National Arts Centre Orchestra Will Give Canadian Premiere of Major Work By Gity Razaz Next Month

Composer Gity Razaz's major new orchestral work, Methuselah (In Chains of Time) will have its Canadian premiere in performances by the National Arts Centre Orchestra conducted by Alexander Shelley on February 7 and 8, 2024 at 8pm at National Arts Centre's Southam Hall (1 Elgin Street, Ottawa). The concerts also include Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade and Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto performed by Blake Pouliot.

 

Gity Razaz, who was born in Tehran, Iran in 1986 and now lives in New York, is a composer whose music is deeply influenced by the constantly changing, at times tumultuous, realities of the world, including her identity and personal journey as an immigrant. This process of what Razaz describes as “uprooting and rebuilding” occupies much of her work, resulting in music that is emotionally charged and dramatic, while still maintaining mystery and lyricism. Her compositions are her means of responding to a hyperactive, disconnected world and offering transformation to listeners.

 

Methuselah (In Chains of Time) is inspired by a nearly 5000-year-old Great Basin bristlecone pine tree growing in the White Mountains in California. Razaz was struck by what she describes as, “the awe-inspiring shape of the trunk, braided around its core and twisting upwards from the bone-dry surface of the rock-covered ground.”

 

She writes, “As I was composing the piece, I was constantly thinking about the remarkable endurance of life, a single-minded, unapologetic force whose sole purpose is to perpetuate survival in spite of all the odds. I could not help seeing parallels in various aspects of our world: the persistence of hope, the striving for advancement, and the fight for justice and betterment. Such ideals essentially sprout from the same impulse, embedded in our DNA: to thrive.”

 

Methuselah (In Chains of Time) was commissioned by the League of American Orchestras and Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. It was premiered by the San Diego Symphony conducted by Rafael Payare in a highly praised performance:

 

“Gity Razaz's Methuselah (In Chains of Time) received an auspicious world premiere Saturday. Razaz has a compelling voice and refreshing command of sonority and harmony. Highly charged fragments of tonally suggestive melodies, each on the verge of zipping off into space, are yolked together and anchored in sustained drones of harmonic semi-light. Brilliant use of orchestral color and a careful shaping of foreground and background ideas create an opulent and suggestive sonic landscape. The percussion were especially captivating in her piece, with mallet instruments and auxiliary sounds played expertly and with a great advocacy of her music.” (San Diego Union-Tribune)

 

In addition to the Canadian premiere of Methuselah (In Chains of Time), other spring 2024 highlights for Razaz include a performance by Alisa Weilerstein of Secrets, Invocations for solo cello, presented by Washington Performing Arts at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC on April 6, 2024. The piece in two movements was commissioned by Weilerstein as part of her multi-year FRAGMENTS project which weaves the 36 movements of Bach's solo cello suites with 27 newly commissioned works.

 

From April 12-16, 2024, Gity Razaz's new song cycle, Flowing Down the Widening Rings of Being, will be premiered in New York, NY at the Kaufman Music Center (April 12); in Rockville, MD at the Bender JCC (April 14); and in Seattle, WA at Meany Center for the Performing Arts (April 16). Flowing Down the Widening Rings of Being for tenor, violin, viola, cello, clarinet, harp and piano is based on poetry and prose of Rumi and Rainer Maria Rilke, with an intro from Emerson's essay Circles. It is commissioned and will be performed by the Israeli Chamber Project with Lebanese-American tenor Karim Sulayman.

 

More about Gity Razaz:

 

Gity Razaz's music has been commissioned and/or performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, Seattle Symphony, San Diego Symphony Orchestra, Washington National Opera, National Sawdust, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, former cellist of the Kronos Quartet Jeffrey Zeigler, cellist Inbal Segev, violinist Jennifer Koh, League of the American Orchestras, violinist Francesca dePasquale, Metropolis Ensemble, Albany Symphony Orchestra, Juilliard Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, and Amsterdam Cello Biennale among many others.

 

Recent works include a piece for Alisa Weilerstein and her ground-breaking project Fragments, a commission from BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo for the prestigious Last Night of the BBC Proms at London's Royal Albert Hall, and a world premiere with San Diego Symphony under Rafael Payare as part of an ambitious multiple-orchestra spanning initiative from the League of American Orchestras. Upcoming commissions include a collaboration with Israeli Chamber Project and the Grammy-winning tenor, Karim Sulayman, as well as a concerto for flautist Sharon Bezaly and London's Wigmore Soloists.

 

Her compositions have earned numerous national and international awards, such as the Andrew Imbrie Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters that is “is given to a composer of demonstrated artistic merit in mid-career”, the Jerome Foundation award, the Libby Larsen Prize in 28th International Search for New Music Competition, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Composer Institute, Juilliard Composers' Orchestra Competition, multiple ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer awards, ASCAP Plus Awards, Juilliard's Palmer Dixon Award for the outstanding composition of the year in 2010 and 2012, as well as special recognition from the Brian Israel Composition Prize, Margaret Blackburn Memorial Competition, the League of Composers (ISCM), to name a few.     

 

Razaz's debut album, The Strange Highway, which was recently released on Sweden's preeminent BIS Records, has garnered international praise. As described by BBC Music Magazine, “There's an uncompromising beauty to these works by the Iranian-born American composer, the opening title work, for cello octet, is a wild rhythmic ride, while the closing Metamorphosis of Narcissus offers some fantastic musical storytelling. Impressive.”

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