The Idyllwild Arts Academy Orchestra, led by Music Director Peter Askim, has taken the lead in commissioning a new work by prizewinning composer Lawrence Dillon, to be premiered in May 2010. In response, the composer has made an unusual proposal: he is planning to create three pieces celebrating Robert Schumann’s (1810-1856) bicentennial. Jeffrey James Arts Consulting is now soliciting participants for a consortium commission in order to help bring these three new works to life.
Parties to the commission may choose to perform any combination of the three pieces: Fantasiestück, The Marriage Diary, and Florestan and Eusebius.

Fantasiestück (8-10 minutes)
Fantasiestück is an orchestral fantasy on the enigmatic figure of Robert Schumann – a brilliantly gifted composer and writer who ascended to the pinnacle of the music world, only to end his days in an insane asylum.

The Marriage Diary (5-7 minutes)
For the first four years of their married life, Robert and Clara Schumann kept a marriage diary. They wrote notes to one another, commented on visitors and concerts, and kept a running dialogue on the delights and challenges of married life. The Schumanns’ marriage holds particular lessons for couples in the twenty-first century, as Robert and Clara coped with many of the same issues familiar to two-income families today. Dillon’s Marriage Diary takes its cue from this infamous book: a dialogue for mezzo, tenor and orchestra, it is an amusing dramatization of the complications, misunderstandings, and hard-won tenderness of 19th-century newlyweds.

Marriage Diary will have an optional video component, comprised of images of Robert and Clara and their handwritten entries in the diary.

Florestan and Eusebius (8-10 minutes)
While still in his twenties, Robert Schumann became a very influential music critic. In his writings, he invented several characters, through whom he expressed differing perspectives on various issues of the day. Chief among these fictional figures were Florestan and Eusebius. Florestan was impetuous, passionate, and forward-looking; Eusebius was a quiet, introspective, dreamer.

Dillon’s Florestan and Eusebius imagines these two characters beside Schumann’s deathbed, trying to make sense of their creator’s madness and decline. It concludes with a setting of a haunting elegy by Heinrich Heine, one of Schumann’s favorite poets.

The part of Florestan is portrayed by a combination of tenor and actor. The part of Eusebius is sung by an otherworldly trio of soprano, mezzo and alto.

Again, commissioning parties will have their choice of which piece or pieces to perform, a choice they may make at any point in the process. When all three works are completed (fall 2009), perusal scores will be provided to each participating orchestra. Premieres are projected to take place in 2010-2011.
Because of the prominence of the composer and the unusual nature of his proposal, this consortium commission is expected to bring national attention to the orchestras involved.

For details on how to participate in this commission, contact

Jeffrey James Arts Consulting
516-586-3433
jamesarts@worldnet.att.net