The Percussion Concerto is a one-movement

concerto A concerto (; plural ''concertos'', or ''concerti'' from the Italian plural) is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The ...

for solo

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

and

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, ...

by the American composer

Jennifer Higdon Jennifer Elaine Higdon (born December 31, 1962) is an American composer of contemporary classical music. She has received many awards, including the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her Violin Concerto and three Grammy Awards for Best Contemp ...

. The work was jointly commissioned by the

Philadelphia Orchestra The Philadelphia Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra, based in Philadelphia. One of the " Big Five" American orchestras, the orchestra is based at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, where it performs its subscription concerts, n ...

, the

Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (ISO) is a major American orchestra based in Indianapolis, Indiana. The largest performing arts organization in Indiana, the orchestra was founded in 1930 and is based at the Hilbert Circle Theatre in downtown ...

, and the

Dallas Symphony Orchestra The Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) is an American orchestra based in Dallas, Texas. Its principal performing venue is the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in the Arts District, Dallas, Arts District of downtown Dallas. History The orchestra tr ...

, with contributions from the Philadelphia Music Project and the Lacy Foundation of LDI, Ltd. The piece was completed in 2005 and is dedicated to the percussionist

Colin Currie Colin David Currie is a multi award-winning Scottish people, Scottish virtuoso percussionist. He is the founder and leader of the Colin Currie Group, an ensemble specializing in performing and recording the music of Steve Reich. Biography Ear ...

, for whom the concerto was written. The piece won the

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...

for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. That same year, Higdon won the

Pulitzer Prize for Music The Pulitzer Prize for Music is one of seven Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually in Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first given in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year, and this was eventually converted i ...

for her

Violin Concerto A violin concerto is a concerto for solo violin (occasionally, two or more violins) and instrumental ensemble (customarily orchestra). Such works have been written since the Baroque period, when the solo concerto form was first developed, up thro ...

(2008). In 2020, a recording of the concerto performed by Currie was selected by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

for preservation in the United States

National Recording Registry The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservation ...

for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Reception

The music critic Gregory Sullivan Isaacs of ''Theater Jones'' lauded the Percussion Concerto as "fascinating" and said it "makes wondrous use of percussion in all its wide spectrum of sounds." Tim Smith of ''

The Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local, regional, national, and international news. Founded in 1837, the newspaper was owned by Tribune Publi ...

'' also praised the piece, saying, "Higdon unleashes a kinetic storm of urban beats, balanced by passages of Asian-influenced musings that exploit the most seductive qualities of the diverse percussion instruments assigned to the soloist." Smith continued:

Conductor Conductor or conduction may refer to: Biology and medicine * Bone conduction, the conduction of sound to the inner ear * Conduction aphasia, a language disorder Mathematics * Conductor (ring theory) * Conductor of an abelian variety * Cond ...

and frequent Higdon collaborator

Marin Alsop Marin Alsop (; born October 16, 1956) is an American conductor. She is the first woman to win the Koussevitzky Prize for conducting and the first conductor to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She is music director laureate of the Baltimor ...

wrote of the work, "In this concerto, you can hear the essential qualities about Jennifer as a composer and person — the music is direct, immediate and visceral with clear direction and shape, just some of the qualities that also define her as an 'American' composer." Alsop further remarked, "'Accessible' is often a dirty word in the world of art, but Jennifer embraces the concept and explains that a major priority for her is to give listeners a sense of grounding and a feel for where they are in her compositions. She is far less concerned with formality and technique than she is with the final test of a piece: how it sounds."

References

{{Jennifer Higdon Concertos by Jennifer Higdon 2005 compositions Higdon 21st-century classical music Music commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra Music commissioned by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra Music commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra United States National Recording Registry recordings

Reception

See also

References