Symphony’s resident composer ends her term on a high note
Throughout her residency with the California Symphony, Katherine Balch has had the experience that many young composers can only dream of — the chance to work with a full orchestra under an experienced conductor, with musicians who are willing to rehearse and perform whatever new piece you might be writing. That’s what the symphony’s brilliant Young American Composer-in-Residence participants have been getting since the program’s inception in 1991. “It’s an amazing program,” says Balch, who has spent the last three seasons in the post, writing new works for the orchestra to develop and premiere. Now the symphony is preparing Balch’s final commissioned piece for her residency. “Illuminate,” composed for orchestra and three vocal soloists, makes its world premiere on “Fate and Future,” a program that also includes Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. Conducted by music director Donato Cabrera at Walnut Creek’s Lesher Center, performances are 8 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday ($44-$74; www. californiasymphony.org). “Illuminate” may be Balch’s most ambitious piece to date. In a phone call from New York, the composer said the score was inspired in part by “Illuminations” by Arthur Rimbaud. But the French poet’s texts were just the work’s starting place. “My piece definitely has the lineage and history of Rimbaud’s settings in mind,” said Balch. “But it’s very different in other ways. It uses mostly John Ashbery’s translations — there’s only one poem in French. The texts are not necessarily complete excerpts, and they’re intertwined with texts by four other poets.” Those include Sappho translations by Anne Carson, as well as texts by Argentina’s Alejandra Pizarnik and American poets Sharon Olds and Adrienne Rich. As sung by the three soloists — mezzo-soprano Kelly Guerra and sopranos Molly Netter and Alexandra Smither — Balch says the work takes a distinctly feminist point of view. “Rimbaud’s poems do have a lot of depictions of women and young girls,” she said. “When I read them, I tend to identify them as sort of feminist texts. Scholarship is divided about that, but of course I want to love these poems. And my way to do that is to look at them from the women’s perspective.” Balch, who was named the symphony’s ninth Young American Composer-in-Residence in 2017, has been the first woman to hold the post; previous composers to receive the residency included Christopher Theofanidis, Kevin Puts and Mason Bates. Like her predecessors, she says the residency has been a rewarding experience. Her first piece for the symphony, “like a broken clock,” was a vibrant orchestral curtain-raiser; she followed it with “Artifacts,” a concerto for violin and orchestra. Balch says working with Cabrera and the orchestra has been a game changer. “Over the past three years I’ve been able to develop a really rich relationship with Donato, the staff, with the concertmaster, Jenny Cho, and with the orchestra. I’ve had an opportunity very few composers ever get, which is that I have these people on speed dial. Whenever I have a question I can send it to Donato or Jenny, like ‘Do you think this will work?’ “It’s really influenced my approach to writing, and it’s encouraged a sense of experimentation. But it’s also taught me a lot about the practicalities of writing for an ensemble. To be able to ask the music director of a symphony orchestra those types of questions throughout the composing process has been so great.” With the end of her residency coming up, Balch is busy. Later this month, her newly revised version of “like a broken clock” will be performed by the Santa Rosa Symphony. She’s writing a piece for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella series, which will be performed on an upcoming tour to Carnegie Hall, and working on a new orchestral piece about old-growth trees — all while completing a doctorate degree at Columbia University and teaching at Mannes School of Music. Balch, whose residency ends in July, was thrilled to learn that her successor will be composer Viet Cuong. He’ll be the symphony’s 10th Young American Composer-in-Residence. “Viet is a friend of mine, and his music is pure delight,” she said. “We met at the Albany Symphony in 2016, when he was having his amazing percussion quartet premiered. I’m so excited to see what he’s going to be doing with this orchestra.” Cuong, 29, begins his threeyear term Aug. 1. Born in Southern California and raised in Marietta, Georgia, Cuong is currently based in Washington, D.C. He holds an artist diploma from the Curtis Institute, an MFA from Princeton University, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Peabody Conservatory, where he studied with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts, a former California Symphony resident composer. Cuong, who is currently finishing his Ph.D. at Princeton, was selected following a blind application process, and will receive a commission fee of $10,000 for each of the three pieces he is scheduled to compose during his tenure. A composer whose music has been praised for its whimsical, unexpected qualities, Cuong’s works include a concerto for percussion quartet, a tuba concerto, and, most recently, a concerto for two oboes. His works have been performed by ensembles including So Percussion, Eighth Blackbird, Alarm Will Sound and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.