Jennifer Higdon
Composer of the Year
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is proud to announce Jennifer Higdon as our composer of the year for our 2005-2006 season. Jennifer is an exciting composer, creating fresh and engaging works for today’s orchestras. She has received numerous commissions for prominent orchestras including the The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Chicago Symphony, The Atlanta Symphony, The National Symphony, The Minnesota Orchestra, The Brooklyn Philharmonic and many other orchestras as well. For our upcoming season, the Pittsburgh Symphony will perform the world premier of our own commission from the prolific Higdon, entitled Concerto for Trombone featuring the PSO’s principal trombonist, Peter Sullivan.
In addition to Concerto for Trombone, the Pittsburgh Symphony will perform her works: blue cathedral, Concerto for Orchestra, and Loco. These works became famous at their premières for reviving excitement in modern music among rather conservative audiences. Higdon has proven her mastery of composition, simultaneously challenging her audience’s mind while engaging the whole person. So if you enjoy modern music or if you dislike modern music but want to hear something fresh, Jennifer Hidgon’s premières at Heinz Hall are must sees!
Higdon received Ph. D. and M.A. degrees in composition from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.M. in flute performance from Bowling Green State University. She has been honored with awards and grants 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.
Her works have been recorded on over 2 dozen CDs. In Spring of 2003 Telarc released "blue cathedral" with the Atlanta Symphony, Robert Spano, conducting, on a disc that made the Classical Billboard charts. Telarc also released the Grammy Award-winning “Higdon: Concerto for Orchestra/City Scape”.
Higdon enjoys more than a hundred performances a year of her works. Her orchestral work, “blue cathedral”, is one of the most performed contemporary orchestral works in the United States, receiving more than 50 performances in the ’04 -’05 season alone. The “Concerto for Orchestra’, which the Philadelphia Orchestra commissioned, has received more than 20 performances since its June, 2002 premiere.
For a complete biography: www.jenniferhigdon.com/biography.html
Come hear the PSO perform Higdon’s works at Heinz Hall:
Want to really get to know Jennifer Higdon? You can read this interview with David Patrick Stearns from andante.com or this or this interview of Higdon with a German music magazine.
Have any comments or questions about Jennifer Higdon or the PSO in general? Just voice your opinion at our website’s Message Board.
The Residency of Jennifer Higdon is made possible through Music Alive, a residency program of the American Symphony Orchestra League and Meet The Composer. This national program is designed to provide orchestras with resources and tools to support their presentation of new music to the public and build support for new music within their institutions. Funding for Music Alive is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and The Aaron Copland Fund for Music.
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