How do we transform and transcend loss as we grieve? The violinist and composer Curtis Stewart spent four years caring for his cancer-stricken mother, a composer and violinist herself. His latest album, of Love., is a personal requiem and tender tribute to his mother's memory. This concert brings together excerpts from Stewart’s album and Grieg's buoyant yet nostalgic Holberg Suite, and also features Missy Mazzoli's gothic and shadowy violin concerto, Dark with Excessive Bright.
Curtis Stewart's was hailed by The New York Times as "a giant...combining omnivory and brilliance." A fierce advocate for other living composers, Stewart was recently appointed artistic director of American Composers Orchestra.
Curtis Stewart: Selections from “of Love”
Grieg: Holberg Suite
Gesualdo: “Resta di darmi noia” (arr. J. Posthuma)
Missy Mazzoli: Dark With Excessive Bright
inti figgis-vizueta: Coradh
Deanna Tham, Conductor
Curtis Stewart, Violin & Composer
Oregon Symphony
Berlioz paints a portrait of obsessive love with opium-fueled visions of cinematic realism, featuring haunting ballroom waltzes, a march to the guillotine, and maniacal witches’ dances. Opening the program, Debussy’s tone poem heaves with hazy sensuality, and violinist Carolin Widmann explores nature and love in works by Takemitsu and Chausson.
