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World Premiere of Tobias Picker's Charles

Nov. 01, 2018

World Premiere of Tobias Picker's <em>Charles</em>

On November 14, pianist Heather O'Donnell performs the world premiere of Charles by Tobias Picker and other new works commissioned by Perspectives of New Music for the 80th birthday celebration of the composer, Charles Wuorinen. Part of a "Wuorinen Week" at the Eastman School of Music, the concert will include ten compositions written for the Perspectives volume for Spring 2019.

The composer describes his inspiration for the work:

In search of a teacher, I went to Tanglewood in the summer of 1972 to hear the world premiere of Charles Wuorinen’s Concerto for Amplified Violin and Orchestra played by Paul Zukofsky with the BSO.  As soon as the concerto began, I thought I had come face to face with God. After it was over, I went back stage, introduced myself to Wuorinen and asked if I could study with him. Later that year he became my teacher and later still, my mentor and eventually my best friend. I based Charles on the first three notes of his 1971 First String Quartet, a piece I fell in love with as a teen and listened to probably two hundred times. I still love Charles and his music - and I always will. 


Listen to Tobias Picker's orchestral work And Suddenly It's Evening (1994) here:


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

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

Tobias Picker
Charles (2018)
for solo piano
5'




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