The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under conductor Jerry Hou will perform four works by emerging composers Wednesday afternoon as the culmination of its participation in the 2023 Earshot Readings. The concert is free to the public.
EarShot, which has been finding and featuring the works of new composers for a quarter century, was created by the American Composers Orchestra to “ensure the vibrant future of new American orchestral music.” Each year’s featured composers are selected from a competitive nationwide call for scores. Four of the eight composers selected for the 2023 EarShot Readings will be in Atlanta with the ASO; the remaining four will be in Cincinnati in October.
In collaboration with American Composers Orchestra, the ASO sought compositions by Black and Latino composers expressly to “challenge the stereotypical image of a composer in the Western art music tradition.” The four selected composers and their works to be featured in the Atlanta concert are Alyssa Regent, “Where Even Shadows Are Light“; Fred Onovwerosuoke, “The Gathering: An Overture for Orchestra”; Ahmed Alabaca, “Ode to Liberty” and Sofía Rocha, “Collage d’hommages.”
“The things I focus on in my music are more emotional than intellectual, how my music affects people,” Regent told ArtsATL. “I’m still a student and discovering a lot, but I want to thread my message into my music in the most authentic way possible.”
Regent is from the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, and while “classical music was not part of our island culture, when I first heard it, it had an immediate and profound effect on me,” she said. “I wanted to be a part of it, to see what I could do with it.”
Where Even Shadows Are Light was inspired by a close encounter with a tom-tom drum at a music festival in Boston in 2016, Regent said. “If you get close up and listen carefully to a tom-tom you can hear the overtones and harmony hidden in the instrument.”
The ASO’s 2023 EarShot program includes two days of open rehearsals and live workshopping with ASO principal players and artistic directors. As well, the participants will receive guidance from mentor composers, Grammy winner Valerie Coleman, violinist and composer Curtis Steward, and Atlanta native Carlos Simon, currently composer-in-residence for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
The goal of EarShot is to “develop relationships between new composers and orchestras on a national level.” The program boasts 28 EarShot works since 2009 that have been commissioned by partner orchestras. More than half of EarShot composers have netted a commission as a result of their participation. The program also claims a slew of major awards for those who have participated, including a Grammy Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the Grawemeyer, recognition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Rome Prize.
The ASO performances on May 10 will begin at 1:30 p.m. In addition to recordings of the selected works, the ASO will offer recorded interviews of participants and mentors as part of its Behind the Curtain film series.
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Mike Shaw is a jazz pianist who has performed for decades in New Orleans and Atlanta. He is the author of the novel The Musician. He is the founder of Shade Communications, a marketing company.