My Concerto for Violin and Orchestra is a work of some 20 minutes cast in three movements. Each movement explores certain facets of the violin's complex personality, or "soul." The classically proportioned first movement, taken as a whole, is rather mercurial in character, ranging from the lyrical and deeply expressive to the "devilish" and menacing. The second movement is the Concerto's fast and occasionally furious movement, with the rustic, obsessive, tempestuous and sarcastic, all taking turns. Though shorter and more intimate than the other two movements, it is the slow last movement, I believe, that acts as the work's emotional center. From its meditative, prayerful opening solo, through a gradual instrumental guild-up leading to a more intense cadenza and a final "resolution," it is a "farewell" movement dealing with the inevitability of loss.
Thoughts of my mother, whose strength of spirit has been a profoundly significant guiding light throughout my own life, have embedded themselves in the creation of various portions of this work. At the closing of the Concerto, echoes of a familiar melody, one my mother sang to me in my childhood with words of her own creation, appear, gently fading away.
I would like to express my appreciation to violinist Ittai Shapira, who commissioned this work and whose support and collaboration throughout the creative process have been of great meaning.
