Dan Visconti's Barlow Prize, "Lonesome Roads"
Dan Visconti’s 2010 Barlow prize winner, was named a 2014 TED Fellow and his music was featured by several orchestras in 2014.
Regarding the award, the TED Fellowship committee said, “For his ongoing creative initiatives using classical music to engage social issues and under-served communities, Dan…joins a select group of next-generation innovators of unusual accomplishments who show potential to positively affect the world.”
Visconti presented a TED talk in March 2014 at the TED Conference in Vancouver. In the TED Blog post on the event, Visconti commented that he is trying to “make the composer relevant again – not this old guy with a wig and a quill pen laboring in isolation, but a cultural ambassador and collaborator, someone deeply integrated in the communities that he or she serves.”
His prize piece, Lonesome Roads, was premiered on January 23, 2012 by the Gryphon Trio at the University of Toronto, as part of the university’s new Music Festival. On May 12, 2012, the Triple Helix piano trio also performed the piece in Oregon.
Over the years the piece has garnered a number of performances world- and nation-wide. Subsequent performances are listed below (performers are in parentheses):
2014:
February 14-16: (Scharoun Ensemble of the Berlin Philharmonic) Performed at the Villa Aurelia in Rome, Italy.
2013:
October 25: (neoLIT) Mendelssohn Hall of the Mendelssohn Performing Arts Center; Rockford, Illinois
October 20: (neoLIT) Septrum Venue; New York City; Performed as part of the Brooklyn New Music Collective Concert
October 19: (neoLIT) Newburgh, New York; performed as part of the Queen of the Hudson music series
September 30: (Astral Artists Trio) Harper Hall of Lawrence University; Appleton, Wisconsin
September 29: (Astral Artists Trio) Fine Arts Building; Chicago, Illinois; Performed as part of the Music In the Loft concert series. Visconti served as the 2013-2014 Composer-in-Residence of Music in the Loft
July 26-27: (Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble) City Theatre; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
2017:
Dan Visconti’s 2011 Barlow Prize Commission, Lonesome Roads, was performed by Fifth House Ensemble on April 3, 2017 at the Ashley Hall in Charleston, SC.
Subsequent performances by Fifth House Ensemble include:
4/8/2017: Elastic Arts, Chicago, IL
4/21/2017: Piano Forte Foundation, Chicago, IL
