Fri 8.6 Symphony no. 3

MICHAEL HERSCH (b. 1971)

"...Hersch's A Forest of Attics threw a Molotov cocktail into the concert: Everything before it paled in comparison. Hersch is an old hand at word-inspired instrumental music, often with numerous, haiku-like micro-movements. But none had the intensity of this new piece - or music so closely wedded to specific lines of poetry..." —Philadelphia Inquirer

Widely considered among the most gifted composers of his generation, Michael Hersch first came to international attention at age twenty-five, when he was awarded First Prize in the American Composers Awards.  The award resulted in a performance of his Elegy, conducted by Marin Alsop at New York's Alice Tully Hall in early 1997.  Later that year he became one of the youngest recipients ever of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Composition.  Hersch has also been the recipient of the Rome Prize, the Berlin Prize and both the Charles Ives Scholarship and Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts & Letters.

Hersch’s work has been performed in the U.S. and abroad under conductors including Mariss Jansons, Robert Spano, Alan Gilbert, James DePriest, Carlos Kalmar, Marin Alsop, and Gerard Schwarz.  He has written for soloists and ensembles including the String Soloists of the Berlin Philharmonic, Garrick Ohlsson, Boris Pergamenschikow, Peter Sheppard-Skaerved, and Midori, among others.  Upcoming projects for 2010 and beyond include new works for the Cleveland Orchestra, and baritone Thomas Hampson.

Highlights from the past decade include the completion of his Symphony No. 2 in 2001, which was commissioned by Mariss Jansons and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.  In the summer of 2002, Hersch's Octet for Strings, commissioned by Boris Pergamenschikow and the Kronberg Akademie, was given its premiere at the Schloss Neuhardenberg Festival in Brandenberg.  For the 2002/03 season Hersch was selected as the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's resident composer by Mariss Jansons.  Hersch's Piano Concerto, commissioned by Garrick Ohlsson and the orchestras of St. Louis, Oregon and Pittsburgh, was premiered in fall 2002.  In early 2003 at the Philharmonie in Berlin, the String Soloists of the Berlin Philharmonic performed two of Hersch's works including the Octet for Strings and his Duo for Viola and Cello.  Both works were later recorded by the ensemble for the Vanguard Classics label. Later that year Hersch gave the world premiere of his Recordatio and Two Pieces at the Musica XXI Festival in Italy.  Arraché, commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for the opening of their new concert hall, was premiered in 2005.  In the fall of 2006, Hersch gave the world premiere of The Vanishing Pavilions, a work for solo piano with a duration of over two hours, and the first part of a massive trilogy. The second part of the cycle, Last Autumn, an almost three hour work for horn and cello premiered in 2009.  In 2007, The Vanishing Pavilions was released on the Vanguard label as a double-CD set with the composer at the piano.

Also regarded as among today's most formidable pianists, Hersch has appeared throughout the U.S. and Europe on among others, the Van Cliburn Foundation’s “Modern at the Modern” Series, the Romaeuropa Festival, and in New York City at Merkin Concert Hall, the 92nd St. Y - Tisch Center for the Performing Arts, and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall.

Hersch was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, the Norfolk Festival for Contemporary Music, and the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan. He studied at the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore and the Moscow Conservatory in Russia.  Hersch currently serves on the composition faculty of the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.

www.michaelhersch.com