{"id":122,"date":"2015-01-17T23:39:31","date_gmt":"2015-01-17T23:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/program_note\/machine\/"},"modified":"2025-06-16T17:11:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T17:11:00","slug":"machine","status":"publish","type":"program_note","link":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/program_note\/machine\/","title":{"rendered":"Machine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> Higdon\u2019s career is booming right now with commissions from a variety of distinguished symphony orchestras and virtuosi.&nbsp; She has a degree in flute performance and was graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with an MA and a PhD.&nbsp;&nbsp; She went on to study composition at the Curtis Institute; her composition teachers include the distinguished composers George Crumb and Ned Rorem.&nbsp;&nbsp; She was a relatively late bloomer&#8211;she points to musical influences from Peter, Paul and Mary, the Beatles, and Simon and Garfunkel.&nbsp; With four Grammy nominations under her belt, she is also a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her <em>Violin Concerto<\/em>.&nbsp; It would be hard, indeed, to think of many contemporary American composers whose compositions are played more frequently than are hers.&nbsp; She\u2019s won just about every important award for music composition, and is a member of the faculty of the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<p> <em>Machine<\/em> began life as an encore not printed in the program. It\u2019s a short composition\u2014less than three minutes\u2014and was one of a series of \u201cencores\u201d commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra to surprise folks at the end of each of the concerts in the 2002-2003 season.&nbsp;&nbsp; Premi\u00e8red in March of 2003, it takes its cue from the composers represented on the main program that night\u2014Mozart and Tchaikovsky.&nbsp; Higdon says that the composition is a \u201ctribute to composers like Mozart and Tchaikovsky, who seemed to be able to write so many notes and so much music that it seems like they were machines\u201d!&nbsp; Well, it&#8217;s a vigorous work, all right, and zips in a frenzy, in a thick din of accents, ripping glissandi, and motoric rhythms, to a bang of a quick end. It\u2019s all in good fun, and just shows that musicians and composers have a good sense of humor. Hold on to your seats!<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Wm. E. Runyan<\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 2015 William E. Runyan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"program_note_tax":[61],"class_list":["post-122","program_note","type-program_note","status-publish","hentry","program_note_tax-jenniferhigdon"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note\/122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/program_note"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"program_note_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note_tax?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}