Banana/Dump Truck

Steven Mackey has established himself as one of the most gifted and original American composers to emerge in recent years. Born in 1956, in Frankfurt, Germany to American parents, he was raised and educated in the United States. His early training in performance was as a classical and electric guitarist and Baroque lutenist. In 1977, he toured Europe as a lutenist under the auspices of the University of California; he graduated summa cum laude from that Institution. His studies culminated in a Ph.D. in composition from Brandeis University. Mackey is now Professor of Music at Princeton University, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1985. Mackey's idiom, a multi-layered world of rhythm and sonority, draws its expanded harmonic palette from western art music, its wit and vivacity from the imaginative transformation of popular music elements. His chamber music sometimes features re-tuned instruments and microtones. His orchestral works display consummate skill in their handling of instrumental color and texture. Tilt, commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra, received its premiere in 1992 under the direction of Dennis Russell Davies. Of that performance, Tim Page of Newsday wrote: "One was reminded of a radio caught between frequencies: timbres bang and shimmer, there are arpeggios and teasing references to musical clichés, and despite some occasional violent fortissimos, the mood throughout is lithe, subtle and more than a little playful. Anything can happen - and most of it does." His concertos offer a fresh look at the medium. In his first concerto, Banana/Dump Truck from 1994, the ensemble plays a jazzy vamp as the cello soloist emerges from the wings, like a variety show guest.