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Donald Macleod in conversation with the Pulitzer and three-time Grammy Award-winning American composer Jennifer Higdon. Today they’re discussing the role of the natural world in her music.

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.

The environment is important to Jennifer Higdon. We hear music inspired by places she’s visited or imagined, and she describes how the aural possibilities of the natural world fired her imagination in a work for two marimbas .

City Scape
II: River sings a song to trees
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
Robert Spano, conductor
Scenes From the Poet’s Dreams
II: Summer Shimmers Across the Glass of Green Ponds
The Lark Quartet
Gary Graffman, piano

Autumn Music
Musical Arts Woodwind Quintet

Secret & Glass Gardens (excerpt)
Mary Kathleen Ernst, piano

Splendid Wood (excerpt)
New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble
Frank Epstein, director

All Things Majestic
I: Teton Range:
Nashville Symphony Orchestra
Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor

Producer Johannah Smith