Augusta Read Thomas - Augusta Read Thomas: Sun Plaits - Bridges and Links (2024) [for solo violin]

Augusta Read Thomas is one of the most active composers in the world, with commissions, performances, recordings, awards, and honours, but she is also a long-standing, exemplary citizen of the Profession at large with an extensive and deeply committed history as a generous colleague in the profession. She is without question one of the best and most important composers of our time. Her music has substance, depth, and a sense of purpose. She has a lot to say and knows how to say it, and in a way that is intelligent yet appealing and sophisticated. Words that leap to mind when I think of the sun include universal, energy, qi, ripples, vitality, life, spirituality, hope, renewal, radiance, and braids of light. Plaits, bridges, and links all function both as nouns and verbs. The dimensional meanings and images of the combination of the four words propelled the spiralling invention and creation of Sun Plaits --Bridges and Links. Across a 5-minute duration, the composition unfolds a labyrinth of musical interrelationships and connections that showcase the soloist in a joyous, virtuosic display of rhythmic agility, double-stops (playing 2 notes at once), counterpoint, energy, dynamic range, timbre, clarity, and majesty. Throughout the kaleidoscopic journey, the work passes through several lively and lyrical episodes, never losing its sense of radiance, effervescence, and expressiveness. The abundance of double-stops symbolizes links while the sparkling, fast-moving lines, which reach in all directions, fly out across the piece like bridges. Musical materials are braided in dimensional ways like sun plaits. - Augusta Read Thomas