Ep. 17: Interview with Christopher Cerrone
Christopher Cerrone (b. 1984, New York) is internationally acclaimed for compositions characterized by a subtle handling of timbre and resonance, a deep literary fluency, and a flair for multimedia collaborations. Balancing lushness and austerity, immersive textures and telling details, dramatic impact, and interiority, Cerrone’s multi-GRAMMY-nominated music is utterly compelling and uniquely his own. Cerrone’s opera, In a Grove (libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann), jointly produced by LA Opera and Pittsburgh Opera, was called “stunning” (Opera News) and “outstanding” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) in its sold-out premiere run directed by Mary Birnbaum in March 2022. Other recent projects include The Year of Silence, based on the story of the same name by Kevin Brockmeier, for the Louisville Symphony and baritone Dashon Burton; A Body, Moving, a brass concerto for the Cincinnati Symphony; Breaks and Breaks, a violin concerto for Jennifer Koh and the Detroit Symphony; The Insects Became Magnetic, an orchestral work with electronics for the Los Angeles Philharmonic; The Air Suspended, a piano concerto for Shai Wosner; and Meander, Spiral, Explode, a percussion quartet concerto co-commissioned by Third Coast Percussion, the Chicago Civic Orchestra of the Chicago Symphony and the Britt Festival. Upcoming projects include Beaufort Scales, an oratorio for voices, electronics, and video commissioned by Lorelei Ensemble to premiere at Mass MoCA; a new percussion quartet co-commissioned by Sandbox Percussion, Blow Up Percussion, and the Park Avenue Armory, and new large works for the LA Philharmonic and Roomful of Teeth. Cerrone’s first opera, Invisible Cities, a 2014 Pulitzer Prize finalist, was praised by the Los Angeles Times as “A delicate and beautiful opera…[which] could be, and should be, done anywhere.” Invisible Cities received its fully-staged world premiere in a wildly popular production by The Industry, directed by Yuval Sharon, in Los Angeles’ Union Station. Both the film and opera are available as CDs, DVDs, and digital downloads. In July 2019, New Amsterdam Records released his GRAMMY-nominated sophomore effort, The Pieces that Fall to Earth, collaborating with the LA-based chamber orchestra, Wild Up, to widespread acclaim. The Arching Path, from 2021 (In a Circle Records), features performances by Timo Andres, Ian Rosenbaum, Lindsay Kesselman, and Mingzhe Wang and was nominated for a 2022 GRAMMY. His most recent release, a studio version of In a Grove, was named one of the best recordings of 2023 by The New York Times: “A vividly immersive thriller... not a word or note is without purpose, and both are captured, if not enhanced, in this richly produced recording.” Cerrone won the 2015–2016 Samuel Barber Rome Prize in Music Composition and was a resident at the Laurenz Haus Foundation in Basel, Switzerland from 2022–2023.