Full Circle Moments
It's mid-October as of this writing, which means we're back from our In Harmony Tour and barreling forward with our season! We've already had our first Classics concert in Whitney Hall, and we're about to embark on Classics 2 on October 24th and 25th: a really special program for me, as it features music not only by Anthony and Chelsea, but by an "alum" of our program, Lisa Bielawa. Lisa was in the inaugural LOCC cohort in 2022-23 and has been incredibly influential in shaping what this program looks like today. (Oh yes, we're also playing a symphony by some obscure 19th-century German composer that I don't think many people have heard of.)
It has been a long-standing tradition at the LO to "inaugurate" each LOCC cohort to our audience by performing their works on the Whitney Hall stage at one of our first Classics concerts each season. We typically perform pre-existing works -- as they usually don't have time to write new ones this early! -- that serve to introduce both them and their music to our audiences, who will see and hear from them repeatedly throughout the season. This year has been unusual in that folks in other parts of Kentucky have already had the opportunity to experience world premieres by both Anthony and Chelsea before Louisvillians have. But while those pieces involved a subset of the orchestra, the works we'll perform take advantage of the full forces on our main stage.
The whole first half of the concert is dedicated to works by our Creators: Anthony's Ev'ry Time I Blink, Chelsea's A Hidden Sun Rises, and the world premiere of Lisa's new violin concerto for Tessa Lark, Violin Concerto no. 2: "PULSE". You can read more about them in our digital program, but what makes this program so touching to me is that it connects LOCC of the present with its past. Lisa's new concerto is a direct result of her participation in this program. I distinctly remember sitting with Lisa, Tessa, Teddy, and Graham Parker on the top deck of the Mine 606 bar in Pikeville, KY, just after our show at Appalachian Wireless Arena on May 18, 2023. We had premiered HOME, a new work by Lisa, on this tour: a collaboration with singer-songwriter Lindsey Branson that featured traditional Appalachian musicians as well as Tessa. Lisa floated the idea to Graham and Teddy: a partnership between a Kentuckian (Tessa) and an honorary Kentuckian (Lisa) that would further explore the melding of traditional Appalachian music and contemporary orchestral music. Additionally, Tessa had already been a featured soloist with us on numerous occasions - a new work commissioned for her was the perfect next step in our artistic partnership. We were several bourbons in by this point, but the excitement on both Teddy's and Graham's faces was undeniable.
Two and a half years later, here we are, premiering a significant new work built out of relationships created purely in Kentucky, purely by the LO, and specifically by the Creators Corps program. Though strictly speaking, LOCC residencies last only one year, the relationships we build with the composers in this program are lifelong. We had already premiered a brand-new double concerto by LOCC alum Alex Berko last season to terrific success. The true impact of the program is not purely in the quantity of new works and composers, but how deeply these composers become part of the Louisville Orchestra history and future.
-Jacob Gotlib, Senior Creators Corps Program Manager