“Color Through” marks AFCM’s second commission of her work; the first, “An Exaltation of Larks,” was premiered by the Tokyo String Quartet during our 2006 Festival. Her music has been hailed by Fanfare Magazine as having “the distinction of being at once complex, sophisticated but readily accessible emotionally.” The Times of London praised it as “traditionally rooted, yet imbued with integrity and freshness.” Robert Spano, music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, describes her work as “expressive and beautiful and communicative and fresh and inventive,” and adds that he finds it “very representative of something that’s happened in American music with composers of her generation, a palpable aesthetic shift from the generation before them that I find very powerful.”

From the composer: “In my second piano trio, I continue to ponder the questions of my first piano trio—Can music reflect colors and can colors be reflected in music?

“‘Wondrous White’: The symbolism of white … religious, bright, hopeful. And the immense use
of white in all art … canvases start out as some form of white, in preparation for painting, and it is often used as a highlight, to lighten, and to create a glow. In fact, in scientific terms, white is the presence of all colors … our eyes perceive the collection of all colors together as ‘white.’

“‘Brilliant Blue’: Represents so many different moods … from the literal term of ‘feeling blue’ to the blue sky. The recent discovery of a new form of blue made me think about all of the different permutations a color has. And for me, the things that ‘blue’ represent…”

Jennifer Higdon’s Trio No. 2 was commissioned for Trio Solisti by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music and the Harvard Musical Association, and sponsored by Dagmar Cushing, Robert & Ursula Garrett, Dr. Henri Frischer & Alison Edwards, and Thomas Hanselmann & Mary Lonsdale Baker.