You hear Mahler's existential longing in a melody quoted from the Symphony No. 8, but from there, it's "snarky Mackey," said the composer, whose roots are American popular music and give Mahler's resignation threats an element of rock-and-roll.
Owens is revisiting the imperious manner that Metropolitan Opera-goers saw in the John Adams Doctor Atomic, in which he played a military general who struggled with his diet. "All I need is the Hershey bars," he cracked at rehearsal Friday, referring to what his Doctor Atomic character munched when not singing.
The project is a breakout for Dolce Suono Ensemble, a group that began as a small-scale series of chamber music concerts in 2005. It quickly outgrew its University of Pennsylvania venues and will be performing at the more mainstream Trinity Center of Urban Life on Wednesday. Though Dolce Suono has always had some of the best Philadelphia Orchestra musicians - not to mention its founder, virtuoso flutist Mimi Stillman - landing Owens and A-list composers such as Mackey raises the group's profile in Philadelphia.
The big question is, how did Stillman do this?
"Blood, toil, tears, and sweat," she said. "Sometimes I think that running a big project like this is like running a small country."
The 29-year-old flutist, who plays a broad range of new and standard concerto repertoire with orchestras around the country, also wrote her own grant proposals. The result has been money from the the Philadelphia Music Project, the Aaron Copland Fund for New Music, and the National Endowment for the Arts, which allowed her to commission - in addition to Mackey - Steven Stucky, David Ludwig, Fang Man, and Stratis Minakakis.
Writing for Owens was certainly an artistic incentive. Ludwig scoured the Internet for Owens performances and concluded, "There's nothing he can't do."
