Composer of the Week: Jennifer Higdon

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

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An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Jennifer Higdon (born 1962): The Natural World

Writing For the Voice

The Natural World

Jennifer Higdon (born 1962)

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Jennifer Higdon (born 1962), The Natural World

Donald Macleod in conversation with award-winning American composer Jennifer Higdon.

Donald Macleod continues his conversation with award-winning American composer Jennifer Higdon. Today they focus on the role of the natural world in her life and her music.

Donald Macleod in conversation with the Pulitzer and three-time Grammy Award-winning American composer Jennifer Higdon. Today they’re discussing the role of the natural world in her music. 

If you were to ask Jennifer Higdon what her biggest musical influence might be, she’s more likely to cite Lennon and McCartney than Bach or Beethoven. Born in 1962 in New York, the soundtrack of her childhood was the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel and Peter Paul and Mary, the Rolling Stones, and reggae. A move to Atlanta, Georgia, and then to a farmhouse in rural Tennessee, added bluegrass and country music. It wasn’t until Higdon was in her teens that her musical curiosity directed her towards classical music. Formal studies followed, and she began to compose when she was 21 years old.  Coming to classical music later on, has been, according to Higdon, a significant factor in her own musical language. She’s now one of the most performed living American composers. Having just completed her second opera and a concerto in the past year, Higdon is much in demand, with commissions on her books that take her right up to 2024. 

Recorded at the end of May, speaking to Donald Macleod from Articulate Studios in Philadelphia, USA, in an extended interview Jennifer Higdon gives a fascinating insight into her life and her musical preoccupations. Starting with strings on Monday, they move on to vocal writing, the influence of colour on music, the natural world and writing concertos, an area which has now become something of a speciality.  

The environment is important to Jennifer Higdon. We hear music inspired by places she’s visited or imagined, and she describes how the aural possibilities of the natural world fired her imagination in a work for two marimbas . 

City Scape 
II: River sings a song to trees 
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra 
Robert Spano, conductor 
Scenes From the Poet’s Dreams
II: Summer Shimmers Across the Glass of Green Ponds 
The Lark Quartet 
Gary Graffman, piano

Autumn Music 
Musical Arts Woodwind Quintet

Secret & Glass Gardens (excerpt) 
Mary Kathleen Ernst, piano 

Splendid Wood (excerpt)
New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble 
Frank Epstein, director 

All Things Majestic 
I: Teton Range: 
Nashville Symphony Orchestra 
Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor 

Producer Johannah Smith

Composer of the Week: Jennifer Higdon (born 1962)

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod in conversation with American composer Jennifer Higdon.

Donald Macleod in conversation with the Pulitzer and three-time Grammy award-winning American composer Jennifer Higdon.

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