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Approaching Eternity

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Nicholas Bentz featured on WBJC Podcast

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SNO Co-founder and founding Concertmaster Nicholas Bentz was interviewed as All-Classical WBJC's inaugural Student Composer of the Month. Podcast host John Scherch talks to Nick about his future plans as a composer and violinist, his history with launching Symphony Number One and his perspectives as a composer. Nick even discusses one of the seven "totems" that guided his compositional process as he created Approaching Eternity for Symphony Number One.  Listen to the podcast below:

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Album cover for Approaching

Album cover for Approaching

 
 

Video

 

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Approaching
Approaching
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Our fourth album is here! You can order your copy of Approaching directly from the Symphony Number One store!

Featuring:

 

Click on the links above to learn more about and sample each piece.

Revisiting the Boss Saxophone Concerto

Nearly two years after its premiere, Symphony Number One co-founder again took up the Boss Saxophone concerto, this time with the University of Texas New Music Ensemble. Here is a video from that performance, which happened to take place the same night as Symphony Number One gave the premiere of Nicholas Bentz’s Approaching Eternity.

 

Our 2nd commercial release, Emergence, was an EP featuring Andrew Boss’ Saxophone Concerto. It is available in all formats on iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon. 

Approaching Eternity in Photos

 

Take a look at a new trove of photos from last April when we premiered Approaching Eternity by Nicholas Bentz in April of 2017 at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Baltimore. Photo Credit: Dan Rorke.

Music Director Jordan Randall Smith leads the orchestra in Bentz’s Approaching Eternity.

Music Director Jordan Randall Smith leads the orchestra in Bentz’s Approaching Eternity.

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Principal Cellist Mike Newman and cellist Rob Erb Kaufman perform Nick’s work with its challenging writing for strings.

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Bassoonist Mateen Milan was an guest artist with the orchestra at the time, but later auditioned to join the group.

  

Former Associate Concertmaster Kristin Bakkegard leads the orchestra

Former Associate Concertmaster Kristin Bakkegard leads the orchestra

Current and former Principal Hornist Scott Ullman and Kelso Jones (respectively) perform with guest artist Gabriel Luciano and the woodwinds of Symphony Number One. 

Current and former Principal Hornist Scott Ullman and Kelso Jones (respectively) perform with guest artist Gabriel Luciano and the woodwinds of Symphony Number One. 

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The composer in his own words: Nicholas Bentz gives a description of the basis for his sprawling new work, Approaching Eternity for Chamber Orchestra. just moments before the orchestra gives the second performances.

 

Take a look at this clip of Approaching Eternity, then learn more about our latest album (which includes Approaching Eternity),  Approaching.

Composer's Notebook: Nicholas Bentz, Pt. II

Composer's Notebook: Nicholas Bentz, Pt. II

  The question I most often get in regards to Approaching Eternity, is how one deals with composing a piece of its length. It doesn’t take much research to find that a piece combining the medium of a large chamber symphony with the breadth of an hour-long swath of time is a rarity in this period of music composition. It’s no fault of the composer here – many factors outside of the composer’s control (mostly economic) have contributed to the unfortunate and gaping hole in the repertoire that we now have, but now is the time to fill that space. But regardless, the composer of the 21st century isn’t normally expected to fulfill a commission like this, so how do we all go about it?

Composer's Notebook: Nicholas Bentz

Composer's Notebook: Nicholas Bentz

The piece is conceived as one large swath of music, with seven distinct sections that flow into each other without pause. Each of these sections is demarcated by a cryptic ‘totem’ that relates to a piece of visual art, poetry, literature, or even film, that served as a creative impetus for the section. The sections, when woven together, create a life cycle beginning with the first movement: Ode to the Abyss.

 
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Symphony Number One

Jordan Randall Smith, Music Director

Brian Harris, Managing Director

Symphony Number One is Baltimore's Newes Chamber Orchestra, devoted to substantial works by emerging composers.