Meet the Composer

Carrie Biolo and James A. Strain have commissioned Jeff Kowalkowski to compose a duo percussion concerto. The premiere will be with the Marquette Symphony on March 27, 2010 on a program entitled "Innovators." This is the final concert of the MSO’s 13th Season and will feature the Kowalkowski and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3.

Kowalkowski writes about his new work:

"The Concerto is a formal labyrinth with very little exact repetition, in terms of material. The single movement is between 25 and 27 minutes. The Timpani and percussion soloists are at first separate, but then both players end up playing multiple instruments, and there is a passage for four-hand marimba and also four-hand timpani. There are several cadenzas for both soloists. My working title Resolute Dot Dot Cloud refers to my experience of the midwest sky, especially in summer, with clouds quickly joining and dispersing. I am trying to evoke a mercurial texture, in the spirit of Debussy, with edgy clouds of sound, similar to Xenakis. There is a section which features the various sections of the orchestra. This passage is a "parade of fragments" with quotations from concertos which inspired me: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Grieg, Strauss, Busoni, Satie, and Cowell"