(Photo: Spencer Platt)
A new work by Russell Platt, “Arizona Echoes: Sinfonia for Band,” will premiere at the Vanderbilt Wind Symphony’s Saturday, April 5 performance in Ingram Hall. Inspired by both the composer’s visit to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor and his personal experience of the 9/11 disaster, “Arizona Echoes” was written in the winter of 2024 and marks Platt’s second symphonic composition.
The impetus to compose “Arizona Echoes” came some two decades after 9/11, on a visit to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. There I experienced the full range of emotions that millions have felt before me. When musical ideas came to mind, I thought of a piece for concert band. “Arizona Echoes” is a twelve-minute version of a four-movement symphony in which the listener can trace an overall arc of prelude, preparation, disaster, and aftermath. My intention in writing the piece was to reflect on a shared experience of catastrophe, and endurance.
“’Arizona Echoes’ is a score filled with imagination and compelling imagery,” said Thomas Verrier, conductor of the Vanderbilt Wind Symphony. “A challenging work for the individual musician as well as the ensemble, our students are working hard in preparation for the premiere!”
It’s been a productive time for Russell Platt, as his debut large-scale work, “Symphony in Three Movements (For Clyfford Still),” was premiered in fall 2024 by JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic and is featured on the ensemble’s new album Contemporary Landscapes. The work celebrates the paintings of early modernist Clyfford Still, displayed at Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Gallery. Gramophone magazine praised the recording as “relentlessly intriguing” and pronounced the second movement, “Chaconne,” an “unstoppable tour de force.”
A composer of unusual depth and versatility, Platt’s works are narrative-driven, formally dynamic, and frequently engage with works from other mediums. “Mountain Interval (String Quartet)” (2014-16), premiered by the Borromeo String Quartet, is a seven-movement double tribute to Beethoven’s String Quartet in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 131, and several beloved poems by Robert Frost. “Trio by Night” (2018), commissioned by Premiere Commission and premiered by Vanderbilt University’s Blakemore Trio, is a paean to the work of three Getty photojournalists imprisoned by the Egyptian government.
His music has been honored with both the Charles Ives Scholarship and Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship (2023), a Copland House Fellowship, a McKnight Fellowship from the American Composers Forum, a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, and an ASCAP Young Composers Award. Platt’s works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and vocalists have been performed by numerous distinguished ensembles and soloists. Before joining the Vanderbilt faculty, Platt was a senior editor and critic for classical music at The New Yorker (2000-2018). He won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for Music Criticism in 2010.
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Vanderbilt Wind Symphony: “Recollections”
Saturday, April 5, 2025, 8:00 p.m.
Ingram Hall
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