Bridgerton composer presents first concerto
OrchestrasA new American violin concerto was paired with a popular Czech evergreen in the post-Thanksgiving concert of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra led Markus Poschner Friday night.
The latter work was For a Younger Self, a violin concerto in all but name, by composer Kris Bowers. Best known for his film and television work (The Green Book, Bridgerton, King Richard),the concerto is Bowers’ first concert work for orchestra….
Read on here.
Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bfol_s7Inw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D6ugo5X078
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-317YiA4Zc
I don’t have much experience with writing violin concertos, because I only wrote two, but this is genuinely good music, apart from the places where the sentiment is rather cheap. There are not many composers today who could match this music…. Bowers completely ignores all that happened in the last century (except for the Russians) and just writes what he likes. It is quite telling that contemporary music capable of musical expressiveness now comes from the sphere of commercial ‘Gebrauchsmusik’. It shows the bankruptcy of the ‘serious music education trajectory’ with the attempts to write serious contemporary music, which nowadays seems to produce merely bland Glassy minimal products infested with pop and woke wrapping paper. This guy is really gifted, and it is regrettable he works for commerce….. and it is to be hoped that – if he would want to write serious concert music – he will be able to escape the smell of kitsch in future works, the Korngold problem, in short.
“it is regrettable he works for commerce”. Oh for the days of munificent aristocratic patrons, happy to employ music directors/composers among their servants.