{"id":460767,"date":"2026-09-11T18:12:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T18:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/460767\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T18:12:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T18:12:21","slug":"review-los-angeles-philharmonic-gives-u-s-premiere-of-sarah-gibsons-final-composition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/460767\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Los Angeles Philharmonic Gives U.S. Premiere of Sarah Gibson\u2019s Final Composition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Tuesday\u2019s (9\/9) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfcv.org\/articles\/review\/sarah-gibsons-last-score-reaches-bowl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">San Francisco Classical Voice<\/a>, Richard Ginnell writes that on September 1, the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl \u201cheld what amounted to an informal memorial \u2026 for Los Angeles-based composer, Sarah Gibson, who died prematurely of cancer in 2024 at the age of 38\u2026. Gibson was a familiar figure in Los Angeles music life\u2014a 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\u2026. 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\u2019s 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\u2019s baby son. Soon the pulse revs up again with cascades throughout the orchestra, leading to a sparse yet still driving coda.\u201d In 2022, Gibson was commissioned\u00a0by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Orchestral Commissions Program, an initiative of the League of American Orchestras in partnership with the American Composers Orchestras,\u00a0to write \u201cto make this mountain taller,\u201d which was given its premiere by Florida\u2019s Sarasota Orchestra.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Tuesday\u2019s (9\/9) San Francisco Classical Voice, Richard Ginnell writes that on September 1, the Los Angeles Philharmonic&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[33620,37665,48,52,51,47,50,49,33621],"class_list":["post-460767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-composers","tag-conductors","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-repertoire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}