Pianist and composer George Walker (1922–2018) was one of the most acclaimed African-American composers of the twentieth century. As the LAPhil notes: “In 1946, the then-24-year-old Walker composed his first string quartet. When he was given the chance to hear its poetic slow movement performed by a string orchestra, he added the title Lament and dedicated it as an elegy ‘To my grandmother.’ Later titled Lyric for Strings, the six-minute work – he continued to call it ‘my grandmother’s piece’ – became his best-known and most-performed work in a long and remarkable career.”
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As we look ahead to what we expect to be a more ‘normal’ Heifetz summer of 2022, we take a look back to the somewhat extraordinary – the final Heifetz performance from the unique summer of 2021.
It’s a summertime tradition to have all of our students play together in the last performance of the summer, creating the unforgettable over-the-top emotional experience that is “The Heifetz Band.” But how to get all 100 of our Heifetz students performing when for safety reasons they can’t all be on campus at the same time? The solution was to create what you will see & hear no fewer than four separate performances of George Walker‘s deeply affecting Lyric for Strings, seamlessly blended together into one masterful performance. The whole complicated shebang was imagined, coached, led, and realized by our Artistic Director Nicholas Kitchen and his fellow “bandmates” in the Borromeo String Quartet, with our redoubtable faculty member Sam Suggs leading the bass section.
Thank you, students of #Heifetz2021! PS – You can read, listen, and view more stories and videos from the 25 years of the Heifetz Institute here!