Wednesday, December 7th, 2011
So . . . I know I haven't written on my blog in many months and honestly, the list of things I could talk about is endless, because a lot has happened to me in the last few months. But, I wanted to post this entry right away, because it was one of the biggest events of this last year for me. I got to play for the first time as a soloist with an orchestra. On top of that, it was a good orchestra. The story of how this came to be starts like this:
Last January on I believe was a Friday afternoon I went to check my e-mail in the Alma Lab on BYU campus. This lab is where composers spend much of their time composing pieces. As I was finishing up, I ran into my friend, Joseph Sowa, a composition student I had talked to on multiple occasions in my time as a composition major and as a violin performance major. He told me that he was interested in writing a violin concerto and was wondering if he could write it for me to premiere it. I was a little hesitant at first, because of how busy my life has been, but then I realized how great this opportunity was. I accepted his proposal knowing that he was a talented composer and knew it could be a great joint effort.
I can say now how grateful I am that I accepted. A few weeks later, Joseph approached Kory Katseanes, the director of the BYU School of Music and the director of orchestras about premiering the piece. Kory immediately accepted the idea, because he had full confidence in Joseph as a composer. But then the question came . . . "Which violinist will premiere it?" Joseph replied, "Jared Starr." Kory immediately said yes, and said that he was perfectly fine with that. Luckily, only a few weeks earlier, I had performed the "Khachaturian Violin Concerto" in the final round of the BYU Concerto Competition and he had heard me play. I was so enthusiastic when I heard this news! Kory had us set with premiering the piece with the top orchestra at BYU: the BYU Chamber Orchestra.
Over the next few months, I started listening to a variety of violin concertos to consult with Joseph on things that I like in a concerto. I knew in the end that it would be his piece and that I had to leave it up to him, but I thought it would be great for us to talk through it a little bit. So, on one evening we sat down and listened to some violin concertos together. Here are some recordings of some concertos we BOTH particularly liked:
Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 1 (his personal favorite)
1st movement - Performed by David Oistrakh
2nd movement
3rd movement
Korngold Violin Concerto, 1st movement
performed by Hilary Hahn
Samuel Barber Violin Concerto
1st movement
2nd movement
3rd movement
Rozsa Violin Concerto, 1st movement
performed by Jascha Heifetz
There are many more that I absolutely love like the Sibelius violin concerto, which I am playing right now, but the concertos up above were ones we both agreed that we really liked. Many of the elements in these concertos had some influence on the piece that Joseph ended up writing.
I was grateful that Joseph and I agreed on many aspects of what we loved in violin concertos. Of course the final product that Joseph produced was not what I expected and I wasn't sure what I thought at first when I was first practicing the concerto, but the more I listened to the synthesized recording of the piece and practiced it with the Chamber Orchestra, the more I loved it. It is not your typical piece by any means, but I feel like it is a piece an audience can relate with enough that they can enjoy it and want to listen to it again multiple times.
After practicing the piece for months, Joseph had still not decided on a title. He called me a few times running titles across me and he eventually decided on "Myths and Legends." The piece definitely has elements on these words, but he did not intend it to be programmatic. Here is the video of the premiere on BYU Campus in the Harris Fine Arts Center in the DeJong Concert Hall on Wednesday, December 7th, 2011:
Even though the premiere was a wonderful experience, probably the best part was having members of my family there.
My mom, my sister, Alena and her husband, Mike, my brothers, Jacob, Amman, Jeremy, and Jonathan, Jonathan's wife Erica, and my niece, Ariel came to see me. I was so blessed and appreciative of them coming. It was overwhelming to have all the support they gave.
Also, many members of my ward, my friend, Amy Norton, my stake president, my roommates, EFY friends, violin students, and so many more came.
All these people there to support me are what make concerts like this so special. They are who I perform for.
Here is one of the only pictures I currently have from the performance. I hope to eventually get more.
From the left: Stephen Jones (the dean of the School of Music), Joseph Sowa (the composer), me, and Kory Katseanes (the orchestra conductor.
Thanks to all who made this experience so special! I love you all! You are the best!
