Midori Gives New York Premiere of Michael Hersch Piece | Playbill

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Classic Arts News Midori Gives New York Premiere of Michael Hersch Piece Midori performs the New York premiere of Michael Hersch's the wreckage of flowers at Carnegie Hall tonight.
The violinist commissioned the piece, which is based on the writings of Nobel Prize-winning poet Czeslaw Milosz, and gave its world premiere in Lisbon last month.

"Since my introduction to the writings of Czeslaw Milosz, I have admired and been inspired by his work as I have by few others," Hersch said in a statement. "Over the years I have waited for an appropriate opportunity to incorporate his words into a work."

Hersch got his chance when Midori asked him to write a piece for violin and piano in 2002.

"I find the power and conciseness of his words so absolute that I did not want to set them literally to music," the composer said. "What I wanted to do was write companion pieces to them‹a collection of pieces that would complement the text as much as the text would complement the music‹but leaving the text as I found it: on the page."

The 33-year-old Hersh won the American Composers Prize in 1996 for his Elegy for Strings; his works have since been performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony, Dallas Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, and other groups.

 
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