HUrrICANe
PIANO Concerto

ABOUT THE WORK

The work is a a twenty minute Piano Concerto called Hurricane. The work will be in four movements called

1. Dead Calm-Disturbance—The term used to describe absolutely no wind: a calm so still it begins to be worrying and worried.
2. Depression—the accumulation of strength and force
3. Headlong Storm (Cadenza)—The calm catalyzes through loud percussion and brass ‘claps’ into a rising ‘storm’ in the piano
4. Cyclonic—This movement becomes unpredictable with gushes of huge, dramatic motion in the strings and piano and crackling percussion interjections often mirrored by “echoes” of these snap interjections in the virtuosic piano part.

The INSPIRATION behind this work, and so much of my recent work, is our wondrously beautiful natural earth. The earth and its lands, seas, oceans and sky are all under tremendous threat in our age. My work is dedicated as a reminder of what we have and a warning of what we may lose.

The Piano, with its powerful, impassioned and soulful voice, will stand in sympathy with and contrast to the orchestra as the solo line speaks at once for the earth and for us. The four movements will sound—as most of my recent work does—both as a mirror of the natural world and its tremendously grand and expansive beauty as well as metaphors for our internalized emotional responses and internal worlds that are equally grand, expansive, complex and emotional.

INSTRUMENTATION

2 Flutes
2 Oboes
2 Clarinets
2 Bassoons

2 Horns in F
2 Trumpets in C
2 Tenor Trombones
Harp
Timpani plus 2 percussion parts

SOLO PIANO

Strings (Min 12,10, 8, 6, 5)

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The Artists

Learn more about the composer
Douglas Knehans, composer

Learn more about the soloist
Christopher Goodpasture, Piano

DOUGLAS KNEHANS

Douglas Knehans’s music is about complex relationships that are dramatically established and drawn over large timeframes through a technique he calls deep line. The surface and expressive impact of his music though is about richness and color and critics see it that way too when they say his music “…is radiant and multicolored. This is music of tremendous imagination. Knehans scores with a masterly hand, his sound paintbrush unerringly hitting the mark.” (Fanfare Magazine)

The creation of sound worlds of great paradox is thus a huge fascination for Knehans. The outward representation of inner psycho-emotional dynamics is of particular interest to him. In seeking to allow fruitful pathways for the understanding and meaning of works, he is increasingly drawn to summative and simple natural or organic symbols and signifiers that allow for a certain ‘pre-coding’ of a work in the mind of the listener: one that relies on time and memory, emotional response and intellectual engagement with organic and natural world metaphors.

His voice is influenced by his Australian-American training which was focused primarily on European music in his Australian undergraduate study at the prestigious Australian National University, and then American music in his American study at Queens College with Thea Musgrave—again also underscoring the European roots of his voice— and then at Yale with Pulitzer prize winning composer Jacob Druckman.

After completing all of his study at ANU, Queens and Yale, Knehans held a professorship at the University of Alabama; was Director and Head of School at the University of Tasmania Conservatorium of Music in Australia and then was appointed the Dean of the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. He is currently the Norman Dinerstein Professor of Composition Scholar at CCM.

He has received recognition, prizes, and awards for his compositions and recordings from the 2019 ISCM World Music Days; The Center for Contemporary Opera (New York); Opera Dagen Rotterdam 2019; Dark Mofo Festival (Australia); The American Prize; The Kennedy Center; Clouzine International Music Awards; Independent Music Awards; Global Music Awards; The Australia Council for the Arts; The Ohio Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts; Meet the Composer; New Music USA and many others.

His music is available on all streaming services through the CRI, Crystal, New World, Ablaze and Naxos labels. His music is published exclusively by Donemus, NL.

CHRISTOPHER GOODPASTURE

American pianist and Steinway Young Artist Christopher Goodpasture is establishing himself as a bold and imaginative programmer of the classical repertoire.

As the winner of the 2020 New York Concert Artists Worldwide Debut Auditions and the 2019 Astral Artists National Competition in Philadelphia, Christopher has since performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Benaroya Hall in Seattle, Koerner Hall in Toronto, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, and Weill Recital Hall in New York City, as well as the festivals of Ravinia, Aspen, Caramoor, Sarasota, and Port Townsend.  Additionally, he received top prizes at the Serge Koussevitszky Competition for Pianists and the Washington, Dallas, Iowa and Seattle international piano competitions.

Recent orchestral performances include concertos with the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of New York, Dallas Chamber Symphony, Sioux City Symphony, Acadiana Symphony Orchestra, Oakville Symphony in Toronto, and the Joven Orquesta Leonesa in Léon, Spain, among others.

From 2018-20, Christopher was a member of the New York-based Ensemble Connect, a fellowship program of Carnegie Hall and the Juilliard School, emphasizing chamber music, audience engagement, and mentorship for young musicians.  He has an active interest in commissioning contemporary music, an endeavor that has led to residencies at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, and resulted in original works and premieres by George E. Lewis, Douglas Knehans, Jules Matton, and jazz pianist Benoît Delbecq.

A native of Los Angeles, California, Christopher’s musical life began at the Pasadena Conservatory, where he studied piano, chamber music, theory, and composition.  He furthered his studies with John Perry at the University of Southern California and the Glenn Gould School in Toronto and pursued graduate degrees at The Juilliard School and the Yale School of Music where his teachers were Hung-Kuan Chen, Jerome Lowenthal, and Peter Frankl.  Currently, he is a doctoral candidate at the Peabody Institute, working with Richard Goode. 

For enquiries about this project, please contact:
Josephine McLachlan
Ablaze Records Artists Management [email]