Name Jennifer Higdon | ||
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Role Composer ยท jenniferhigdon.com Awards Pulitzer Prize for Music Education University of Pennsylvania, Bowling Green State University, Curtis Institute of Music Compositions Violin Concerto, Violin Concerto, Fanfare Ritmico, Fanfare Ritmico, Zaka, Zaka, rapid*fire, rapid*fire, Concerto for Orchestra: II, Concerto for Orchestra: II, Voices: II Soft Enlacing -, Voices: II Soft Enlacing -, Concerto for Orchestra: I, Concerto for Orchestra: I, Piano Trio: II Fiery Red, Piano Trio: II Fiery Red, Voices: III Grace, Voices: III Grace, Concerto for Orchestra: IV, Concerto for Orchestra: IV, Clarinet Sonata: I Calmly, Clarinet Sonata: I Calmly, City Scape: III Peachtree Street, City Scape: III Peachtree Street, Impressions: II Quiet Art, Impressions: II Quiet Art, Violin Concerto: III Fly Forward, Violin Concerto: III Fly Forward, On a Wire, On a Wire, Clarinet Sonata: II Declamatory, Clarinet Sonata: II Declamatory, Concerto 4-3: III Roaring Smokies, Concerto 4-3: III Roaring Smokies, Concerto 4-3: I The Shallows, Concerto 4-3: I The Shallows, Voices: I Blitz -, Voices: I Blitz -, Impressions: III To the Point, Impressions: III To the Point, Concerto for Orchestra: III, Concerto for Orchestra: III, Violin Concerto: II Chaconni, Violin Concerto: II Chaconni, Concerto 4-3: II Little River, Concerto 4-3: II Little River, blue cathedral, blue cathedral, Impressions: IV Noted Canvas, Impressions: IV Noted Canvas, Impressions: I Bright Palette, Impressions: I Bright Palette, Concerto for Orchestra: V, Concerto for Orchestra: V, City Scape: II River Sings a Song to Trees, City Scape: II River Sings a Song to Trees, Piano Trio: I Pale Yellow, Piano Trio: I Pale Yellow, City Scape: I SkyLine, City Scape: I SkyLine, Violin Concerto: I 1726, Violin Concerto: I 1726 Similar People Robert Spano, Hilary Hahn, Gene Scheer, Jennifer Koh, Vasily Petrenko | ||
Preconcert interview with jennifer higdon
Jennifer Higdon (born December 31, 1962) is an American composer of classical music and composition teacher. She has received many awards including the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto and a 2009 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for her Percussion Concerto.
Contents
- Preconcert interview with jennifer higdon
- Grammy winning composer Jennifer Higdon Music is a family
- Biography
- Work and performances
- Aesthetic
- Reception
- Awards
- Selected discography
- References
Grammy-winning composer Jennifer Higdon: 'Music is a family'
Biography
Jennifer Higdon was born in Brooklyn, New York. She spent the first 10 years of her life in Atlanta, Georgia before moving to Seymour, Tennessee. Largely self-taught, she played flute in her high school's concert band and percussion in marching band, but heard little classical music before her college years. She studied flute performance at Bowling Green State University with Judith Bentley, who encouraged her to explore composition. During her time at Bowling Green, she wrote her first composition, a two-minute piece for flute and piano named Night Creatures. Of playing in the university orchestra, she has said: "Because I came to classical music very differently than most people, the newer stuff had more appeal for me than the older." While at Bowling Green she met Robert Spano, who was teaching a conducting course there and who became one of the champions of Higdon's music in the American orchestral community.
Higdon earned an Artist's Diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with David Loeb and taught virtuoso Hilary Hahn. She then obtained both a Master of Arts and Doctor of Composition in composition from the University of Pennsylvania under the tutelage of George Crumb. She teaches composition at the Curtis Institute where she holds the Milton L. Rock Chair in Compositional Studies. She has served as Composer-in-Residence with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Fort Worth Symphony.
Higdon lives with her wife Cheryl Lawson in Philadelphia. They met in high school.
Work and performances
Higdon has received commissions from major symphonies including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, the National Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, and the Dallas Symphony. Conductors who worked extensively with her include Christoph Eschenbach, Marin Alsop, Leonard Slatkin, and Giancarlo Guerrero.
She wrote her first opera based on Charles Frazier's 1997 novel, Cold Mountain with a libretto by Gene Scheer. It was co-commissioned by The Santa Fe Opera and Opera Philadelphia and premiered in Santa Fe in 2015.
Her works have been recorded on more than four dozen CDs. Her most popular work is blue cathedral, a one-movement tone poem dealing with the death of her brother from cancer, which premiered in 2000. It has been performed by more than 400 orchestras since.
Aesthetic
Many of Jennifer Higdon's pieces are considered neoromantic and tend to use octatonic scales. Her musical style uses elements of traditional tonality and display a freedom of form, intense dynamic changes and dense textures. Although Higdon's pieces are mostly tonal, some atonality is still present.
Reception
The League of American Orchestras reported Higdon as one of the most performed living American composers, in 2008. "Higdon's music is lithe and expert," wrote Robert Battey of the Washington Post. "Jennifer Higdon's vivid, attractive works have made her a hot commodity lately," wrote Steve Smith of the New York Times. Of her Concerto for Orchestra, Richard Morrison in The Times (London) stated that "it is rare to witness a big new orchestral piece being acclaimed as Jennifer Higdon's Concerto for Orchestra was cheered on ... The most impressive aspect is the panache with which a huge orchestra is deployed ... This colourful, ever-changing instrumental panoply is doubtless one reason why the work makes an instant impression ... Higdon's work is traditionally rooted yet imbued with integrity, freshness and a desire to entertain."
Among less favorable assessments, Andrew Clements in the Guardian gave a CD of Higdon's music a minimal one-star rating. He referred to the music as "American contemporary music at its most vacuous, a noisy mishmash". Tom Service, also in the Guardian also criticized Higdon's Concerto For Orchestra. He wrote: "The problem with Higdon's piece ... is that its flamboyant gestures ... function only as surface effects, without creating any real structural momentum." Similarly, though in a more positive review, Raymond Tuttle wrote that "even though the Concerto for Orchestra is not remarkable for its melodic content, there is so much color and brilliance in Higdon's writing ... that few listeners will notice."
Awards
Higdon received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts & Letters (two awards), the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, Meet-the-Composer, the National Endowment for the Arts, and ASCAP. In addition she has received grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Higdon has been a featured composer at festivals including Grand Teton, Tanglewood, Vail, Norfolk, Winnipeg and Cabrillo.
She received a 2010 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for her Percussion Concerto.
Higdon won the annual Pulitzer Prize for Music for her Violin Concerto (Lawdon Press), which premiered February 6, 2009, in Indianapolis. The Pulitzer citation called it "a deeply engaging piece that combines flowing lyricism with dazzling virtuosity." It was commissioned jointly by the Indianapolis Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Baltimore Symphony and the Curtis Institute of Music.