A Manifold Creation

Each unplayed piece of music is but a concept. In piano concertos, it is the joint role of the conductor and pianist to see such rendered concrete, with every member of the orchestra helping articulate their imagination. Their task is not an easy one, they must create a cohesive culmination of their respective ideas, one which ensures authenticity to the score, and a typically long dead composer’s intentions, whilst imbuing invigoration and emotion in a modern day audience. Last week, such a challenge was taken in earnest. Together, American Piano Awards winner Kenny Broberg and internationally renowned conductor Michael Sanderling put on a performance of not just mere music, but the entirety of the breathtaking and daunting essence of Scandinavian nature and the human emotions and elements that accompany. The night began with a Swedish composer, who even Sanderling joked about not knowing, Helena Munktell, with her symphonic poem “Breaking Waves.” The piece awakened ideas of crashing towers of water, curved above oneself not unlike the looming stretch of skyscrapers outside the theatre. Yet, equally as expressed as the terrors of these swift surges and swells which threaten one with drowning, was that which came once the water calmed. For...