Jake Birch chats with composer Andy Akiho about the Bozeman Symphony’s first event of the season: with the most iconic four notes in music history during Beethoven’s awe-inspiring Symphony No. 5! The program opens with Sibelius’ Finlandia, followed by Grammy-nominated composer Andy Akiho on steel pan.
SIBELIUS
Finlandia
ANDY AKIHO
AKIHO Concerto for Steel Pans and Orchestra
Montana Premiere
[ INTERMISSION ]
BEETHOVEN
Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67
I. Allegro con brio
II. Andante con moto
III. Scherzo: Allegro
IV. Allegro – Presto
About Andy Akiho, from the Bozeman Symphony website:
Andy Akiho has been recognized with many prestigious awards and organizations, including the Rome Prize, Lili Boulanger Memorial Prize, Harvard University Fromm Commission, Barlow Endowment, New Music USA, and Chamber Music America. His compositions have been featured by organizations such as Bang on a Can, American Composers Forum, The Intimacy of Creativity in Hong Kong, and the Heidelberg Festival.
An active steel pannist, Akiho has performed his works with the LA Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella Series, the Berlin Philharmonic’s Scharoun Ensemble, the International Drum Festival in Taiwan, and more. Akiho’s recordings No One To Know One and The War Below feature brilliantly-crafted compositions inspired by his primary instrument, the steel pan.
The physicality of playing that Akiho experiences as a steel pannist is an embedded aspect of his musical practice and naturally extends itself into his compositional output. Music making is inextricably linked to shared human experience for Akiho from inception to performance. Akiho’s compositional trajectory has been an untraditional one, he spent most of his 20s playing steel pan by ear in Trinidad and began composing at 28, and these social roots laid the foundation for his current practice. He can frequently be found composing into the wee hours of the morning at coffee shops, nightclubs, bars and restaurants, taking breaks to get to know those around him. Similarly, Akiho develops relationships with his collaborators as he writes for people, not instruments. Akiho was born in 1979 in Columbia, South Carolina, and is currently based in Portland, Oregon, and New York City.
