NEWS AND LINKS: Esa-Pekka Salonen wins 2012 Grawemeyer Award for his Violin Concerto

By Robert D. Thomas

Music Critic

Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily
News

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When Esa-Pekka Salonen stepped down as music director of the
Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009, it ostensibly was to devote more time to
composing. His output has been pretty meager in the last two years (just two
short pieces) but Salonen has won the 2012 University of Louisville Grawemeyer
Award for Music Composition for his Violin Concerto, which was premiered during
Salonen’s final weeks as LAPO music director that spring. The award, which
includes a $100,000 cash prize, is one of the most prestigious in classical
music.

 

The official release from the university is HERE. Mark Swed has an article on the Los Angeles Times Web site HERE. Among other things, Swed notes
that the L.A. Phil becomes the only orchestra to have commissioned and
premiered two Grawemeyer Award compositions (Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs in 2005 was the other) and
Salonen is the only conductor to have led the first performances of two winning
scores (Neruda Songs and his own
concerto, which featured Leila Josefowicz as soloist).

 

When the Violin Concerto was premiered in April 2009, I wrote
that it was  “a stunning violin
concerto, brilliant played by 31-year-old Leila Josefowicz, who was born in
Toronto but grew up in Los Angeles and studied with Ronald Lipsett at The
Colburn School.” (My entire review is HERE).

 

For what it’s worth I actually thought Salonen’s Piano
Concerto, written in 2007, was a better piece but both are terrific. They
joined a list of notable Salonen compositions that included L.A Variations (written in 1996) and Wing on Wing, which was composed for the
opening of Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2004.

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(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved.
Portions may be quoted with attribution.

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