Some of American composer Julia Wolfe's most successful pieces had their origins in seemingly impractical choices. For instance, who would have guessed that a work scored for an orchestra of Scottish bagpipes would ever gain traction?
"I wrote a piece for an ensemble of bagpipes called Lad, and it now gets played quite often," Wolfe tells the Scene. "You just never know what's going to strike a chord."
Wolfe, a Pulitzer-winning composer who is best known as one of the founders of New York's Bang on a Can contemporary music organization, is in Nashville this week for the performance of another of her seemingly quixotic pieces, this one for accordion and ensemble.
This concerto, called True Love, will be the highlight of the contemporary music group Intersection's performance Thursday night at the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum. The program will also feature the music of Toru Takemitsu and Elliott Carter, among others.
Wolfe composed True Love a decade ago at the request of George Steel, the former visionary executive director of Columbia University's Miller Theater. At the time, Steel was offering commissions to well-known composers to write so-called "pocket concertos" — namely, virtuoso showpieces for small forces. The commission was a departure for Wolfe, who had never composed a concerto.
"I always thought of concertos as being really flashy, which was not my style," Wolfe admits.
Nevertheless, Wolfe accepted the challenge and immediately began searching for something that would come across, in her words, as "weird." She quickly settled on the accordion. "I've always loved the sound of that instrument," she says. "The way it wheezes and breathes is totally captivating."
True Love has been performed just once before, by the Gotham Sinfonietta at the Miller Theater in 2006. Local accordionist Jeff Lisenby will give the concerto its Nashville premiere along with Intersection and its founding director, Kelly Corcoran.
"Julia's concerto is rhythmic, energetic and extraordinarily bold," says Corcoran. "Obviously, an accordion concerto is going to be a fun piece, but True Love is also extremely challenging. It's definitely a piece scored for virtuoso soloist and virtuoso ensemble."
Email arts@nashvillescene.com
