ProMusica Chamber Orchestra to close season with special guest and quirky Brahms piece
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
The ProMusica Chamber Orchestra is accustomed to working with contemporary composers’ voices — that is, their artistic voices: their vision, ideas, themes and so on.
Far rarer is for the orchestra to work with a living composer’s actual, literal voice — namely, his or her singing voice.
For its season finale on Saturday and Sunday in the Southern Theatre, ProMusica will collaborate with Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award-winning composer Caroline Shaw — who, in addition to penning her own compositions, has received widespread attention as a vocalist. She is a member of the a cappella group Roomful of Teeth.
A total of six pieces by Shaw will be performed by the orchestra this weekend — three of which are songs she herself will sing.
“I wanted to give her a platform,” said music director David Danzmayr. “I wanted to just show her in Columbus. ... The whole first half is dedicated to her.”
The concerts are part of the orchestra’s larger objective to feature composers who double as performers — which usually means instrumentalists.
“She sings her own work; she’s also a violinist,” said CEO Janet Chen. “It was kind of like the perfect combination for us.”
The 40-year-old Shaw, who performed with the Columbus Symphony in 2017, had emerged as a potential ProMusica collaborator some time ago.
“I didn’t initially realize that she was a kind of shooting star for composing,” Danzmayr said. “I knew that she was singing in a Roomful of Teeth, but I didn’t realize that she also played the violin and was really a proficient singer. ... It went from there.”
More: ProMusica concertmaster to debut new musical partner: 300-year-old violin
ProMusica booked Shaw for its final program of the 2019-20 season, but, like all live performances in the spring of 2020, it did not take place due to the pandemic.
Shaw — a native of Greenville, North Carolina, who splits her time between New York and Portland, Oregon — is glad for the long-deferred performances to finally materialize.
“My first hearing of ProMusica was very many years ago,” Shaw said. “I studied at Brevard Music Center (in North Carolina) with Katie McLin, who is the (ProMusica) concertmaster.”
The program will include ProMusica performing in different configurations.
The Shaw-focused first half will open with Shaw’s “Blueprint for String Quartet,” which calls for a string quartet, and end with her “Entr’acte for String Orchestra,” which will use all of the string players in the orchestra.
In between will be the three songs — part of a song cycle performed under the title “Is A Rose” — in which the composer herself will be heard.
“I still feel the most excited and comfortable and adventurous when working music for strings and for voices, just because I am deeply familiar with what it feels like to play the instruments and to sing,” Shaw said.
“Is A Rose” consists of songs the composer-singer first wrote for mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in San Francisco.
“All three songs are kind of a look to the beyond ... this idea of losing someone that you love or what will life look like after someone that you love is gone,” Shaw said.
For her part, Shaw prefers to join musicians in performing her work rather than merely listening in the wings.
“I have a lot more fun when I’m up there,” she said.
The second half of the concerts will feature the orchestra performing Johannes Brahms’ “Symphony No. 1.” If it sounds like a more conventional choice than Shaw’s bold work, Danzmayr says otherwise.
“It’s probably my favorite (Brahms symphony), because it’s so flawed,” Danzmayr said. “You can tell what a struggle this piece was for Brahms to write. The movements don’t fit together. ... The first and the last movements, for example, sound like different pieces. The length is all off.”
Spring fun: Big names, festivals and events coming to Columbus area
The conductor said Brahms was anxious about the long shadow cast by Beethoven.
“He felt Beethoven had delivered what a symphony is,” said Danzmayr, who nonetheless embraces the wonkiness of Brahms’ work.
“It’s extremely beautiful,” he said.
But in this weekend’s concerts, Shaw will surely be the star of the show.
“I think audiences will really get a wonderful array and variety of her writing," Chen said.
At a glance
The ProMusica Chamber Orchestra will perform with composer-singer Caroline Shaw at 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday in the Southern Theatre, 21 E. Main St. Tickets start at $18. For more information, visit promusicacolumbus.org.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Composer Caroline Shaw to join ProMusica Chamber Orchestra finale
