Mark-Anthony Turnage's Three Asteroids Hits San Francisco
(May 2008)
The Bay Area will witness the impact of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s rising U.S. profile June 5-7 with the complete premiere of his latest work, Three Asteroids. This San Francisco Symphony program, conducted by Benjamin Shwartz, will mark the U.S. premiere performances of two movements—"The Torino Scale" and "Juno"—and will be the first time all three movements have been performed together.The third movement, “Ceres,” made an impression with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under conductor Robert Spano in its U.S. premiere in January 2007.
The Boston Globe reports: “Turnage chose to focus on the asteroid’s massive destructive potential in the event of a possible collision with Earth. His music wisely refrains from scene-painting the apocalypse, but this six-minute work still succeeds in conjuring a mounting sense of anarchy by pitting large swaths of music against each other. Themes appear to stack up in one moment, and slice across each other the next. In the final coda, Turnage has the cellos playing beneath their bridges, creating a ghastly spectral sound, like an icy wind heard from outer space… A fascinating and decidedly dark curtain-raiser.”
"Ceres" was first premiered under the baton of Simon Rattle with the Berlin Philharmonic in March of 2006 as part of Rattle’s project to commission works which compliment Gustav Holst’s The Planets. The complete event was recorded by EMI on a disc that was released in July of that year. Both “The Torino Scale” and “Juno” were commissioned by the Bamberger Symphoniker and premiered in February 2007.
Turnage’s works have received numerous performances by major U.S. orchestras over recent years, with an appointment as Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra 2006-08, resulting in two premieres (From All Sides and Chicago Remains) and a highly successful residency at Tanglewood including a powerful rendition of Blood on the Floor in 2006.
> Further information on Work: Three Asteroids
Photo: Hanya Chlala/ArenaPAL
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