21C MEDIA GROUP

Composer Michael Hersch’s new work, Last Autumn, for horn and cello, will receive its world premiere on Saturday, October 17 at 8:00 pm in Philadelphia’s St. Mark’s Church.  Another version of the composition, for saxophone and cello, will be heard in its world premiere in New York next February.

Hersch, who lives in the Philadelphia area, performed the world premiere of his two-hour work The Vanishing Pavilions entirely from memory there.  David Patrick Stearns, music critic of the Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote of the premiere that Hersch “conjured volcanic gestures from the piano with astonishing virtuosity.”   Hersch’s boxed-set recording of The Vanishing Pavilions on the Vanguard Classics label has garnered a great deal of attention.  Vanguard Classics is releasing another CD of Hersch’s works this month: his Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2 for Unaccompanied Cello is the first in a planned Vanguard survey of Hersch’s complete solo and chamber music for strings, to be released over the next three years. The second volume in the series, to be released in 2010, will feature his works for violin, including 14 Pieces, Five Fragments, and the wreckage of flowers.  The third installment, scheduled for a 2011 release, will present Hersch’s unaccompanied works for double bass and viola.

The composer comments about Last Autumn and its first performance:

“Last Autumn for horn and cello is the sister work to The Vanishing Pavilions.  Like The Vanishing Pavilions, it is intended to fill an entire concert program.  Together, the two pieces required almost seven years to compose.  Completed in 2008, Last Autumn is built around poetic fragments of the late W.G. Sebald.  The work was written for two extraordinary musicians: my brother, horn player Jamie Hersch, and cellist Daniel Gaisford.”

 

Saturday, October 17, 2009 at 8 pm
World premiere of Last Autumn for horn and cello
St. Mark’s Church
1625 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA
Jamie Hersch, horn
Daniel Gaisford, cello

www.michaelhersch.com

© 21C Media Group, October 2009

Published: October 14, 2009

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