Tommy Mesa receives accolades for performances with Sphinx Virtuosi at Newport Classical and Caramoor

Tommy was featured performing Jessie Montgomery’s Divided concerto with the Sphinx Virtuosi at Newport Classical (July 5), Caramoor (July 7), and Nashville’s Schermerhorn Center (July 9). Montgomery describes the work as “a response to the social and political unrest that has plagued our generation in the recent past.”

Reviewing the Newport Classical performance, Stephen Martorella wrote: “In the dramatic Divided, the soloist takes on the personae of the victims, at times pleading, even weeping, then becoming angry, almost violent. This “argument” between solo and ensemble reflects in musical opposites alongside the philosophical. Minor-second intervals expressed outcries against harmonies of the wide-open inversions of these same intervals as dissonant harmonies, projecting pain against pain, yet the dissonance never drowns out the lyric beauty of the human condition. Even to the last note, an unresolved dissonance lingers lyrically poignant in its beauty. With brilliant solo work, Mesa took rich and rewarding artistic ownership on a 1767 Nicolò Gagliano cello.”

Link to the full article here.