The Jacksonville Symphony has embarked on an exciting, multi-year project to premiere original works commissioned from today’s most exciting composers. The 2021/22 Season saw the first of these works with Trances, a full symphonic piece by Tarik O’Regan. In this season’s remarkable lineup of historic masterpieces, new music makes history of its own with not one but two world premieres. First up is Lowell Liebermann’s Organ Concerto, a perfect match for GRAMMY^® Award-winning Paul Jacobs, who brings his awe-inspiring genius to the colossal Bryan Concert Organ. Later in the season, Courtney Bryan returns for the world premiere of another Jacksonville Symphony commission, showcasing her virtuosity as “a composer of panoramic interests” (New York Times).

In its commitment to the living symphonic art form and commissioning new works, the Symphony will host its inaugural Living Composers Seminar on Wednesday, September 27, from 6:30-7:30 p.m. There will be an intimate discussion and presentation by Music Director Courtney Lewis, Associate Conductor Kevin Fitzgerald, Assistant Conductor Grant O’Brien and award-winning composer Lowell Liebermann. The Living Composers Seminar will focus on three key aspects of music that help with processing sound: rhythm, harmony and orchestration. Through discussion and examples, the group will share insights and personal experiences to help dispel barriers to embracing a new paradigm of classical music. There is no cost to this exclusive Jacksonville Symphony event, but a ticket is required as spaces are limited. To reserve tickets, visit JaxSymphony.org or call the Box Office at 904.354.5547.

For a sneak peek at the discussion, internationally acclaimed composer Lowell Liebermann has answered some popular questions about his Jacksonville Symphony commission, Organ Concerto, and shares his background as one of today’s leading composers.

How did you get into music and writing your own pieces?
“I started piano lessons when I was about eight years old, which is a little bit late. A lot of concert pianists start by the time they're five or younger. Almost immediately, I started spontaneously composing. I couldn't even read music well at that point, and I would guess where to put the dots on the paper. Years later, I came across some of these earliest attempts and absolutely couldn't decipher what I meant. When I was 13, I announced to my parents that I wanted to be a composer. My first composition teacher was Ruth Schönthal, a pupil of Paul Hindemith. The first piece that I kept in my catalog, and which has been published and recorded, and gets performed every now and then was my Piano Sonata No.1, Op.1, which I wrote at the age of 15.

From then on, everything I wrote has stayed in my catalog. After high school, I went to Juilliard, got all three of my degrees there and have been a composer ever since. A lot of my early love of music - and there is an organ connection here - came from the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. My first exposure to Bach was an album my mother constantly listened to called Switched-On Bach by Wendy Carlos. This was the first time that classical music was performed on the synthesizer, and it was a big crossover hit in the late 60s. A lot of Bach’s music is for the organ, so I was very conscious of the organ as an instrument from an early age.”

How would you describe your composition style, and are there any strong musical influences on this particular piece you’ve written?
“In terms of composition style, the Organ Concerto is very consistent with the rest of my pieces. I've always seen my works as being part of the western classical continuum of music. I never intend for my music to be a radical break with what's happened before it. To me, the whole history of music is a very enriching tradition, and my music often makes references to other composers, styles and techniques. This piece being an Organ Concerto, there is such a weighty organ tradition, beginning with composers like Dieterich Buxtehude and Johann Jakob Froberger and Bach and going up to the present to Olivier Messiaen. That’s something you have to reckon with as a composer. With Bach being one of my all-time great musical loves, there's a lot of that inspiration in this piece—not that I'm imitating Bach, although there are certainly moments that are references to his works, kind of sly nudges. There are references to fugal writing and all kinds of techniques that are associated with organ music. I find all of that to be very enriching and fun to use when I'm composing a piece.

In my music, there usually is no extra-musical inspiration. It's not about sunsets, political events or things of that sort. It's about the manipulation of the harmonies, the melodies, the musical materials I'm using and the abstract emotions that those evoke in the listener. I do stress that these are abstract emotions. I often compare it to working with emotions the way an abstract painter would work with colors. A lot of people have called me a Neo-Romantic composer, which is a label I disagree with. When most people say Neo-Romantic, what they often mean is tonal or melodic. While my music often does use tonality, it also uses whatever materials I feel like using, whether tonal or not. I consider myself to be more of a Neo-Classicist if anything, because, for me, the whole idea of programmatic music and music being about things is a more romantic concept. My music is just about the notes, which is a more classic approach.”

Can you talk about the unique power of the organ as an instrument and how your piece highlights its versatility?
“When you sit down to write a concerto of any kind, you have to seriously think about the instrument, what it can do and what you want to do with it. One of the things I realized was that the whole concept of virtuosity is different in an Organ Concerto than in concertos for other instruments. For instance, we all know what “virtuosity” means in a Piano Concerto: that there are millions of notes, and there's a certain amount of technical difficulty. It doesn't work the same with organ because if you have millions of notes in one passage, you basically can't hear them. It almost turns into white noise. Some of the most impressive moments in the organ repertoire are when there's just a big, powerful held chord - like in the Saint-Saëns Third Symphony - and that is of no technical difficulty whatsoever. As a composer you question, “well, what is virtuosity in terms of the organ, and what do I want to bring to this?” What the organ does have that pianos don't are the multiple keyboards. You can do all kinds of intricate interlocking figures on two keyboards that would be impossible to play on one. There is a lot of utilization of that in my piece, which was very fun to write.

I am a keyboard player, and I did compose the piece at the organ, which was very helpful. Every organ is different in terms of the registration and even the number of keyboards. Some of them will have three or four, and the big organs can have five or more keyboards. The available sounds and different stops are also different with each organ. Then, there is the additional question of, “what do these different stops sound like in the acoustics of the particular hall that organ is in?” There are so many variables in terms of balance and what is going to sound good on a particular organ that you can't make definite choices until you are in that room with that organ. I indicated almost nothing in terms of registration for this piece. I've left most of those decisions up to the fantastic organist Paul Jacobs, who will be premiering this piece.”

What drew you to the organ and what inspired you to write compositions for it?
“While the organ has not exactly fallen off the map, it has declined a lot in use as a concert instrument. People used to typically hear organs in churches, and of course, a lot of the repertoire comes out of liturgical music. A lot of churches now don't have organs, and a lot of concert halls who used to have magnificent organs don't have them anymore. One of the things that makes the Jacksonville Symphony so special is that you have this magnificent organ, and it really is an instrument unlike any other. My very first commission was a solo organ piece for a fellow student at Juilliard. I have since written for organ in the context of orchestral pieces. My Second Symphony has a prominent organ part as well as a couple of other orchestral pieces, but I never wrote a solo work dedicated to the organ again, until now.

I have a very close friend by the name of Tali Mahanor, who also happens to be a friend of Paul Jacobs. Tali is one of the greatest piano tuners and experts on pianos and organs. About 15 years ago, she gave me an Allen digital church organ as a gift in the hopes that it would inspire me to compose more for the organ. This is something I always intended to do, but the opportunity never came up. When you work as a composer by profession, you have to write what people commission, and I'm busy enough that I usually do not have the time to just sit down and write a piece because I want to. So, when the possibility of an Organ Concerto for Jacksonville came up, I was absolutely over the moon knowing I could finally write this piece. The Organ Concerto is dedicated to Tali in gratitude for her friendship and her gift of the organ.

Another interesting thing about the whole concept of the organ concerto and why there aren’t a huge number of them is because it’s not that often that you get an orchestra presenting the organ as a solo instrument. There are pieces of course, but it's not comparable to the Piano Concerto repertoire, for example. Another thing is a lot of these pieces are not called concertos. They're often called things like Symphony for Organ and Orchestra or Concerto Symphonique, rather than just Concerto. I think the reason for this is that the organ is almost an orchestra in itself. The whole concept of a concerto, which is usually one tiny soloist up against a big orchestra, becomes obscured by the fact that you have an instrument that can be the equal in volume, variety of tone and color and other aspects to an orchestra. Therefore, writing an organ concerto is a very different process than writing, say, a Violin Concerto or a Piano Concerto.”

If you had just a brief moment to capture someone’s curiosity about your music who has yet to hear it, what should they listen for in the upcoming performances of the Organ Concerto?
“That's always a difficult question for me to answer because I never want to tell people what they should expect when listening to my works. I would much rather people listen to the music as it unfolds and see what they feel rather than having this fear that they have to listen for something, and if they miss it, they're not getting the piece. I encourage all to simply sit back, relax and enjoy the music.

I will say that this Concerto is a large piece in four movements, about a half hour in length. The first movement, titled Chorale-Prelude, is expansively melodic, with references to Baroque music (Bach in particular) and fugal elements. The second movement is a sardonic Dance, almost like a Scherzo. The third movement, Aria, is, in a way, the emotional core of the piece. This leads, without pause, into the fourth movement which starts off at one tempo and then for the rest of the movement gets imperceptibly faster and faster until the roof-raising ending.”

Are there any projects you are especially excited about? What can we expect to hear from you in the near future?
“The next commission, which I'm working on now, is my second Flute Concerto. This is for the Chicago Symphony and their principal flutist, Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson, who's just a fantastic flutist.”

What are your hopes for the future of composition and contemporary music? 
“I simply hope, above all else, that classical music survives and continues. A lot of that has to do with the state of our planet and our economy, so for now, I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”

What else haven’t we covered about you or your piece that you would like to tell our audiences?
“I just want to reiterate how excited I am about this upcoming premiere and to hear Paul Jacobs and the Symphony under the baton of Music Director Courtney Lewis. I can't wait to be there to hear the piece come alive.”