California Symphony unveils Balch’s ‘like a broken clock’
The California Symphony has a long tradition of nurturing up-andcoming composers. Past participants in the organization’s Young American Composer in Residence program have included Kevin Puts, who won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for his opera “Silent Night.”
The Symphony’s newest resident composer is Katherine Balch, and for the orchestra’s season finale, music director Donato Cabrera will conduct the first of three pieces she’ll write for the organization.
Sunday afternoon at the Lesher Center, Balch’s “like a broken clock” makes its world premiere on a program that also includes Sibelius’ Symphony No. 3 and Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2, with Van Cliburn award-winning pianist Haochen Zhang as soloist.
Balch’s score was inspired by a lyric from a Joanna Newsom song, “In California.” The composer described its inception in a phone call from New York, where she’s pursuing an advanced music degree at Columbia University.
“Newsom talks about a little clock ‘that trembles on the edge of the hour,’” Balch said. “I really liked that image.”
“Like a broken clock” is based on a “harmonic analysis of a grandfather clock, tolling,” said Balch, with “harmonies that sort of jitter and bounce around rhythmically in an asymmetrical, off-kilter way throughout the piece.”
She likens the effect to a bouncing ball, which maintains a rhythmic pulse even as it slowly decelerates.
A model for residency programs across the country, California Symphony’s program offers more than performances. Composers get to spend time with the orchestra, getting to know the players and behind-the-scenes people in the organization in a way Balch said is enormously helpful.
In January, Cabrera led a reading of “like a broken clock,” and Balch said the experience was essential to the score’s development.
“I was able to hear what works and what might need to be fixed,” she said. “It was so informative and helpful. I ended up making adjustments in the score, adding about a minute of music and totally changing the end. It’s so rare to have that kind of opportunity.”
Next season, the symphony will give the world premiere of Balch’s violin concerto, and the orchestra will introduce another, yet-to-be-announced work by her in the 2019-20 season.
Cabrera describes Balch as a superbly gifted composer.
“She’s someone who is very interested in the sonic capabilities of the orchestra,” the conductor said. “With each of her works, I think we’ll hear a compositional voice that is truly unique and full of wonder. Her music is always searching for something innovative and heartfelt.”
Balch is the first woman composer in the California Symphony’s residency program. She brushed off a mention of that.
“I think my gender is probably the least interesting thing to talk about,” she said.
We respectfully disagree. In a time when works by women composers still represent a tiny minority on orchestral seasons across the country, the California Symphony’s choice of Balch is practically revolutionary.
DETAILS >> California Symphony season finale, 4 p.m., Sunday, Lesher Center for the Arts; $42-$87, $20 students; 925-943SHOW; www.californiasymphony.org.
EXPLORE THE ‘CELTIC UNIVERSE’ >> Always a mesmerizing performer, Jordi Savall makes his San Francisco Performances debut this week with “Celtic Universe,” a concert featuring ancient, historical and modern music from Ireland, Scotland, Brittany, Galicia and the Basque Country. The Catalan gambist and musicologist will be joined by Galician instrumentalist Carlos Nuñez and an ensemble of wind, harp, and bodhran players to trace the routes, influences and origins of the region.
DETAILS >> 7:30 p.m. tonight; Herbst Theatre, San Francisco; $40-$65; 415392-2545, www.sfperformances.org.
AN AVEDIS SUNDAY >> Guitarist David Tanenbaum and flutist Alexandra Hawley are the soloists for Pujol’s brilliant “Suite Buenos Aires” in this weekend’s concert on the Avedis Chamber Series. With Jeffrey LaDeur (piano), Carlos Ortega (clarinet), Daniel Smith (bass) and Mckenzie Camp (percussion), the Sunday afternoon program also features Claude Bolling’s Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio and works by Joseph Kreutzer and Maurice Emmanuel.
DETAILS >> 2 p.m. Sunday; Legion of Honor, San Francisco; $28 general; $18 students/seniors;
www.avedisconcerts.org.