World Premiere: August 3, 2019

Most Recent HSO Performance: This is the HSO's first performance of this work.

Instrumentation: 2 flutes with second flute doubling on piccolo, 2 oboes with second oboe doubling on English horn, 2 clarinets with second clarinet doubling on bass clarinet, bassoon, contrabassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, trombone, tuba, timpani, vibraphone, tam-tam, suspended cymbal, crotales, marimba, wind machine, and strings: violin I, violin II, viola, cello, and bass

Duration: 25'

“Anna Clyne,” according to the biography provided by her publisher Boosey & Hawkes, “is a composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic music, combining resonant soundscapes with propelling textures that weave, morph and collide in dramatic explosions. Her work often includes collaborations with cutting edge choreographers, visual artists, film-makers and musicians worldwide.”

Anna Clyne was born in London in 1980, studied music from early in life (she recalls lessons “on a piano with randomly missing keys”), began composing at age eleven (a fully notated piece for flute and piano), and received her undergraduate training at Edinburgh University and a master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music; her teachers include Julia Wolfe, Marina Adamia and Marjan Mozetich. Clyne is now a member of the composition faculty of Mannes/The New School in New York City, and serves as Mentor Composer for the Orchestra of St Luke's Inaugural DeGaetano Composer Institute.

Clyne’s career has been on a meteoric trajectory since she completed her education — performances by leading ensembles and soloists around the world and commissions from the American Composers Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, Opus 21, Janus Trio, Jerome Foundation, New York Voices (a collaboration between the Albany Symphony and the New York State Archives), ASCAP, Seattle Chamber Players and Houston Ballet; selection as a participant in a master class with Pierre Boulez in New York City; director of the New York Youth Symphony’s award-winning program for young composers “Making Score” from 2008 to 2010. Clyne serves as Composer-in-Residence with both the Philharmonia Orchestra of London and Trondheim Symphony Orchestra (Norway) in 2022–2023, after which she begins a residency with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra for the following season.

Clyne’s dedication to both education and collaboration are evidenced by her extended residency with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (2010-2015), when she not only composed six works for the ensemble — including the Grammy-nominated double-violin concerto Prince of Clouds — but also conducted workshops with the Chicago Public Schools and incarcerated youth at the city’s Juvenile Detention Center, joined with Yo-Yo Ma and musicians of the Civic Orchestra, CSO and Chorus to help realize the work of young poets, musicians and composers at such events as the Humanities Festival and Youth in Music Festival, and worked with art therapist Caroline Edasis to develop an innovative collaboration between the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Learning Institute and residents in the memory care unit of the Mather Pavilion Residential Nursing Home. Her additional residencies, which often involve community involvement, include the Cabrillo Music Festival, Campos do Jodão International Music Festival in Brazil, Orchestre National d’Île de France, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Berkley Symphony and Los Angeles–based Hysterica Dance Company. She has additionally led seminars and master classes at the Curtis Institute of Music, Columbia University, Manhattan School of Music, Conservatoire de Saint-Maur, Institute of Musical Research at the University of London and other notes institutions. Anna Clyne’s rapidly accumulating collection of honors includes eight consecutive ASCAP Plus Awards, Hindemith Prize, Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Clutterbuck Award from the University of Edinburgh, as well as awards from Meet the Composer, American Music Center, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Jerome Foundation and International Artist Sponsorship; she also received a grant from Opera America to develop a work titled Eva, about the German-born American post-minimalist sculptor Eva Hesse (1936-1970), which was workshopped in spring 2018 during her residency at the composer collaborative National Sawdust in Brooklyn, New York. 

Clyne said of Dance, commissioned in 2019 by cellist Inbal Segev, and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, and São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, “I knew that I wanted to write a multi-movement work in which each movement had its own personality, its own character. I’ve known this poem by [13th-century Persian writer and mystic] Rumi for a while and always thought it would be a good source of inspiration — it’s short, has repetition, a clear form of five lines, and a strong physicality (for example, ‘broken open,’ ‘in your blood’). It also has a sense of urgency that I found compelling for this piece. It was a great way to structure the piece — to break it up into the five movements according to the five lines of the poem.

Dance, when you’re broken open.

Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off.

Dance in the middle of the fighting.

Dance in your blood.

Dance, when you’re perfectly free.

“The first movement opens the concerto in an unusual way — concertos tend to get off to a dramatic start with a lot of energy, but I wanted to do the opposite, to start with very tender and delicate music. The title of this movement is when you’re broken open. I imagined the fragility of being shattered apart — zooming in on those shards. The harmony moves in blocks to create a repeating cycle above which the solo cello soars in a high register.

“The second movement, if you’ve torn the bandage off, is marked ‘Earthy and Fiery.’ It’s much faster, a lot more aggressive, with a lot of double stops in the cello. The solo cello drives this movement — a lot of the orchestration is characterized by instruments within the orchestra spiraling around the soloist, often in unisons. ‘If you’ve torn the bandage off’ is a very physical sensation. In this movement, folk elements are introduced with melodic inflections and the use of drones as an accompaniment.

“The third movement, in the middle of the fighting, imagines discovering a moment within the chaos — where time freezes to provide an opportunity to be still and reflect. It’s a slow, repeating cycle above which the cello plays a soulful melody. Each time it returns, the cello plays in a higher register. It’s very simple, but quite elegant as well, with Baroque-like embellishments to the lines. The tonality allows for a lot of natural harmonics on the cello to give it a delicate resonance and character.

“The fourth movement, in your blood, presents music in contrast to the previous more delicate movement. It is marked ‘Regal and Expansive’ and starts with a simple ascending and descending line in quarter notes played alone by the solo cello. Once that line is finished the double basses pick it up and the cellist adds a new line. And then the basses loop the first line, the cello section play the second, and the soloist takes on a new line. This process repeats until all the strings are playing. The use of cycles, of repeating patterns, is quite central to this work. At the end of the fourth movement, it unexpectedly melts into a lullaby, which incorporates melodic fragments from the previous movements.

“The last movement, when you’re perfectly free, is actually the movement I wrote first, but it ended up becoming the last movement. It almost stands alone from the rest of the concerto. The other movements incorporate elements from this movement, but it has its own story. This movement, like the second movement, is full of exposed and quite simple melodies … not getting too caught up in complexity. The movement ends with a very simple melody. I was a little hesitant to end the piece in this way, but I do find beauty in its simplicity.”

Notes on the Program by Dr. Richard E. Rodda