Jennifer Higdon is a 40-something composer who teaches at Curtis and has garnered a lot of attention and interest where it counts -- commissions from major performers and orchestras, Guggenheim fellowships, residencies with major ensembles and festivals, and acclaim from critics and audiences alike. With the Telarc CD City Scape, Higdon has another rare honor to add to her cap -- a living composer who has two new, large-scale orchestral works recorded by a major classical firm in Surround Sound audio. Higdon does deliver ...
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Jennifer Higdon is a 40-something composer who teaches at Curtis and has garnered a lot of attention and interest where it counts -- commissions from major performers and orchestras, Guggenheim fellowships, residencies with major ensembles and festivals, and acclaim from critics and audiences alike. With the Telarc CD City Scape, Higdon has another rare honor to add to her cap -- a living composer who has two new, large-scale orchestral works recorded by a major classical firm in Surround Sound audio. Higdon does deliver the goods -- she writes big, dynamic orchestral music that seems to pick up the American populist thread right where it was left behind in the early '50s, after which the steamroller of international serialism began to flatten all other forms of concert music in its wake. Higdon's music does not incorporate techniques derived from minimalist practices, perhaps some see this as a weak way composers once used to get back to traditional tonality. These are full-blooded, "big city"...
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