European American Music Distributors Company is a member of the Schott Music Group

Tobias Picker Portrait Concert by the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, led by Jamie Reeves, Features the US Premiere of his Cello Concerto

Nov. 25, 2025

On November 17, The Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Jamie Reeves, presented an All-Picker program, including The Encantadas (narrated by the composer), And Suddenly It's Evening, as well as the US premiere of Picker's Cello Concerto, featuring Santiago Cañón-Valencia.

In The Encantadas, Tobias Picker draws his text from Herman Melville’s vivid and poetic descriptions of the sea-swept Galapagos Islands he visited in 1841, as part of a whaling voyage he undertook to gather background material for Moby Dick. Each of the six movements evokes a different picture of life in the islands’ equatorial wilderness. The composer capitalizes on the enchantment implicit in Melville’s title and so richly developed in the narration, aptly probing the sinister undercurrent that emerges from the text.


Tobias Picker and Giancarlo Guerrero discuss The Encantadas


Tobias Picker/And Suddenly It's Evening/Russian Philharmonic Orchestra/Thomas Sanderling, conductor


Tobias Picker/"Brief Journey," Mvt II from Cello Concerto/Paul Watkins, cello/
Russian Philharmonic Orchestra/Thomas Sanderling, conductor

To learn more about Tobias Picker, visit schott-music.com.

Tobias Picker
for narrator and orchestra
text (Eng) by Herman Melville
I. Dream
II. Desolation
III. Delusion
IV. Diversity
V. Din
VI. Dawn
2(2.pic).2(2.ca).2(2.bcl).2-4.2.3.1-timp.3perc-hp.pno-str
27'
Version also available for narrator and chamber orchestra:
2(2.pic).2(2.ca).2(2.bcl).2-2.2.0.0-timp.2perc(drums, s.d, b.d, marac, cym, sus cyms, whip, glsp, xyl, vib)-hp.pno-str

Translated versions include Japanese, German and Spanish

And Suddenly It's Evening (1994)
for orchestra
pic.2.2.ca.2.bcl.2.cbsn-4.2.3.1-timp-hp.pno-str(also solo strings)
16'

Cello Concerto (1999)
for cello and orchestra
2(2.afl,pic).2(2.ca).2(2.bcl).2-4.2.0.0-timp-hp.pno-str
24'

News