U.S. Premiere of EURYDICE: A SERENADE FOR STRINGS and More Set for Composer Russell Platt's 2013-14 Season

Noted American composer Russell Platt will have a banner year in the 2013-14 season, highlighted by the world premieres of three new works, a U.S. premiere that is also the first performance of his music by a major American orchestra, and a recording of a recent concerto, as well as performances of his works in New York City, Washington, DC, and on tour:

- The U.S. premiere of Eurydice: A Serenade for Strings presented by the Buffalo Philharmonic led by its music director, JoAnn Falletta, on April 26 & 27, 2014, marking the first performance of Platt's music by a major American orchestra. The work was commissioned and premiered by the Orchestre Symphonique Bienne (Biel) of Switzerland in 2011.

- The world premiere of Jack and the Beanstalk, a work for narrator, oboe, and string trio for the renowned New York ensemble An die Musik, at New York's Merkin Concert Hall on November 10, 2013.

- The performance and recording of Concerto for Bassoon and Strings, with soloist George Sakakeeny, Oberlin Conservatory's distinguished Professor of Bassoon, and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble led by Tim Weiss, on December 10, 2013. When the concerto was premiered by soloist Peter Kolkay and the Wisconsin Philharmonic led by Alexander Platt in 2008, Tom Strini in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel called it "a lock to become a standard work for bassoonists aspiring to more than sideman status in classical music."

- The world premiere of a song cycle on poems of Elizabeth Bishop commissioned by the Curtis Institute of Music for Curtis On Tour, the conservatory's student-faculty national performance tour in the winter of 2014.

- The world premiere of the song cycle Three Poems of Jeffrey Greene performed by the Mirror Visions Ensemble at the American University of Paris on March 27, 2014. This trio of soprano Vira Slywotzky, tenor Scott Murphree, and baritone Jesse Blumberg also commissioned and premiered Platt's From Noon to Starry Night: A Walt Whitman Cantata, about which Anthony Tommasini said in The New York Times in 2010, "the songs truly evoke a cantata by setting Whitman's words for long stretches with close-knit, pungent block harmonies for three singers."

- Memoir for Flute and Piano, to be performed by the Verge Ensemble at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on September 8, 2013. This 2010 work was premiered by Marya Martin and Shai Wosner at the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival.

- "Two Whitman Panels," an excerpt from the Walt Whitman Cantata, to be performed by baritone Jesse Blumberg (of the Mirror Visions Ensemble) and the American Modern Ensemble on its "Winter Songs" program at New York's DiMenna Center for Classical Music on December 3, 2013.

Looking ahead to 2014 and 2015, two commissioned works will have their world premieres:

- Piano Trio, to be performed by the pianist Bruce Levingston, the violinist Colin Jacobsen, and the cellist Eric Jacobsen, commissioned by Premiere Commission, an admired New York organization devoted exclusively to presenting new works performed by leading artists, in the 2014-15 season.

- A new work for the Borromeo String Quartet, commissioned by Maverick Concerts in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the legendary summer chamber music festival in Woodstock, New York, in summer 2015.

"[Russell Platt's] music has substance and an individual voice, and this is where craft meets imagination." -(Berkshire) Advocate Weekly

Russell Platt's music has been consistently performed by exceptional musicians, including the New York Festival of Song, the Knights, the St. Petersburg and Amernet String Quartets, the Metropolitan Opera tenor Paul Appleby, I Virtuosi Italiani Orchestra of Verona, the Verdehr Trio, Colin and Eric Jacobsen of the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, the bassoonist Peter Kolkay, the violinist Frank Almond, the pianists Lydia Artymiw, Brian Zeger and Margo Garrett, and the conductor Alexander Platt with the Wisconsin Philharmonic. He has received commissions from Bargemusic, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Ensembles, the Dale Warland Singers, the American Composers Forum, and the Mirror Visions Ensemble, among others.

An alumnus of Oberlin College, the Curtis Institute of Music, the University of Minnesota (Ph.D. 1995), and St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, and a six-time resident at Yaddo, Platt has won both the Charles Ives Scholarship and Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a 2007 Copland House Fellowship; as a writer, he has been honored with a 2010 ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for Music Criticism. He has been the classical music editor and critic for Goings On at The New Yorker since 2000.

To read and hear more, visit www.russellplatt.com.

Photo Credit: Richard Frank

To post a comment, you must register and login.