About this BSO NOW episode:
Led by BSO Youth and Family Concerts Conductor Thomas Wilkins, Episode 2 of the series examines the role of place and home in an artist’s experience. The Syrian-born, Boston-based composer Kareem Roustom embraces the land of his youth in three of his Aleppo Songs, based on urban folk music of that ancient city. Although he grew up largely in New York City, the Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla’s musical “home” was Buenos Aires and the tango, which he transformed with unique sophistication. Hector Del Curto channels Piazzolla’s spirit as soloist in the composer’s bandoneón concerto Aconcagua, named for an Argentine mountain. Paul Hindemith remained true to his artistic principles even in light of his oppression by the Third Reich, which led to his immigration to the U.S. in 1940. His 1934 Symphony, Mathis der Maler, an orchestral parallel to his opera of the same name, concerns the Renaissance painter Matthias Grünewald’s struggle for artistic freedom during a time of social strife. Concluding this episode is Atlanta-born composer Carlos Simon’s brief string quartet Warmth from Other Suns, which references the great Black writer Richard Wright’s quote about the Great Migration of the 20th century, in which millions of African Americans left the Jim Crow South to seek new lives in the North. Also part of this program are a dynamic feature on the bandoneón with soloist Hector Del Curto, plus a conversation with Kareem Roustom as part of a feature on composers finding their artistic voice far from their place of birth.
Available January 21 at 12PM through February 20 at bso.org/now.
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