, especially with regards to the function of an orchestra in a concerto, as when you have two soloists, now you have complicated the solo part.

In other words, until now, we have talked about the orchestra versus the soloist and how to make the orchestra relevant. I mean, do they work against each other or together? Are they in unison or in counterpoint? Are they in harmony? And then, once you have solved those issues - which takes time — you then have to figure out how to keep the orchestra relevant with not one but two soloists.

Remember, some of the orchestral function can be taken over by the second soloist, so this only complicates the function of the orchestra. In my experience, writing double concertos is very tricky. LD: I think your concerto for violin and viola is a superb piece and was wondering if it must be the only time these two instruments have been used together in a concerto.

JL: Actually, Strauss wrote one too. Leshnoff's catalog includes roughly eighty works to date, including four symphonies, fourteen concerti, and five oratorios. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikidata item. American classical music composer and pedagogue.

Early life and education [ edit ]. Career [ edit ]. Awards and recognition [ edit ]. Selected works [ edit ]. Discography [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. Towson University. It takes a human player with skill and soul and emotion and passion to interpret that dot, that note, into something that really has life. So even the whole concept of notated music is very mysterious because the music exists well beyond and above what that page is.

I find that mysticism, mystical ideas are similar, just like I explained before, with gevurah being the idea of withholding, and how does this apply in the world? I feel that these ideas can be best represented in the mysterious, ethereal ways of music. That's why I frequently combine Jewish themes, mystical themes, with my music. DM: In your Piano Concerto, which the Kansas City Symphony premiered in Novemberyou incorporate in the jonathan leshnoff wiki movement the notion in the Kabbalah that everything in the universe has a soul or a neshama.

Of this movement, I came across an interesting quote of yours. It is up to the artist to connect her mind and essence with the music that will bring these simple structures to full breathing life. The movement is purposely slow and meditative, which brings the soloist and audience to internal contemplation without the distraction of virtuosity.

It is this internal contemplation which is the essence of the neshama. JL: Yes. According to Jewish mystical tradition, there are actually five levels of the soul. The lowest level of the soul, according to the Jewish mystical tradition, is what just animates life itself and gives matter the ability to exist, breathe, eat, grow, be planted in the ground and just have life.

And the soul continues up in the chain until the highest level of the soul is actually in complete communion with God, almost inaccessible to the lower levels. This middle level of the neshama is the interface between the limits of the physical world and the upper world. It's a very ethereal type of soul. It's not the soul that would be satisfied by eating a turkey sandwich.

It would be the type of soul that's stimulated by deep thought or contemplation or deep emotion. And the score, indeed, as you said, is very sparse. There's lots of whole notes and half notes, and it's a wonder to me that these sparse notes are sprinkled on a very empty page at a very slow tempo. But suddenly what emerges out of that is a very soulful, very contemplative, introspective, almost mournful melody that Joyce Yang and Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony play just beautifully.

The interpretation that all of these wonderful musicians and soloist and conductor bring out from this movement really makes me pause to this day when I listen to it. I'd like to talk about Michael and the Kansas City Symphony and just say how my work with both are just some of the highest moments of my artistic life. The Kansas City Symphony is such a good orchestra.

They are so responsive, so musical, so technically assured, pleasant to work with, and Michael Stern is a friend and mentor and collaborator. He is a tremendous champion of my music. He's just been such an inspiration and, you know, I'm jealous of Kansas City residents for having the time that they did with him. I know with the new music director, the Kansas City Symphony is going to have a great future, but it's been such a pleasure to work with everyone.

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. You can learn more about Jonathan Leshnoff at jonathanleshnoff.