by Mark Gresham | 5 OCT 2018
Composer and Atlanta Symphony contrabassist Michael Kurth (credit: Jeff Roffman)
A Thousands Words by Atlanta composer Michael Kurth will open this weekend’s concerts by the Kansas City Symphony, led by KCS music director Michael Stern. The three performances will take place tonight, Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. Also on the program are Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor, featuring pianist George Li as soloist, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.
A Thousand Words was premiered in February 2016 with music director Robert Spano leading the ASO. Symphonic in form, the 27-minute work has four movements, each given an intriguing title, as the verbally imaginative composer is inclined to do: “Above: Radiance,” “Beneath: My Sinister Groove Machine,” “Within” and “Beyond: We Will Puncture the Canopy of Night.”
Born in 1971, Kurth joined the contrabass section the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in 1994. The Orchestra has given world premieres of five of his orchestral works since 2011: “May Cause Dizziness,” “Everything Lasts Forever,” “Prometheus Unhinged,” “A Thousand Words” and “Miserere.” The ASO has recorded a complete album of works by Kurth, to be released in 2019 on ASO Media. Kurth also serves as composer-in-residence for the Riverside Chamber Players, which has premiered a number of his chamber works, and released an album of his music for string quartet in 2012.
Program notes for the concert by Ken Meltzer are available for download in PDF form. ❧
