Harp concerto gets premiere at festival – JH News&Guide
Grand Teton Music Festival chamber programs are often opportunities to experience something new and out of the ordinary — for both musicians and audiences.
That certainly will be the case this summer. The six-concert Benoliel Chamber Music Series gets underway at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Walk Festival Hall with the North American premiere of a concerto for harp and strings.
Elisabeth Remy Johnson, principal harpist for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, will be featured in Welsh composer Lynne Plowman’s “Life Cycles.” Resident Conductor Ben Manis will lead the chamber orchestra of 17 string players. Plowman will be present for the performance.
The work had its world premiere last August during the Presteigne Festival in Wales, which co-commissioned it with the Grand Teton Music Festival.
Johnson, a 10-year GTMF veteran, called the piece “captivating and inventive.”
“[Plowman is] very intent on bringing in circular patterns found in nature,” Johnson said. The first movement, for example, “flock and shoals,” seeks to invoke the movements of birds or schools of fish. “It’s very joyful.”
Johnson also will perform “Whirlwind,” the final movement of French composer Carlos Salzedo’s “Five Pieces for Harp Alone” (1917). The second half of the program will be devoted to two works by Beethoven: his Piano Trio in C minor (1795) and his Septet in E-flat Major (1800) for strings and winds.