“A heartbreakingly beautiful work.” Wall Street Journal
“Played with fleet agility and tangy expressivity by Tracy Silverman. Evokes Appalachian fiddle music, Indian sitar, wistful jazz riffs with wailing hints of Jimi Hendrix.” New York Times
Australian Premiere
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra with Tracy Silverman
USA/Australia
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, John Adams, was commissioned to write this opus for the 2003 opening of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s new concert hall.
With a Californian’s preoccupation for the sea, his mind turned to the precipitous coastline at Big Sur. Here, the ironically named Pacific Ocean pounds the landmass with a slow, lazy rhythm of terrifying violence. For inspiration, Adams re-read the Buddhist coloured insights into Big Sur by 1950s Beat poet, Jack Kerouac.
It was at this time that he also first heard the incomparable sliding jazz improvisations of electric violin virtuoso, Tracy Silverman. Karma had brought it all together. For this incarnation, LA born conductor, Jonathan Stockhammer, leads the ASO and Silverman in a performance as rhapsodic, breathtaking and exhilarating as the Big Sur surf itself in a full evening of music inspired by the sea.
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra
Conductor
Jonathan Stockhammer
Electric Violin
Tracy Silverman
Program
Toshio Hosokawa
Circulating Oceans
Gareth Farr
From the Depths Sound the Great Sea Gongs: Part 1
John Adams
Dharma at Big SurPresented by Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.
Broadcast live by ABC Classic FM.
Link: Dharma at Big Sur- (Composer John Adams discusses his piece "Dharma at Big Sur", written for the opening of Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles in October 2003, and an excerpt of the premiere performed by the LA Philharmonic with Tracy Silverman as soloist on electric violin)
Link: Dharma at Big Sur
Biography
Tracy Silverman
Violinist
Recording artist Tracy Silverman has performed and recorded with a virtual who's who of the rock, pop, new music, and jazz fields, and is a leading figure in the admittedly small field of electric violinists.
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