Conducted by music director finalist Tianhui Ng
Sofía Rocha
2020 Call for Scores Winner
The past two years have caused organizations to look within, work together, and prepare to rebuild after the pandemic and work to return to a "new normal".
We welcome Music Director finalist Tianhui Ng to conduct this concert.
Yehudi Wyner Richard Pittman… Come Back!
World Premiere, NEP Commission
Sofía Rocha Replier
2020 Call for Scores winner
World Premiere
Chen Yi Spring in Dresden
Danielle Maddon, Violin soloist
Silvestre Revueltas La noche de los Mayas
Want to learn more?
Download the program notes for more information about the concert, the composers and their work.
Parking, Accessibility and Transportation information.
Meet the soloist
Danielle Maddon, violin
Violinist Danielle Maddon is well known to New England audiences for her vibrant playing and broad experience as a soloist, concertmaster, recitalist, chamber, and orchestral musician. Performing on both modern and period instruments, Ms. Maddon has appeared in venues including Carnegie Hall, the Barbican in London, Vatican City, and Tokyo's Suntory Hall, in repertoire spanning four centuries. Critics have hailed her playing as "magnificent", "stunning", "masterful", and "heartfelt". In the Boston area, she performs with Boston Baroque, Emmanuel Music, the Boston Pops, the Boston Musica Viva, Cantata Singers, the Boston Cecelia, Aston Magna, and other ensembles.
Dani was elected to Phi Beta Kappa as an undergraduate at Texas Christian University, then graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Master's degree in Violin Performance at Ohio University. After a 2- year engagement as a first violinist with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, she returned to the U.S. for post-graduate performance studies at Boston University with renowned violinist Raphael Druian. At BU, she was Concertmaster of the Symphony, Chamber, and Opera orchestras, and studied chamber music with coaches Raphael Hillyer, Eugene Lehner, and the Muir String Quartet. Dani was awarded twice- won fellowships to both the Tanglewood Music Center and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute, where she held Concertmaster positions with Seiji Ozawa, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson-Thomas, and Sir Charles Grove. She toured and performed frequently with the Mark Morris Dance Group and the Handel and Haydn Society with Christopher Hogwood, and was Concertmaster of the Tallahassee Symphony under conductor David Hoose.
As Concertmaster and soloist for the New England Philharmonic under Richard Pittman, she has enjoyed performing the rich repertoire of violin concertos by modern masters including Berg, Harbison, Dutilleux, and Lutoslawski. These annual endeavors include premieres of new violin concertos written for her by composers Bernard Hoffer, Andy Vores, and David Rakowski. Just before the pandemic shut down live concerts, Dani and the New England Philharmonic were delighted to present the premiere of Bernard Hoffer’s new violin concerto, “Decapod,” also written for her, in a concert at Jordan Hall.
During the pandemic, Dani led weekly Zoom sessions with the NEP String sections to both maintain technical and musical skills, and to preserve and engage the unique team spirit of the NEP strings in preparation for eventual re-opening.
As founder of the NEP Chamber Players, Dani creates and leads programs exploring the remarkable connections among the musical and visual arts, including concerts for the Peabody Essex Museum, the Boston Athenaeum, the Cape Ann Museum, and the Boston Children’s Museum. With the NEP’s Composer-in-Residence, Eric Nathan, Dani co-created and co-hosted the NEP’s series on Youtube, “Listening In,” featuring interviews with and detailed explorations into the music of composers TJ Cole, Bernard Rands, Eric Nathan, and Sofia Rocha.
Sofía Rocha, 2020 Call for Scores Winner
Sofía Rocha (b. 1996 in Boulder, Colorado) writes music of uncompromising emotional intensity while exploring cognition, randomness, rhythm and counterpoint within post-tonal frameworks. She writes for all manner of performing forces instrumental, vocal and electronic. Her work, Replier, was chosen as the winner of the 2020 New England Philharmonic annual call-for-scores. Sofía has also received honors from ASCAP, OM/NI Composition Competition and Tenebrae New Music Ensemble. She has worked with numerous ensembles including DeCoda, loadbang, Brentano String Quartet, Castle of our Skins, Transient Canvas, Hypercube, arx duo, Duo Entre-Nous, Tenebrae New Music Ensemble, the Sunderman Wind Quintet, the Sunderman Conservatory Orchestra and Wind Symphony, and the Atlantic Music Festival New Music Ensemble and Orchestra as well as numerous solo performers.
Sofía received her master’s degree in composition from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory as a Chancellor’s Scholar and recipient of Elsberry & Gonder Family and Conservatory scholarships. While attending, she studied with Chen Yi, Yotam Haber, Paul Rudy and Zhou Long. Rocha was also the 2019 composer-in-residence for the Graduate Fellowship String Quartet. She completed her undergraduate work at the Sunderman Conservatory of Music at Gettysburg College in 2019, receiving a BA in Music with Honors as a Wagnild Scholar and studying composition with Avner Dorman. She has attended the Atlantic Music Festival and Divergent Studio and the Hypercube Composition Lab as a composer, studying and taking master classes with composers such as Hannah Lash, George Tsontakis, Richard Danielpour, Aaron Helgeson, Amy Beth Kirsten, and David Serkin Ludwig, among others. Besides composing, Sofía is also an avid trombonist and conductor, having performed with numerous symphony orchestras, wind ensembles and jazz groups.
For more information, please visit Sofía Rocha’s website.