Sunday, May 28, 2017 - 3:00pm
1707 16th Street Vero Beach, FL 32960
IVES The Unanswered Question
MARSHALL Cosmos (WORLD PREMIERE)
DVORAK Symphony No. 9 “From the New World”
Your Space Coast Symphony presents The Cosmos, the final installment of its innovative film trilogy that began with The Planets and The Earth. The program opens up with the World Premiere of a new work, Cosmos, by SCSO favorite, Christopher Marshall. This twenty minute work will feature a special guest narrator and highlight the history of flight. Set to the score of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World, The Cosmos presents breathtaking images of far distant galaxies, nebulae and other astronomical wonders captured by cutting edge instrument on and off Earth, including the Hubble Space Telescope. The concert is rounded out with Charles Ives’ haunting, The Unanswered Question.
Artist Information
Christopher Marshall is based in Orlando, Florida. In the years since his arrival in Orlando Florida he has continued to carve out a successful freelance career, securing commissions from top performers, including, most recently Summit Brass, Gail Robertson and Richard Stoezel. His music has featured on concert programmes in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and the Barbican in London. It his been performed from Austria to Australia, from Sweden to Singapore to Saudi Arabia. This summer alone will see premieres in New Zealand, Philadelphia and Denver, as well as here in Melbourne.
Born in France of New Zealand parents, Christopher received his early music education in New South Wales, Australia. He holds a Masters Degree in Music with Honors from the University of Auckland, New Zealand and a Fellowship in Composition from Trinity College, London. He has twice held the Mozart Fellowship at the University of Otago, New Zealand and in 1996 was Fulbright Composer in Residence at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Prior to taking up these positions he spent three years teaching and composing in the South Pacific island nation, Samoa, and for ten years prior to that taught English to Indochinese refugees in Auckland.
Many influences can be heard in Christopher Marshall's works, from Bach and Brahms to traditional Polynesian music, particularly Maori chant. The foundation of his style is his strong belief that music is primarily a means of expressive communication with the listener. Singable, memorable melody coupled with a subtle use of the tonal harmonic system is central, but is only effective when integrated into a convincing formal structure.
Christopher chose to spend the last seven years as Composer in Residence and Professor of Composition at UCF, singlehandedly building up a highly successful composition studio from scratch. Students of this program have won prestigious national competitions and, even more remarkably have had works published by national firms. This summer, after much deliberation Christopher left the music department at UCF in order to devote more time to his composing.