About the creation

The Viola Concerto was composed at the invitation of the Asper Family of Winnipeg, Canada in memory of my aunt Celia Asper, who died at the age of 98. Aunt Celia was a woman of great virtue, and dominant matriarchal figure in our extended family during our childhood in the late forties and fifties of the 20th century in Winnipeg. I have attempted to embody in sound her virtuous characteristics: strength, generosity, humor, warmth, optimism, and above all, her boundless love for life. She instilled these traits in all those who were lucky enough to have known her. I am deeply grateful to the violist Rivka Golani, to whom the work is dedicated, for her masterful playing in portraying, through the maternal sound of the viola, those very traits the characterized my aunt Celia. The work is written in the classical concerto form of three movements. The first in sonata form, the second in cyclical form (A-B-C-B-A), and the last in a modified rondo form (A-B-A-C-B-A-Coda). The work is basically tonal in its conception, although serial techniques and bitonality are used as well. The premier performance took place in Budapest, Hungary on May 20, 2007 with the Dohnanyi (Budafok) Symphony Orchestra under the direction of the musical director Gabor Hollerung. Aharon Harlap