Stefan Jackiw, Yoonah Kim, New York Classical Players, Dongmin Kim - Nathan: Double Concertos (2026) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. Double Concerto for solo violin, solo clarinet and strings
02. Just a Moment for two antiphonal oboes
03. Double Concerto No. 2 for two solo violas and strings: I. A dialogue; intimately
04. Double Concerto No. 2 for two solo violas and strings: II. Brilliantly; vibrantly
05. Double Concerto No. 2 for two solo violas and strings: III. Vigorously; racing
06. Double Concerto No. 2 for two solo violas and strings: IV. Embracing; with warmth
07. Double Concerto No. 2 for two solo violas and strings: V. Dancing; joyous
08. Double Concerto No. 2 for two solo violas and strings: Coda: Freely, with rubato; like wind
Over the past five years, I’ve found myself on a journey exploring how two voices interact in sound. I’ve sought meaning in how two people can come together, separate, console, exhort, celebrate, and remember one another through music. This search has been deeply rewarding musically and personally, as it has opened new paths in my work and new friendships through collaboration.
I didn’t set out to compose a cycle of duos. This body of work emerged organically, each project arriving and unfolding step by step. Through the matchmaking and support of longtime collaborators – Dongmin Kim (New York Classical Players), Seth Knopp (Yellow Barn), and Michael Sporn – I paired with three sets of soloists whose own relationships run deep: violinist Stefan Jackiw and clarinettist Yoonah Kim, who are married; violists Misha Amory and Hsin-Yun Huang, also married; and oboists John Ferrillo and Amanda Hardy, who are not married, but share a teacher-student bond and now perform together as colleagues frequently with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Furthering these webs of connection, Double Concerto No. 2, commissioned in memory of Roger Tapping – beloved teacher and former violist of the Juilliard and Takács Quartets – was premiered and recorded by an orchestra composed of his students. Members of the Ariel, Jupiter, and Parker quartets, along with many former students, came together in Boston in New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall to honor Tapping at the world premiere.
Themes of relationship, mentorship, remembrance, love, and loss infuse the music on this album. I have imagined the sonic connections between two voices engaging with forces larger than themselves – whether the orchestra and the resonance of the hall, or, outside the musical realm, the pairings of husband and wife, teacher and student, individual and collective, living and deceased, distance and closeness, past and future. To explore these ideas, I set music of the past in dialogue with sounds of the present, evoked the natural world through exploring the lines between pitch and noise, and choreographed spatial movement of sound across the stage and performance space.
While composing Double Concerto No. 2, I thought of Ovid’s myth of Baucis and Philemon – a couple who, following their long lives together, grew into a single tree. Denise Burt’s cover art for this recording, taken in a cemetery where her husband’s parents are buried, shows a tree growing around a metal fence whose top resembles an ossified flame. Its fragile beauty captures a small part of what I hope these pieces express...