Pulitzer, Grammy winner Jennifer Higdon to lecture at MC in advance of Concert Choir performance of her works
March 20, 2023
Winning Grammy Awards and Pulitzer Prizes is nice, but for American composer Jennifer Higdon, holding workshops with students at Maryville College is just as sweet.
Reason one: She’s returning to the area in which she grew up and made a lasting, soulful impression on her heart and her art. She’ll work with MC choir and music students on March 23, the same day her Cold Mountain Suite will receive its East Tennessee premiere by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra.
Reason two: It just hits differently to put her composing hat on the rack for a while and relish the thirst for knowledge in young people who share her passion for music.
“It’s really fascinating to have that interchange of ideas and discussions, and to try to open those doors for them,” she said. “Last week I was in Portland, and I talked with high school-age young composers. I love doing these general talks about careers in music, or for that matter, about being persistent in doing what it is that you love.
“When you’re composing, you’re living in your own little box in one room, and this is a nice way to remember that we’re writing for the people outside that room: the performers and the audiences, and getting to meet them and talk to them, that’s the rich side of music. That’s where the wealth of it comes in.”
An East Tennessee impression
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Higdon and her family moved to East Tennessee by way of Atlanta when she was a young girl. They settled in the Seymour community, northeast of Maryville College, and Higdon taught herself to play the flute at 15. Attending Heritage High School, a few miles up East Lamar Alexander Parkway from the College, she played percussion and flute under former Band Director Larry Hicks, graduating in 1981.
She’s traveled far and accomplished much since those days, but the impact East Tennessee made on her spirit has persisted ever since, she said.
“Living on the farm in Seymour, right on the edge of Blount County, had a huge influence on ‘Cold Mountain Suite,’” she said. “The reason I picked the book (the bestselling 1997 novel by Charles Frazier) was that it had to do with the fact I spent so many formative years in those mountains. I read through the novel four times in a row getting ready to write the opera, and I finally realized that on the map at the front of the book, the farm I lived on … Maryville … they’re all on there. And that’s why this book feels so comfortable and familiar.”
(It was at Maryville College, incidentally, that Higdon met Frazier for the first time: In 2012, Frazier spoke at the College as part of the Appalachian Lecture Series, and Higdon happened to be back in East Tennessee at the time.)
After graduation from Heritage, Higdon attended Bowling Green State University in Ohio and completed coursework at the Curtis Institute and the University of Pennsylvania. Her career was launched when the Philadelphia Orchestra commissioned her to write “Concerto for Orchestra” in 2002. The ensemble debuted it at a national orchestra convention to resounding acclaim, and today it’s been performed hundreds of times by musicians around the world.
In 2005, she was nominated for her first Grammy Award for her March 2004 release Cityscapes/Concerto for Orchestra. She was nominated again in 2007 and won in 2010 with a trophy for Best Classical Contemporary Composition for “Percussion Concerto,” performed by the London Philharmonic. It was in April of that year, however, that she was announced as the winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music, handed down for her composition “Violin Concerto.”
After a nomination in 2017 for the contemporary classical composition “Cold Mountain,” she won again the following year for “Viola Concerto,” and her win in 2020 was in the Best Contemporary Classical Composition for her “Harp Concerto,” which was performed by Yolanda Kondonassis, Ward Stare and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Although her name isn’t among the recipients, her work “Concerto 4-3,” recorded with the trio Time for Three and the Philadelphia Orchestra, won another Grammy earlier this year.
Not that she revels in the accolades of her talent, she added with a chuckle.
“I think the first Grammy sat in my studio for all of 10 minutes before I thought, ‘I can’t have this in here looking over my shoulder!’” she said. “Now, I think most of them are in my living room. I’m honored, but it’s about the work, not the awards. And you don’t want them hanging over your shoulders, because it can mess with your head!”
And she’s far too busy to allow that to happen. After recording a new arrangement of one of her most deeply personal works, the orchestral piece Blue Cathedral — written in memory of Higdon’s brother, Andrew, who also attended high school in East Tennessee — the President’s Own Marine Band is recording a newly commissioned Higdon piece, “Aspire.” She recently completed a violin orchestra piece for violinist, conductor and fellow Grammy winner Joshua Bell, she continues to travel to work with various ensembles in the studio and on stage, and her Cold Mountain Suite has been co-commissioned to be performed by 36 orchestras across the nation.
Taking time out to educate
“It’s been chaotic, and actually I worked all the way through the pandemic,” she said. “It didn’t slow for me at all with my composing work, and I was doing (virtual) guest appearances at three or four different schools a week, helping students get through lockdown, and it was a lot — but all pretty amazing.”
Which is why, when Stacey Wilner — director of choral activities at Maryville College and a mutual friend through Hicks — found out that Higdon would be in East Tennessee for the March 23 and 24 Knoxville Symphony performances and extended an invitation for her to come to Maryville College to conduct an afternoon master class, Higdon didn’t hesitate.
“It’s really an honor to do something like this, even for a short amount of time, to share things that make an impression on young performers,” she said. “You always have a lot of questions when you’re studying the arts about how you’ll be able to make a living, and having stepped out and survived and not fallen off a cliff, it helps them to see that it can be done.
“Plus, I feel like when I come back to Tennessee, I’m kind of recharging my batteries. The world of sound is a lot of what I do, and the mountains, the people, the wildlife, the accents, the music that gets played around there — it’s all part of an enthusiasm for life that finds its way into my music.”
The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra Moxley Carmichael Masterworks concert “Appalachian Journeys,” featuring Higdon’s Cold Mountain Suite will take place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, March 23 and 24, at The Tennessee Theatre in downtown Knoxville.
In addition, the Maryville College Concert Choir will present its “Homeward Bound” homecoming concert at 7 p.m. Friday, March 24, in the Ronald and Lynda Nutt Theatre of the Clayton Center for the Arts on the MC campus. Tickets are $10, and selections on the program include “Swing” and “Fiddlin’,” both from Higdon’s Southern Grace collection of choral works, as well as “A Quiet Moment,” a work that will be performed by the small ensemble Off Kilter.
“Rarely do musicians have the unique opportunity to meet the composers of the music they perform,” Wilner said. “Choral singers may spend many hours rehearsing a specific work and learn to decipher the musical intricacies of a composition, but often information about the initial inspiration or perspiration involved in its creation is simply unavailable.
“In our modern world, a composer’s music can be made available worldwide. Even though we may now be able to read online anecdotes about the history of the music or visit the composer’s social media pages, we still do not always know the whole story. Being able to meet the composer and learn the history of what inspired the music and the challenges it presented, is an added perspective that allows for a more in-depth understanding of the original musical intent.
“The students in the Concert Choir and our Maryville College music majors are excited at the opportunity to meet a composer such as Jennifer Higdon and to learn more about her works and process for writing,” Wilner added. “Her ability to become so successful in the music world will serve as an inspiration for our students and opens their minds to possibilities they may have never considered before.”
For more information on the March 24 MC Concert Choir performance, call the Clayton Center box office at 865-981-8590.