Grace-Evangeline Mason with Boston Symphony Orchestra
Photo: Winslow Townson, courtesy of the BSO
Robert Kirzinger, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Director of Program Publications, comments ‘in her works for larger forces, Mason creates gossamer, constantly changing ensemble textures by weaving together highly ornamented, fluid melodic lines in imitation and counterpoint. The flexibility and subtlety of individual parts lends the music a sense of vibrant life evoking the natural world; the composer will also use non-traditional playing styles and ambiguous gestures like glissandi to amplify the naturalness of the sound.’ You can read more here.
The concert was broadcast live on Classical WCRB.
“a musical mosaic ... Handler and the orchestra presented the piece beautifully.”
Anna Handler conducts Boston Symphony Orchestra
Photo: Winslow Townson, courtesy of the BSO
“sublime textures burst into vibrant, expressive swells only to return to the contemplative. The timpani evoked an undercurrent of nature rumbling to life as a bubbling marimba quickened the pulse ... After a standing ovation, Handler and Mason returned to the stage holding hands aloft as a sign of victory — and a triumph it was! I look forward to a lifetime of work by this promising protégé.”
In three concerts this week at Boston Symphony Hall, the Boston Symphony Orchestra under conductor Anna Handler in her Symphony Hall debut, performed Grace-Evangeline Mason’s The Imagined Forest, described as ‘colorful and inviting, and just as unabashedly beautiful’ in The Boston Globe, alongside Thomas de Hartmann’s Violin Concerto with soloist Joshua Bell, and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Grace-Evangeline Mason and Anna Handler with Boston Symphony Orchestra
Photo: Winslow Townson, courtesy of the BSO
“Mason immediately evoked the collage medium with busily overlapping layers of various sonic textures, which smoothly transitioned into episodes of meditative stillness; these lasted just long enough to notice them before more layers began to manifest and disappear.”
“Mason described her score as supplying a “forest for your imagination.” That description fit the vibrant colors that emanated from a single pitch played by solo trumpet. ... Mason’s score seesaws between pristine clarity and plush resonance. There is a touch of the genially Darwinian: the instruments vie for the spotlight, like plants reaching for the sun. Handler and the BSO reveled in the piece’s radiant splendor. Let’s hear more from Mason. And soon.”
