Run Time: Approx. 25 minutes

Jennifer Higdon is one of today’s most widely performed living composers, known for music that strikes a compelling balance between novelty and approachability. Her work has earned the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2010, and a 2020 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for her Harp Concerto. Higdon has written a wide range of concertos, seventeen in all, but this is her first for cello.

What’s unique about this performance is the opportunity to hear the work performed by Julian Schwarz, the cellist for whom it was written. In getting to know Julian’s playing, Higdon was struck by what she calls his “lyrical gift,” which became the guiding force behind the piece. Melody, in her words, is at the work’s heart.

The work unfolds in four movements, the titles of each forming a kind of poetic thread: Poet; Dances; Fervent; Lines. The phrase gets at something in the way Higdon seems to think about the cello itself. There’s something inherently poetic about the instrument—its warmth, its range, and its vocal lyricism. More than that, this is music written not just for “a cellist,” but for this cellist, a distinction we do not get to experience when playing historical concertos.