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Press Releases
World Premiere of Eric Nathan’s Just a Moment Premiered by John Ferrillo and Amanda Hardy at Chelsea Music Festival
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Katy Salomon | Morahan Arts and Media
katy@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214
Chelsea Music Festival Presents the World Premiere
of Composer Eric Nathan’s Just a Moment, June 25
A Work for Two Antiphonal Oboes Performed by John Ferrillo and Amanda Hardy
“The music of young American composer Eric Nathan would seem to be as diverse as it is arresting... there’s a constant vein of ingenuity and expressive depth” – San Francisco Chronicle
New York, NY (June 1, 2021) — The Chelsea Music Festival presents the world premiere of composer Eric Nathan’s Just a Moment (2021) for two antiphonal oboes performed by oboists John Ferrillo and Amanda Hardy on Friday, June 25, 2021 at 7:30pm as part of the 2021 Virtual Festival. There will be a pre-concert Zoom conversation at 7:00pm with Eric Nathan, Amanda Hardy, and Chelsea Music Festival Artistic Directors Melinda Lee Masur and Ken-David Masur. The online concert also includes clips with violinist Augustin Hadelich and pianist Orion Weiss and visuals by artist Kyle Meyer.
Commissioned by the Chelsea Music Festival and Dr. Michael Sporn and dedicated to Ferrillo and Hardy, Just a Moment is a meditation on distance and intimacy. One oboe is placed on stage and the other in the balcony. They call out to each other, note-by-note, phrase-by-phrase, creating an unfolding melody, catching each other's notes, embracing these tones and the space that divides them, with subtle unisons and half-step dissonances mingling in echoes. There is a magical, trance-like sense of contemplation to the work, but also a sense of dancing joy. The audience hears the oboe on stage, and the echoes of the distant oboe from above, embracing and surrounding all in a sonic choreography that meets in the space between. Nathan says, “What the experience of the struggles of the past year has taught me most is to appreciate fleeting moments of beauty and connection, and how these can sustain us.” In the recorded premiere, the videography enables the audience to feel the distance between the players as well as experience the vastness and beauty of Boston’s Jordan Hall, where we cannot yet gather and listen to music. The video also brings us intimately into each of the players' worlds, closer and more privately, than if we heard it live.
Performance Details
Chelsea Music Festival
Friday, June 25, 2021 at 7:30pm (7:00pm Pre-Concert Zoom)
Tickets: On sale June 3. Any donation $100 or more is tax-deductible for the entire 2-day festival and includes a curated gift bag.
Link: https://www.
Eric Nathan: Just a Moment (2021) [World Premiere]
John Ferrillo and Amanda Hardy, oboes
Recorded in Boston’s Jordan Hall
Audio recorded by Stephanie Rogers
Audio postproduction by Antonio Oliart Ros
Videography by K. Greene Productions
About Eric Nathan
Eric Nathan’s (b. 1983) music has been called “as diverse as it is arresting” with a “constant vein of ingenuity and expressive depth” (San Francisco Chronicle), “thoughtful and inventive” (The New Yorker), and as “a marvel of musical logic” (Boston Classical Review).
Nathan, a 2013 Rome Prize Fellow and 2014 Guggenheim Fellow, has garnered acclaim internationally through performances by Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Scharoun Ensemble Berlin, International Contemporary Ensemble, Boston Symphony Chamber Players, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Boston Musica Viva, JACK Quartet, American Brass Quintet, Ensemble Dal Niente, A Far Cry, Momenta Quartet and performers including vocalists Dawn Upshaw, Lucy Shelton, Tony Arnold, Jessica Rivera and William Sharp, violinists Jennifer Koh and Stefan Jackiw, trombonist Joseph Alessi, pianists Gloria Cheng and Gilbert Kalish, and violist Samuel Rhodes. His music has additionally been featured at the New York Philharmonic’s 2014 and 2016 Biennials, Carnegie Hall, Aldeburgh Music Festival, Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Aspen Music Festival, MATA Festival, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Ravinia Festival Steans Institute, Yellow Barn, Music Academy of the West, 2012 and 2013 World Music Days, and Louvre Museum.
Recent projects include three commissions from the Boston Symphony Orchestra including a chamber work, Why Old Places Matter (2014) for the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, and two orchestral works, the space of a door (2016) which Andris Nelsons and the BSO premiered in November 2016 and commercially released on the Naxos label in 2019, and Concerto for Orchestra which Nelsons premiered on the 2019-20 season-opening concerts and was scheduled to repeat at Tanglewood in summer 2020 (canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic).
Nathan has received additional commissions from the New York Philharmonic for its CONTACT! series, Milwaukee Symphony, New England Philharmonic, Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Music Festival for the American Brass Quintet, Boston Musica Viva, Collage New Music, New York Virtuoso Singers and the Fromm Music Foundation. Nathan has been honored with awards including a Copland House residency, Civitella Ranieri Music Fellowship, ASCAP’s Rudolf Nissim Prize, four ASCAP Morton Gould Awards, BMI’s William Schuman Prize, Aspen Music Festival’s Jacob Druckman Prize, a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Leonard Bernstein Fellowship from the Tanglewood Music Center.
In 2015, Albany Records released a debut CD of Nathan’s solo and chamber music, Multitude, Solitude: Eric Nathan, produced by Grammy-winning producer Judith Sherman. In 2020, Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project released a portrait album of Nathan’s orchestral and large ensemble music on the BMOP Sound label.
Nathan is currently Composer-in-Residence with the New England Philharmonic. He previously served as Composer-in-Residence at the 2013 Chelsea Music Festival (New York) and 2013 Chamber Music Campania (Italy). He received his doctorate from Cornell and holds degrees from Yale (B.A.) and Indiana University (M.M.). Nathan served as Visiting Assistant Professor at Williams College in 2014-15, and is currently David S. Josephson Assistant Professor of Music in Composition-Theory at the Brown University Department of Music. Learn more at www.ericnathanmusic.com.
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