The American classical-music scene is awash with thousands of working composers — probably more than ever before.
Given that surplus and the still-limited demand for new music (let’s face it, Beethoven and Brahms continue to rule symphonic programs), gaining any kind of widespread visibility is tough.
Among the few who have broken through is 37-year-old New York composer Kevin Puts. The St. Louis native pursued both piano and composition as an undergraduate, ultimately opting for the latter as a career.
While he has yet to gain the fame of John Adams, John Corigliano or Christopher Rouse, three of his idols in the field, Puts’ works have been performed coast to coast by ensembles ranging from the New York Philharmonic to the Miro Quartet.
“There are a lot of people who want to do his music,” said Jeffrey Kahane, music director of the Colorado Symphony. “I think his place in our musical life is already pretty secure, which is remarkable for a guy his age.”
Kahane, who premiered Puts’ Piano Concerto last year with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and Bil Jackson, the CSO’s principal clarinetist, are such fans of the composer that they spearheaded the commission of his latest work — a 22-minute clarinet concerto.
The piece, funded by San Francisco patron Kathryn Gould, founder of the influential Magnum Opus commissioning project, will receive its world premiere with CSO performances today and Saturday.
Because of the dominance of the violin, cello and piano as solo instruments, clarinet concertos only occasionally appear on orchestral programs. And just a handful of such works have gained a foothold in the regular repertory.
Hands down the most celebrated is Mozart’s 1791 clarinet concerto. Other composers who have written notable concertos for the instrument include Carl Maria von Weber, Carl Nielsen, and, in the United States, Aaron Copland and Corigliano.
Only time will tell if Puts’ contribution joins that short list, but other organizations are already eager to present it. The Aspen Music Festival has penciled it in for 2010.
“This is a piece that has some darkness in it, but also incredible beauty, just extraordinary melodic beauty, and it really exploits the instrument,” Kahane said. “And like a lot of good concertos have done historically, it stretches the player.”
Unlike some composers who are thrust into prominence by one work that catches fire, Puts’ career has progressed methodically.
“I’m getting played and I’d like to get played more,” he said. “I still feel like I’m pushing for the kind of career that I want and the kind of stability I want in a career. I don’t feel like I’ve arrived or anything.”
Two early boosts came with his selection as composer-in-residence in 1996-99 at the California Symphony in Walnut Creek and a nearly concurrent residency with Young Concert Artists.
Kahane, a longtime supporter, said the composer has a special gift for melody and an ability akin to Samuel Barber to write music with a deeply romantic sensibility.
“And at that same time, it feels very much of our time,” Kahane said. “I would not describe it as neo-romantic exactly, but certainly he is not afraid to just write gorgeous melody.”
Puts makes no bones about sometimes incorporating harmonies — consciously or unconsciously — from pop tunes. He is a big fan of Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk, and his Third Symphony was inspired by her 2001 album, “Vespertine.”
“Basically I’m really trying to say something that is going to have impact on the audience,” he said. “I won’t compromise my style, but the decisions I make from the very first bars are about: How do you keep people wanting to listen?”
The Clarinet Concerto is unusually structured with just two movements, the slow one coming first so as not to prematurely wear out the soloist.
“The idea of writing a three-movement, fast-slow-fast kind of piece has been done so much that it just feels old-fashioned to me,” Puts said.
The opening movement, titled “Vigil,” was inspired by “Section 60,” a documentary on the section of Arlington National Cemetery devoted to soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The second is a virtuosic dash that Puts has described a “sinister toccata.”
Up to now, the most difficult work Jackson has tackled has been Corigliano’s 1977 Clarinet Concerto, but this one is even more daunting.
“Clarinetists like challenges,” he said. “So, I told Kevin, ‘Look, don’t throw me a softball. Write what you want to write. Write something challenging, and if I can’t play it, I’ll let you know.’ ”
And Jackson admits there was a two-bar passage in the original version of the lightning-fast second movement that he found unplayable, and he asked Puts to rewrite it.
“But other than that, it is as he conceived it, and it is fiendishly difficult,” he said.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
Kevin Puts’ clarinet concerto
Symphonic music. Boettcher Concert Hall, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets. Principal clarinetist Bil Jackson serves as soloist for the Colorado Symphony’s world premiere of Kevin Puts’ Clarinet Concerto. Also on the program will be Puts’ “Two Mountain Scenes” and Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. 7:30 p.m. today and Saturday. $15-$73. 303-623-7876 or
