Turnage dance success in Chicago with From All Sides

(April 2007)

Mark-Anthony Turnage’s first dance collaboration combines Hubbard Street Dance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

The latest premiere resulting from Mark-Anthony Turnage’s composer residency with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra took the form of a pioneering cross-platform collaboration between the orchestra and the Hubbard Street Dance company. While Turnage’s music has long attracted choreographers to set existing works, From All Sides is the first score he has created specifically for dance, though its orchestral flair promises an equally active life in the concert hall. The composer has been enjoying a rising profile in North America over recent seasons, and this dancework provided further demonstration of Turnage’s wide-ranging versatility.



The opening series of performances of From All Sides took place in Symphony Center in January, with the sextet of dancers from Hubbard Street Dance performing Jorma Elo’s new choreography at the front of the orchestra and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. The dance company then toured the ballet to Washington and Pittsburgh in February and showcased it during its home Chicago season in April.

The dance critic of the Chicago Tribune noted how the new dancework was “arrestingly fast and busy… As music for dancing, its nervous explosions of obstreperous energy, its crafty fusion of jazz and classical impulses, serve the manic moods of Elo’s choreographic suite just fine.”

“An impressive addition to the repertory... The dance impulse is transmuted back into pure rhythmic exhilaration in the large, colourful orchestra. Turnage’s airy, edgy rhythms move with the crisp elegance of Stravinsky combined with the sassy exuberance of jazz. That sound has become Turnage’s musical fingerprint. His scoring always feels light even when it enlists a hefty complement of brass and percussion… plus antiphonal trumpets and trombones stationed throughout the auditorium. The audience is literally surrounded by instruments – hence the title From All Sides.” Chicago Tribune

Turnage has recently completed Chicago Remains, a 20-minute score commissioned by the Serge Koussevitzky Foundation. Bernard Haitink will conduct its first performance on 4 October with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Other new works include About Water, to be premiered at the South Bank Centre in London on 15 June, written for jazz singer Barb Jungr, vocal quartet, double bassist John Patitucci and the London Sinfonietta conducted by Stefan Asbury. Turnage is working with Patitucci on a further collaboration, A Prayer Out of Stillness, co-commissioned by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the NYDD Festival in Estonia and due for premiere in October.

> Further information on Work: From All Sides

Photo: Hubbard Street Dance in Turnage's From All Sides (Donald Rosenberg)

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