KPBS: French impressionism meets bioluminescence in symphonic study of music and nature
Author: Julia Dixon Evans
Vivian Fung's "Violin Concerto No. 1" will be performed by the orchestra with soloist Nancy Zhou. Fung's composition draws on both Western styles and Balinese gamelan music.
"It fuses these two different styles together in a remarkable way that not only showcases the virtuosity of our soloist but also of the orchestra — it's not an easy piece to put together. There's a lot of technicality in the writing. But it is beautifully orchestrated, it's extremely colorful and that's why I think it fits so nicely in this program," Patel said. "We get a little bit of the taste of the original colorists in the French composers that are in the second half (of the concert). But we also have music from this current generation that stands on the shoulders of these great composers from the past."
Patel described playing works from boundary-pushing contemporary composers like Smith and Fung is a particularly interesting undertaking for orchestras.
"One of the things that I love about living composers — especially as I look at their music or listen to their music — I'm just in awe of how they're able to create the sounds that they have,” Patel said. “That is the case in this work that we're going to perform, 'Bioluminescence Chaconne,’ which has these soundscapes that sound not traditionally orchestral, but they sound like they could be happening in nature somewhere."