Nashville Symphony and Giancarlo Guerrero present album of works by Christopher Rouse out on Naxos July 24, 2020
Christopher Rouse: Symphony No. 5
Supplica * Concerto for Orchestra
Nashville Symphony and Giancarlo Guerrero present the world premiere recording of Christopher Rouse’s Fifth Symphony out July 24, 2020
The second of three new albums of American Music from Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony to be released on Naxos this summer is the first significant recording of the late composer’s work since his death in September 2019
“Without music my life would have had no meaning. It has not only informed my life or enriched my life; it has GIVEN me life and a reason for living. I’ll never be able to explain why these vibrating frequencies have the power to transport us to levels of consciousness that defy words — I simply accept the fact that music has this miraculous power for me and for myriad other people I have known.” – Christopher Rouse
On July 24, 2020, Naxos will release a world premiere recording of music by Pulitzer and GRAMMY® award-winning composer Christopher Rouse (1949-2019) performed by the GRAMMY-winning combination of the Nashville Symphony with conductor Giancarlo Guerrero. The album is the second of three new recordings of American Music to be released on Naxos this summer from Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony. An album dedicated to works by composer Aaron Jay Kernis was released in June and a recording of opera-inspired works for orchestra by Tobias Picker will be released in August.
Few contemporary American composers have been as significant as Christopher Rouse in revitalizing the appeal of orchestral music. When he was embarking on his career in his native Baltimore in the 1960’s, traditional orchestral music was considered a dead end by many composers. Rouse made his name by turning that perception around, filling concert halls with the sounds of contemporary music that audiences wanted to hear. His work earned Rouse a Pulitzer Prize for Music, GRAMMY® Awards, and popular success throughout his career. Rouse’s imaginative approach to the concerto and the symphony resulted in a substantial body of works that made him one of the most frequently performed living composers during his own lifetime, and his oeuvre continues to show staying power following his death in September 2019.
Commissioned by the Dallas Symphony, the Nashville Symphony and the Aspen Music Festival in 2014-15, Rouse’s Symphony No. 5 comes to terms with his sense of what it means to be a successor to the great composers of the past. “The first piece of ‘classical music’ I remember hearing,” wrote Rouse, “was Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. I remember thinking that a whole new world was opening up to me. I decided that I wanted to become a composer. So when it came time for me to compose my own Fifth Symphony, I resolved to tip my cap to Beethoven’s mighty symphony.” This can be heard from the first, as the composer revisits Beethoven’s famous four-note rhythm, “but the notes are quite different, and things take a different turn after a few bars.”
“Performing and recording Christopher Rouse’s 5th Symphony was an especially meaningful experience as I got to know him and collaborate with him at the end of his life,” says Giancarlo Guerrero. “He came to Nashville for both recordings and with each visit, he became closer to the players and audiences. I am beyond thrilled that before he left us, we could give him this one last honor of championing his music, giving him a voice toward the end. Our responsibility is to carry these composers’ music on into the world, making sure it lives on by cataloging and keeping a permanent record of their work. That is the whole point of what we do.”
The single-movement Supplica originated as a commission from the Pittsburgh and Pacific symphony orchestras in 2013. The composer felt an “inner compulsion to write” the piece yet was reluctant to disclose whatever personal significance Supplica held for him. Thomas May writes, “Even on first encounter, it’s difficult not to be drawn into the intimacy and passion of this music, which unfolds somewhat like the slow movement from a lost Bruckner or Mahler symphony. The sound world here is pared down to include only horns, brass, harp and strings, which makes an especially notable difference for listeners accustomed to other scores by this wizard of the orchestra. Rouse’s title is the Italian word for ‘entreaty’ or ‘supplication,’ and the music indeed conveys the intense concentration and directed emotion of a prayerful plea.”
The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music commissioned Rouse’s Concerto for Orchestra, which premiered in 2008. The work grapples with the paradigm of the concerto genre itself, in that the orchestra musicians themselves become the soloists in lieu of a single soloist engaged as the center of attention. Rouse also notes that the work is divided into “connected halves (the term being used loosely),” in a way that “draw(s) the listener in more and more as the work progresse[s], with the final allegro building to a frenzied, almost hysterical, climax.”
About the Nashville Symphony: One of Tennessee’s largest and longest-running nonprofit performing arts organizations, the Nashville Symphony has been an integral part of the Music City sound since 1946. Led by music director Giancarlo Guerrero and president and CEO Alan D. Valentine, the 83-member ensemble performs more than 160 concerts annually, with a focus on contemporary American orchestral music through collaborations with composers including Jennifer Higdon, Terry Riley, Michael Daugherty, John Harbison, Jonathan Leshnoff, and the late Christopher Rouse. The orchestra is equally renowned for its commissioning and recording projects with Nashville-based artists including bassist Edgar Meyer, banjoist Béla Fleck, singer-songwriter Ben Folds, electric bassist Victor Wooten, and composer Kip Winger. The Nashville Symphony is one of the most active recording orchestras in the US, with more than 30 releases. Together, these recordings have earned a total of 25 GRAMMY Award nominations and 13 GRAMMY Awards, including two for Best Orchestral Performance. Schermerhorn Symphony Center is home to the Nashville Symphony and widely regarded as one of the finest concert halls in the US.
About Giancarlo Guerrero: Six-time GRAMMY Award-winning conductor Giancarlo Guerrero is music director of the Nashville Symphony and the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic in Poland, as well as principal guest conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, Portugal. He has championed contemporary American music through numerous commissions, recordings and performances with the Nashville Symphony, presenting eleven world premieres of works by Jonathan Leshnoff, Michael Daugherty, Terry Riley, and others. As part of this commitment, he helped guide the creation of Nashville Symphony’s Composer Lab & Workshop initiative. In North America, Guerrero has appeared with the orchestras of Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Toronto, and the National Symphony Orchestra. He has developed a strong international profile working with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Brussels Philharmonic, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. An advocate for music education, he works with the Curtis Institute of Music, Colburn School, the National Youth Orchestra (NYO2) in New York, and the Nashville Symphony’s Accelerando program, which provides intensive music education to promising young students from diverse ethnic backgrounds.
About Christopher Rouse (1949-2019): Christopher Rouse’s works have won a Pulitzer Prize (for his Trombone Concerto) and a GRAMMY Award (for Concert de Gaudí), as well as election to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters. Rouse created a body of work perhaps unequalled in its emotional intensity. The New York Times has called it "some of the most anguished, most memorable music around" and The Baltimore Sun has written: "When the music history of the late 20th century is written, I suspect the explosive and passionate music of Rouse will loom large."
Born in Baltimore in 1949, Rouse developed an early interest in both classical and popular music. He graduated from Oberlin Conservatory and Cornell University, numbering among his principal teachers George Crumb and Karel Husa. Rouse maintained a steady interest in popular music: at the Eastman School of Music, where he was Professor of Composition until 2002, he taught a course in the history of rock for many years. Rouse was Composer-in-Residence with the New York Philharmonic from 2012-15 and a member of the composition faculty at The Juilliard School until his death in September 2019.
While the Rouse catalog includes acclaimed chamber and ensemble works, he is best known for his mastery of orchestral writing. His music has been played by every major orchestra in the U.S., and numerous ensembles overseas including the Berlin Philharmonic, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney and Melbourne Symphonies, the London Symphony, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Stockholm Philharmonic, the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Gulbenkian Orchestra of Lisbon, the Toronto Symphony, the Vienna Symphony, the Orchestre National de France, the Moscow Symphony, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Bamberg Symphony, the Bournemouth Symphony, and the Orchestre Symphonique du Montreal, as well as the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the radio orchestras of Helsinki, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig, Tokyo, Austria, and Berlin.
For more information or to purchase click here.