He began composing at the age of ten and heard his first orchestral pieces performed while still a teenager. He learned the clarinet from his father and played in marching bands and community orchestras during his formative years. (born February 15, 1947) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer with strong roots in minimalism. Following are listed in order of prominence. Following are listed in order of prom… Read Full Bio ↴ There are multiple artists with this name. ![]() Kozhukhin is a pianist with emotional range to be sure.There are multiple artists with this name. After a standing ovation, he played the same encore he performed at his debut, "The Dance of the Blessed Spirits" from Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, arranged by Giovanni Sgambatti, a delicate counterpoint to the furious main dish. He performed with utter confidence, fluttering off his seat from time to time to press even further into the keys. Orozco-Estrada gestured anxiously towards the wings for a replacement, but Kozhukhin brushed all worries aside. When he first walked on stage and sat down, the audience cooed with worry as he rocked backward. Kozhukhin, who made his Houston Symphony debut in 2014, literally bent toward this work as his piano stool had one stubbornly short leg. Denis Kozhukhin leaned into the work boldly and left most of the subtlety behind. If you listen to the 1939 recording of Rachmaninov playing, you’ll notice an uncanny even quality of assertiveness and gentleness. Even so, it's always exhilarating to watch a pianist take it on. 3 in D minor which, after that absolutely perfect opening lyric, suffers a bit in its construction (particularly compared to the first and second concertos). Last on the program was Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no. The symphony works as a kind of explosive itself, with all the rich tonal colors for which Adams is famous. One moment, sounds are creeping from the mist, in another they are ballooning in dynamic crescendo hairpins. The balance in the construction itself garners respect when shimmering violins build a foggy foundation for the brass to belt out lyrics or when six different competing rhythms across sections somehow come together coherently, I was awestruck. ![]() The sound of the symphony is insistent at first with relentless scales moving across the symphony in varying time signatures. This last movement, as Adams said in a video introduction before the symphony started, is the moment when Oppenheimer wonders if he can regain his soul. Robert Oppenheimer as he develops the nuclear bomb. First is “The Laboratory,” a nod to 1950s science fiction films, then the frenzied “Panic” movement, followed by “Trinity,” which he models after John Donne’s holy sonnet “Batter my heart, three person’d God”. ![]() Adams designed it as three continuous movements. The Houston Symphony doesn’t tend toward new music generally, and it was evident that they had put some extra rehearsal time into Adams’ complex score. But the real showstopper of the evening was John Adams’ Doctor Atomic Symphony (an adaptation of his 2005 opera Doctor Atomic) which, in the year of the composer's 70th birthday, had everyone sitting up straighter on stage.
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