Spotlight on 21st-Century String Works
A new generation of composers is exploring the potential of strings to their fullest with a little help from string-playing friends
Before she established herself as a full-time composer, Augusta Read Thomas played piano and trumpet. "I love them both, but the strings have really got me by the jugular," she says. "They're so varied and rich in timbre and modes of expression, and so incredibly soulful." This, from a composer whose style is more modernist than romantic. Stringed instruments are seducing today's younger composers, no matter their manner. Whether they're straight-ahead classical specialists, such as Augusta Read Thomas or Jennifer Higdon, acoustic-electric mavericks like Martha Mooke, or composer-performers inspired by popular and world music, like Daniel Bernard Roumain and Todd Reynolds, emerging composers are exploiting string potential to the fullest.
"I think there is an even broader range of what is considered 'new music' today," says violinist and contemporary-music specialist Yumi Hwang-Williams, who performs as both a soloist and an orchestra member. "I've seen a trend toward more crossover from classical to jazz, pop, electronica. Mason Bates, a young American composer, is doing a wonderful job of adding prerecorded sounds to the orchestra in a very skillful, accessible way. The new generation of composers has grown up listening to an array of hip-hop, rap, and techno, fused with the cacophony and angst of the 20th century, and that would inevitably find some outlet in their creativity. The expansion of the percussion section and exploration of rhythm continue to be in the forefront. I have found that although composers are striving to push the envelope and create original sounds and textures, they are writing music that really connects emotionally with the audience."
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