What was your inspiration for the piece? What brought you to this idea?
"cetacean songs is inspired by the complexity of whalesong. While we don't understand what whales are singing and saying, we know that they communicate with specific syntax, repetition, and even regional dialects. To me, the sound of the cello shares a kindred spirit with whalesong; before I wrote the work, I also read a wonderful book by Tom Mustill, How to Speak Whale, which greatly inspired (and informed) me."
What do you want people to take away from the performance?
"I hope people walk away from the performance with an awareness of how little we know about the ocean and its inhabitants, as well as how fragile aquatic ecosystems are. Musically, I also hope people enjoy the vast colors and effects the solo cello explores throughout the concerto––I am so thrilled and grateful to work with the incredible Eduard Teregulov for this performance!"
Tell us a little about your
other works.
Much of my music is programmatic––I enjoy creating musical
metaphors with extra-musical concepts. Besides whalesong, I have also written
music inspired by weather data visualization (Wind
Map), the elaborate Shanghai metro system (Mass Transit), and moons in our
Solar System that plausibly host liquid oceans (Ocean
Moons). I grew up playing the violin, and first fell in love with music
playing in youth orchestras; as a composer, I feel most at home writing for the
orchestra, and am excited to work with Maestro Sütterlin and the FVSO for the
first time!
Sam will join Dr. Sütterlin at the pre-concert talk at 6:40pm on February 8 at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center. Get your tickets online now!
More about Sam Wu:
Sam Wu's music "abounds in delicate colours, wisps of
sound and sylvan textures" (Gramophone). Many of his works center around
extra-musical themes: architecture and urban planning, climate science, and the
search for exoplanets that harbor life.
Selected for the American Composers Orchestra's EarShot readings and the
Tasmanian Symphony’s Australian Composers’ School, winner of an ASCAP Morton
Gould Young Composer Award and First Prize at the Washington International
Competition, Sam Wu also received Harvard's Robert Levin Prize and Juilliard's
Palmer Dixon Prize.
Sam’s collaborations span five continents, notably with the orchestras of
Philadelphia, New Jersey, Minnesota, Sarasota, Melbourne, Tasmania, Macao, and
Shanghai, the New York City Ballet, National Center for the Performing Arts in
Beijing, Sydney International Piano Competition, the Lontano, Parker, Argus,
ETHEL, and icarus Quartets, conductors Osmo Vänskä, Marin Alsop, Miguel
Harth-Bedoya, Dina Gilbert, and Benjamin Northey, violinist Johan Dalene, and sheng
virtuoso Wu Wei.
From Melbourne, Australia, Sam holds degrees from Harvard, Juilliard, and Rice.
He is currently on faculty at Whitman College, as their Visiting Assistant
Professor of Music in Theory and Composition.
