Robert Beaser Featured as Guest Composer at Thailand International Composition Festival; Evening Prayer Debuts at Tanglewood

The Thailand International Composition Festival welcomes Robert Beaser as one of this year’s Guest Composers from July 12 through July 16. In addition to his resident composer duties that include leading composition master classes and acting as competition judge, Beaser also sees performances of his orchestral work Double Chorus by the Rangsit Symphony Orchestra and Souvenirs for clarinet and piano.

Stateside this summer, Beaser’s Evening Prayer sees its Tanglewood debut with the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Young Artists Orchestra led by Federico Cortese on August 14. Beaser comments on his piece, which was commissioned by the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra:

The little folk song "Esti Dal" (Evening Song), from Kodály's published collection "Vegyeskarok" provides the impetus for my work Evening Prayer. I have often used folk material in my pieces, usually from Appalachia, often setting it quite strophically. Here I have chosen material from another country and used it in a rather circuitous way. The song animates the piece on two different planes: the words ask humbly for safe and gentle transit to a foreign land; a shepherding through a difficult time to find peace and transcendence in a new place. The narrative arch of the work actively mirrors this transformation and journey. The fiber and sinew of the musical language is built entirely on the simple diatonic shapes and quirky rhythms of the tune. And while the tune itself is quoted several ways throughout, it principally functions as a trope, fragmented and woven into the fabric of a wholly different musical world.

Learn more on the music of Robert Beaser by visiting his Composer Profile.

For more detailed information on the 2010 Tanglewood season, go to www.bso.org.

Robert Beaser
Double Chorus (1991)
for orchestra
pic.2.2.ca.2.bcl.2.cbn-4.4.2.btbn.1-timp.4perc-hp.pno-str
10’

Evening Prayer (2008)
for orchestra
3(2.pic)3(2.ca)3(2.bcl)3(2.cbsn)-4.3.3.btbn-timp-4perc-str
ca. 15’