Michael Hersch World Premiere Commission Will Celebrate the Eastern Music Festival’s 50th Anniversary

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Michael Hersch’s new horn concerto, a sheltered corner, will receive its world premiere during the 50th-anniversary season of the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina this summer. A commission for the festival, it is his first large-scale work for horn and orchestra. Hersch, one of the most gifted composers of his generation, has been a prolific writer of orchestral, chamber, and choral works. Music critic Tim Page heralded his arrival on the international stage more than a decade ago, referring to him in The Washington Post as “a Promethean creator who has been charged with relaying his particular message. He combines a mixture of urgency and facility that is dazzling.” The New York Times said, “If the symmetries and proportions of Mr. Hersch’s music evoke the grounded fixity of architecture, its dynamism and spontaneous evolution are those of the natural world. Its somber eloquence sings of truths that are personal yet not confessional.”

The premiere of a sheltered corner will take on a family aspect, with Michael’s brother Jamie serving as soloist. Jamie Hersch is in the top rank of today’s horn soloists and has performed with ensembles such as the Boston Pops, the Romanian State Radio Orchestra, and the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble.

Michael Hersch is a recipient of the Rome Prize (2000), the Berlin Prize (2001), and both the Charles Ives Scholarship (1996) and Goddard Lieberson Fellowship (2006) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Maestro Gerard Schwarz will lead the Eastern Festival Orchestra in the premiere of a sheltered corner on July 16, 2011 at 8 pm in Dana Auditorium at Guilford College.

Location: Greensboro, NC, USA

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