In a little more than two weeks we'll perform our fourth subscription concert of this season on March 24th, 2024. This concert will be a "String Celebration" concert, and so each piece performed will be a string piece. One in particular will feature piano. Ernest Bloch's Concerto Grosso for Strings with Piano will be in the second half of the concert. Written in 1925, the piece is known for its tonality (arrangement of chords and pitches). We're pleased that Josh Davis, a recent graduate of Tennessee Tech and a regular accompanist with the Bryan Symphony Orchestra and in the School of Music at Tennessee Tech, will be performing.
Yet, I'd like to divert your attention to something else Bloch was known for: his photography. Bloch was an artist working in two mediums. Well-known American photographer Ansel Adams believed these two mediums had quite a bit in common: "The negative is the equivalent to the composer's score and the print is the performance." Bloch created over 6,000 negatives and was known to be friends with Alfred Stieglitz, who was impressed that Bloch saw music in Stieglitz's photographs of clouds. Photographer Eric Johnson was given permission by Bloch's descendants to make prints of Bloch's negatives. The photographs are mostly from America and Switzerland and include a number of self-portraits. View them and learn more about Bloch, Stieglitz, and Johnson here on Johnson's website.
References:
Composer, humanist, and philosopher Ernest Bloch. Ernest Bloch Society. (n.d.). https://ernestbloch.org/
Ernest Bloch. Eric B. Johnson Photography. (n.d.). https://ericjohnsonphoto.com/ernest-bloch/