Apollo Chamber Players give ‘Shadow’ a live debut
Jennifer Higdon’s “In the Shadow of the Mountain” has cast a long shadow over Apollo Chamber Players the last few years. Based on material from the Grammy and Pulitzer-winning composer’s 2016 opera “Cold Mountain,” the piece was scheduled to close out the Houston-based string quartet’s ambitious 20x2020 project, for which Apollo commissioned 20 pieces by 20 composers within the space of about five years.
Then everything went sideways. The pandemic forced the world premiere of “Shadow” to be postponed; it eventually surfaced in November 2020, part of the final episode of the quartet’s virtual festival. They also recorded it last summer for their next album on Azica Records, tentatively scheduled to be out later in May. Still, they longed to perform “Shadow” in front of a live audience.
It’s normal for composers to send their work to the artists who commissioned it a little later than the agreed-upon date, explains Apollo founder, violinist and artistic director Matthew Detrick. Sometimes they may not see a score until a couple of weeks before the performance, leading to a lot of late nights.
But in this case, the quartet was able to spend so much time with Higdon’s piece that Detrick says it’s now “embedded in our musical DNA.”
“Because we had so much time, it just better enabled us to pour our heart and souls into the preparation of the piece, and she was there — Jennifer was with us, inspiring us, every step of the way,” he says. “I think it also made us better musicians, both individually and collectively as an ensemble.”
Now, at last, the piece’s longdelayed live premiere on Sunday will serve as the centerpiece of “American Legends,” the closing concert of Apollo’s 202122 season — and the first where outgoing violist Whitney Bullock will split stage time with Marlea Simpson, a Texas native and current fellow with Miami’s New World Symphony.
Higdon’s Apollo commission is heavily influenced by spending part of her childhood near Knoxville, Tenn. “The struggles of survival in Appalachia, the majesty of its natural features and the sonorities of the mountain’s music color the quilt of that opera and of this string quartet,” she writes in the program notes.
Also featuring two pieces by Chicago Symphony compose-rin-residence Jessie Montgomery, the remainder of “American Legends” — which repeats May 7 at UH-Clear Lake’s Bayou Theater — underlines Apollo’s multicultural approach to programming. The program also includes encore performances of Libby Larsen’s “Sorrow, Song & Jubilee,” the first piece they commissioned for the 20x2020 project; and Adolphus Hailstork’s Deep River: Rhapsody for String Quartet, another commission they debuted last November.
Both pieces draw heavily on African American spirituals, as does the music of Florence Price, the late Arkansas-born composer whose profile has risen dramatically the last couple of years. Joining Apollo on Price’s Piano Quintet in A Major will be award-winning pianist, NPR Music video host and arts activist Lara Downes.
“She’s bringing life to all these new composers,” he says, “while she’s also bringing new light and new perspectives on composers that have come before us.”