Baroque-ing Tradition with ‘A New Orleans Concerto’

The musical identity of New Orleans may align most famously with jazz—with names like Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, and Harry Connick Jr.—but the city was founded in 1718, the same year Antonio Vivaldi toured Italy, George Frideric Handel became Kapellmeister to the Duke of Chambros, and Johann Sebastian Bach composed his frequently recorded Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten. New Orleans, then, has been poised for centuries to carry on the traditions of the European baroque and classical styles, a lineage which has not been lost on contemporary composer Jay Weigel, whose A New Orleans Concerto, for Orchestra is available for free download through the month of July.

Originally composed in 2018 and performed by the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the city’s tricentennial, A New Orleans Concerto takes on the brassy tones and snappy rhythms of its namesake while still reveling in the orchestral traditions of classical music, and even film scores, a genre Weigel has tinkered in for the likes of Warner Brothers, HBO, Netflix, and more. Having served as Executive Director of the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans from 1996 to 2013, and as Music Director for the same CAC for eleven years, Weigel has long demonstrated a devotion not just to the musical heritage of the city itself, but to the musicians who supply its ever-changing melodies, serving also as a founding member of the New Orleans Music Economy, an initiative dedicated to building an infrastructure around the intellectual property of musicians. 

A concerto itself—in musical terms stemming from the same Baroque period that produced Bach and Handel, and in which New Orleans was born—typically refers to a composition for a solo instrument, or a solo instrument accompanied by an orchestra, the latter of which Weigel leans into heavily with A New Orleans Concerto, ensuring that each instrument and player shines within the group at large. From the measured opening of brassy French horns to the twills of clarinets and oboes—instruments suited just as well to the refinery of the 1700s as to the advent of 20th century jazz—Weigel straddles the line between the familiar and the familiar-to-New-Orleanians, interspersing snappy claps and snaps with the low rumble of orchestral strings in a weather pattern of winds and rains, stomps and slides. So this month, don’t miss the opportunity to open your ears to the melodies of New Orleans, from one history to the next. 

To listen and download, visit jayweigel.com/NOconcerto.html.