Getting to the music behind the technique, however, required gradual assimilation. Koh’s mastery of Mazzoli’s technical demands meant that there was always a point of focus. It would probably be fair to say that a program of nine unfamiliar short pieces (followed by an encore) provided the attentive listener with a path along which acquaintance would begin to form. Koh rose impressively to every challenge that Mazzoli had set for her. "Mazzoli’s compositions may have been short, but they imposed prodigious technical demands. I was most deeply enchanted by the opening selection, “Dissolve, O My Heart” - a piece for unaccompanied violin that keeps trying out new and slightly different harmonies before returning to a single bass note - and by the fierce outbursts and motoric rhythms of “Tooth and Nail.” But all the pieces gloried, even in necessarily compact form, in Mazzoli’s slightly offbeat harmonic language and her gift for inventive instrumental textures."īy Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, October 24, 2021 Many of these short pieces grew out of commissioning projects that doubled as coping mechanisms, and you could hear the stresses etched into their surfaces. "Saturday’s joint recital by Koh and Mazzoli played like a tour through an artist’s journal during adversity - a war, a plague, a time of political upheaval. Jennifer's Pivot Festival performance with Missy Mazzoli in San Francisco "Both Hong and Koh belong to the Korean diaspora, and their projects, although conducted in disparate media, share the intention of giving voice to experiences that have too often been silenced in American culture."īy Olivia Hampton, DC Metro Theater Arts, February 5, 2022 Review: Missy Mazzoli heals broken bones, hearts with new violin concerto Violinist Jennifer Koh led the musical world premiere with the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Gemma New Her slow-burning centerpiece cadenza was a searing highlight of the evening."īy Michael Andor Brodeur, The Washington Post, February 4, 2022 She attacked short solos as if she were sawing through a pipe elsewhere she strung silvery threads through a dense fabric of dark strings and darting flutes.
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"Koh didn’t ride atop the orchestra so much as engage in a prolonged tug-of-war with it - her solos tensing like a tendon within the body of the music. World Premiere Missy Mazzoli's Violin Concerto with National Symphony Orchestra Gemma New brings out a softer side of the NSOĪ program of Vaughan Williams and Sibelius also featured violinist Jennifer Koh performing a world premiere piece by Missy Mazzoli