By Madison Thompson— 

The stage was lit as the lights in the audience dimmed, and everyone fell silent. The audience clapped politely as the first chair violin came out on stage and played the first note, so everyone else could tune to his instrument. They were finally ready.

Kimcherie Lloyd, the director of the Symphony Orchestra, came out and said a few words about the program and told the audience that a few of the pieces have been moved around, so they could end on a particular piece, “L’Amour de loin.” She also asked that, rather than read the translation while the piece is being played, that everyone look up and not bother reading what is being sung in front of them. She exited the stage and all fell quiet again.

Between Nov. 10 and Nov. 16, U of L’s School of Music celebrated New Music Festival. This week-long event invited up-and-coming composers, performers and musicians of all instruments to perform in honor of the 30th annual Grawemeyer Awards. The featured guest composer was Kaija Saariaho from Finland, who composed a wonderful piece around a poem entitled “L’Amour de loin.”

Friday, Nov. 13 featured the most artists of the week. The conductor of the first piece, Alex Enyart, followed Saariaho’s piece with the World Premiere of “Icarus for Orchestra (2015).”  Enyart’s creation began light and playful, but ended with the wind section creating ocean-like sounds.

Enyart was inspired by “the story of Icarus, Icarus taking off into the sky with his man-made wings, the rush of joy and serenity that comes with flying and finally, his fall.”

He said, “If one listens closely, they may even pinpoint the exact moment when Icarus crashes into the ocean.”

The next piece contained three separate movements (elegy, soliloquy and epilogue) featuring a solo flutist and U of L faculty member, Kathleen Karr. The composition “commissioned Ellen Taaffe Zwilch to compose this work for solo flute and string orchestra.” Tonight was the premiere of this piece in Kentucky. Zwilch writes that “the work is dedicated to her late husband Erik.”

The fourth piece included tubas, trombones, oboes, french horns, percussionists and almost all of the string section. Lloyd, the conductor, came out, and all was silent. All focus was on her.

Sound exploded from the orchestra as each part took its own melody line and ran with it. Like a chase scene from an old crime-fighting show, the piece was appropriately named “Chasing Light for Orchestra.” The composer, Rene Orth, intended for it to sound exactly like “deadlines, stress and pressure, combined to create this sort of sensation.”

For the final performance, everyone gathered on stage for “L’Amour de loin,” or “O Distant Love” in English. The poem is read aloud to the audience by Chad Sloan of the U of L Music School in English. The piece builds up anticipation, starting quietly and gradually getting louder and pulling back in a rapid decrescendo.

Suddenly, Sloan, a baritone, begins singing the poem in French. Sloan does a fantastic job of conveying the pain and agony in this peace, “that I should love and be not loved.”

In light of the terror attacks in Paris, France that evening, the performance was very moving.

Friends, family and students gather in Comstock Concert Hall on the final night of New Music Festival to hear Cardinal Singers and the University Collegiate Chorale.

Friends, family and students gather in Comstock Concert Hall on the final night of New Music Festival to hear Cardinal Singers and the University Collegiate Chorale.