In Tuesday’s (9/9) San Francisco Classical Voice, Richard Ginnell writes that on September 1, the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl “held what amounted to an informal memorial … for Los Angeles-based composer, Sarah Gibson, who died prematurely of cancer in 2024 at the age of 38…. Gibson was a familiar figure in Los Angeles music life—a dedicated teacher, a core member of Piano Spheres alongside Thomas Kotcheff (her partner in the piano duo HOCKET), a composer whose orchestral works were just beginning to gain traction outside Southern California. Not long after giving birth to her first child and receiving the cancer diagnosis, she began working on what turned out to be her last composition, beyond the beyond, a BBC Proms commission…. The world premiere landed with the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester, England, in March 2025, under Anja Bihlmaier, who [led] the U.S. premiere Tuesday. It’s a strikingly effective piece, unmistakably American in its sound and vigor. The dynamic opening, starting with streaks of violins and rhythmic knocking, creates a thrumming energy and momentum, interrupted by a very quiet middle section. Here, the brass players are told to breathe through their instruments, simulating, according to Bihlmaier, a soft lullaby to Gibson’s baby son. Soon the pulse revs up again with cascades throughout the orchestra, leading to a sparse yet still driving coda.” In 2022, Gibson was commissioned by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Orchestral Commissions Program, an initiative of the League of American Orchestras in partnership with the American Composers Orchestras, to write “to make this mountain taller,” which was given its premiere by Florida’s Sarasota Orchestra.
