Jennifer Koh

The New York Time
By David Weininger
June 27, 2024
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5 Classical Music Albums You Can Listen to Right Now

Vijay Iyer: ‘Trouble’
Jennifer Koh, violin; Boston Modern Orchestra Project; Gil Rose, conductor (BMOP/sound)

The pianist Vijay Iyer, an acclaimed figure in improvised music, also composes works “around” the classical tradition, as he puts it in the notes for this first recorded collection of his orchestral music. There is nothing programmatic or explicitly political, but all the pieces reflect, in some way, the tensions of the era in which they were created, from 2017 to 2019.

The largest work is the half-hour “Trouble,” for violin and orchestra, written for the brilliant Jennifer Koh. It can be heard as a meditation on the relationship of individual to collective: Unlike a traditional concerto, Koh’s nuanced and highly varied sound spinning into and away from a spacious orchestral texture. There is a collective sense of mourning in the third movement, an agonizing memorial for Vincent Chin, a Chinese American man murdered in Detroit in 1982. And in the long, final movement, “Assembly,” various musical strands come together — at first uncertainly, but ultimately in triumph.

“Crisis Modes,” for percussion and strings — which Iyer calls “an S.O.S. from this scarred planet” — boasts a ghostly middle movement rife with Bartokian night sounds. Minimalism is an audible touchpoint for the orchestral piece “Asunder,” which has a buoyancy that transcends the darkness of its time. The collection leaves you leave grateful for the Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s usual confident performances, and wanting to hear more from Iyer the composer.

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