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Marin Alsop Leads Andrew Norman’s Unstuck at Cabrillo Festival; BMOP Records Play

Jun. 25, 2013

Marin Alsop Leads Andrew Norman’s <em>Unstuck</em> at Cabrillo Festival; BMOP Records <em>Play</em>

Andrew Norman’s thrilling orchestral work Unstuck makes its way to the west coast this summer for a performance at the Cabrillo Festival led by Marin Alsop. Unstuck opens Cabrillo’s program on August 10, its kinetic energy and swirling soundscape a surefire way to engage audiences in an evening of new music. Premiered by the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich in 2008, Unstuck was born out of a frustrating period of writer’s block for the composer where he finally experienced a breakthrough realization via Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and the now-classic line “Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.” Norman realized that the lack of coherence in his ideas was to be embraced and explored, not overcome. The composer continues:

I realized that my musical materials lent themselves to a narrative arc that, like Vonnegut's character, comes "unstuck" in time. Bits and pieces of the beginning, middle, and end of the music crop up in the wrong places like the flashbacks and flash-forwards that define the structure and style of Slaughterhouse-Five.

I also realized that the word "unstuck" had resonances with the way that a few of the piece’s musical ideas get caught in repetitive loops. The orchestra, perhaps in some way dramatizing my own frustration with composing, spends a considerable amount of time and energy trying to free itself from these moments of stuckness.

Unstuck is seeing increasing exposure on international orchestral stages, with recent performances by The Philadelphia Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and upcoming engagements with the Alabama Symphony, Badische Staatskapelle, and the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Mainz. Marin Alsop and the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra present Unstuck on August 10 at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium.

Also on tap this summer is Boston Modern Orchestra Project's recording sessions of Play, Norman's most recent large-scale work for orchestra.  Play was commissioned as part of the composer's Music Alive residency with BMOP, which is a joint program of NewMusic USA and the League of American Orchestras. Gil Rose conducts the recording sessions at Jordan Hall in Boston on July 1 and the work will be released on BMOP's in-house label, BMOP Sound, later this year.

Visit www.cabrillomusic.org for details on the concert.

To learn more about Andrew Norman and his music, please visit www.schott-music.com.

Unstuck

for orchestra
3(pic).2.ca.3(bcl, Ebcl).3-4.3.3.1-timp.3perc-pno-str

10’

Play (2013)
for chamber orchestra
2.2.2.2-4.3.3.1-3perc-pno-str
ca. 50’

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