The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra got the idea for its new Sandbox Composer Residency program from composer Joseph Haydn.
"The whole idea grew out of a thought experiment I had during the early days of the pandemic," said Kyu-Young Kim, the SPCO's artistic director and principal violinist. "What if the SPCO could have a composer in residence like Haydn in Esterhazy? And what would happen if a composer today could truly experiment and innovate like Haydn did?"
Haydn, called the "father of the symphony" and the "father of the string quartet," attributed much of his originality to having an orchestra available to him for three decades in the 18th century at a remote Hungarian palace. Today, such relationships rarely develop. Composers customarily arrive a few days before the premiere with a finished score in hand.
This Sandbox residency is considerably more collaborative, with three different composers each spending five weeks with the SPCO. They'll bounce ideas off the musicians, try out fragments, workshop both orchestral and chamber works and then premiere them at subscription concerts.
The first composers asked to play in this sandbox are Viet Cuong, Clarice Assad and Gabriela Lena Frank. Cuong's residency has already begun.
"It's a dream scenario to have five weeks over the course of a season to develop, workshop, rehearse and unveil a piece," Cuong said. "It alleviates the pressure of having to deliver something nearly perfect on your first try."
In addition to premiering a new work at this week's SPCO concerts, the 32-year-old American composer will continue to refine a work in progress at a 10 a.m. Thursday rehearsal that's open to the public.
That piece — currently titled "Now and Then" — is slated to be completed and premiered at the Nov. 25-27 SPCO concerts, with audience talkbacks after each performance. Cuong and the orchestra rehearsed the latest version of the score Wednesday at the Ordway Concert Hall, engaging in a lively confab between passages. The composer floated ideas for possible revisions, and the musicians responded with suggestions of their own.
