Â鶹ԼÅÄ

Donald Macleod in conversation with the Pulitzer and three-time Grammy Award-winning American composer Jennifer Higdon. Their focus today is writing for strings.

If you were to ask Jennifer Higdon what her biggest musical influence might be, she’s more likely to cite Lennon and McCartney than Bach or Beethoven. Born in 1962 in New York, the soundtrack of her childhood was the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel and Peter Paul and Mary, the Rolling Stones, and reggae. A move to Atlanta, Georgia, and then to a farmhouse in rural Tennessee, added bluegrass and country music. It wasn’t until Higdon was in her teens that her musical curiosity directed her towards classical music. Formal studies followed, and she began to compose when she was 21 years old. Coming to classical music later on, has been, according to Higdon, a significant factor in her own musical language. She’s now one of the most performed living American composers. Having just completed her second opera and a concerto in the past year, Higdon is much in demand, with commissions on her books that take her right up to 2024.

Recorded at the end of May, speaking to Donald Macleod from Articulate Studios in Philadelphia, USA, in an extended interview Jennifer Higdon gives a fascinating insight into her life and her musical preoccupations. Starting with strings on Monday, they move on to vocal writing, the influence of colour on music, the natural world and writing concertos, an area which has now become something of a speciality.

Today Jennifer Higdon and Donald Macleod discuss her musical roots, her earliest attempts at composition, and how she would find success with her Concerto for Orchestra.

Dance Card
No 5 Machina Rockus
Chicago Sinfonietta

String Poetic
II: Nocturne arr for cello and piano
Louise King, cello
Therese Milanovic, piano

String Poetic
III: Blue Hills of Mist
Jennifer Koh, violin
Reiko Uchida, piano

Echo dash
Hilary Hahn, violin
Cory Smythe, piano

Voices
Pacifica Quartet
Viola Sonata
II: Declamatory
Molly Carr, viola
Charles Abramovic, piano

Concerto for Orchestra
Second movement
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
Robert Spano, conductor

Producer: Johannah Smith