program
Convergence
[SF Symphony Commission and World Premiere]
[SF Symphony Commission and World Premiere]
Jesper
Nordin
Naïve and Sentimental Music
John
Adams
performances
If you would like assistance purchasing tickets for patrons with disabilities, please call the box office at 415-864-6000.
Event Description
Innovative interactive tech turns each performance of Convergence into a unique, unrepeatable event. Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, soloist Pekka Kuusisto, and composer-inventor Jesper Nordin’s cutting-edge electronics come together in this radical reinvention of the violin concerto. In Naïve and Sentimental Music, dedicated to Salonen, John Adams celebrates a similar creative impulse: spontaneity, the spirit of free play.
At A Glance
This concert brings together two contemporary works by composers who have been championed by San Francisco Symphony Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Jesper Nordin’s Convergence is a cutting-edge reinvention of the violin concerto, commissioned by the SF Symphony for Collaborative Partner Pekka Kuusisto. Nordin’s Reactional Music Engine, designed in part to create custom music for video games, powers electronic instruments in real time, triggered by the soloist and conductor through audio tracking and motion sensors.
John Adams’s Naïve and Sentimental Music, co-commissioned and premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1999 during Salonen’s music directorship there, seeks to shake off the composer’s “anxiety of influence” and the weight of expectation, returning to the “naïve” realm of direct and individual musical creativity.
Jesper Nordin’s Convergence is a cutting-edge reinvention of the violin concerto, commissioned by the SF Symphony for Collaborative Partner Pekka Kuusisto. Nordin’s Reactional Music Engine, designed in part to create custom music for video games, powers electronic instruments in real time, triggered by the soloist and conductor through audio tracking and motion sensors.
John Adams’s Naïve and Sentimental Music, co-commissioned and premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1999 during Salonen’s music directorship there, seeks to shake off the composer’s “anxiety of influence” and the weight of expectation, returning to the “naïve” realm of direct and individual musical creativity.
Enrich Your Experience
- Learn the secrets behind Jesper Nordin’s Reactional Music technology through an in-concert discussion/demonstration with Nordin and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
- Expand your senses with video projections, created live in the moment.
- It’s game on as Pekka Kuusisto improvises alongside Jesper Nordin’s technology.
Reactional Music
Composer/developer Jesper Nordin comfortably straddles the worlds of concert music and gaming, and his twin interests have found a home in his Reactional Music platform. In addition to creating custom in-the-moment music for gamers, Reactional Music also allows unprecedented interaction between live performers and technology as gestures inspire the surrounding musical atmosphere. Nordin’s violin concerto offers a fascinating opportunity to see and hear Reactional Music in action.
