From July 10-15, 2017, four young composers were awarded the opportunity to workshop new orchestral music with composer Steven Mackey, conductor JoAnn Falletta and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra as part of the NJSO Edward T. Cone Composition Institute.
Saad Haddad's Takht use the orchestra to create timbres that recalled Middle Eastern instruments including the oud and ney. Noah Kaplan's Forest Through Forest expands a jazzy duo for cello and piano into full-blown symphonic music.
Saxophonist and composer Sam Lipman's Song of the Bhagavan musically explore the Hindu warrior Arjuna and his king Krishna as depicted in the Bhagavad Gita. Alyssa Weinberg's Tereza Slumbers takes inspiration from the character Tereza from Milan Kundera's novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
Listen to the world premieres below:
Saad Haddad - Takht
Noah Kaplan - Forest Through Forest
Sam Lipman - Song of the Bhagavan
Alyssa Weinberg - Tereza Slumbers