Sarah Gibson, rising pianist and composer, dies at 38

[Synthaholic]

Such sad news.

 

Gift article:  https://wapo.st/4f8MW6e

 

Sarah Gibson, rising pianist and composer, dies at 38

She received many commissions, including the Proms series of BBC-sponsored classical music concerts.

 

 

Sarah Gibson, an American pianist and composer whose music combined grace, invention, lyricism and prismatic color, died July 14 at her home in Los Angeles. She was 38.

 

The cause was colon cancer, said her husband, Aaron Fullerton.

 

Ms. Gibson’s death came as a shock to the close-knit classical music community, where her work had come in for excited admiration ever since she was in her early 20s. She had been commissioned to write a piece for the Proms series of BBC-sponsored classical music concerts at London’s Royal Albert Hall in August.

 

She had her new piece, entitled “beyond the beyond,” nearly finished for its world premiere but grew too sick to finish it in time. Instead, the BBC Philharmonic is scheduled to play an earlier composition by Ms. Gibson, “warp & weft” (2021) for large orchestra, on Aug. 8. The world premiere of “beyond the beyond” will happen at a BBC-sponsored concert in 2025, in a version completed by a friend and longtime colleague, the composer and pianist Thomas Kotcheff.

 

It is expensive to create a work for full orchestra, and most of Ms. Gibson’s early works were for small groups — “Sea Monkey” (2010), “sure baby, mañana” (2016), “Outsider” (2017) and “I prefer living in color” (2017). Ms. Gibson also made a chamber arrangement of the Afro-British pop musician Laura Mvula’s “She.” (Her musical works were often inspired by the works of visual artists, many of them women.)

 

In 2022, Ms. Gibson was commissioned by the League of American Orchestras to write “to make this mountain taller,” which has already been given its premiere by the Sarasota Orchestra in Florida, with more performances to come.

 

“To have a commission that gives you a platform like this, with a confirmed premiere and multiple performances, is just huge,” Ms. Gibson told music writer Nancy Malitz. “It’s generally much easier to get your smaller pieces performed, and it’s frankly impractical to write a full orchestra piece if you’re only hoping that it might get played, no matter how much you want to scratch that itch.”

 

 

More at the link.

 

 

 

[Geoff Grace]

I’m so sorry to hear this. It’s a shame when anyone dies in the prime of life, but it’s an extra loss for us all when an artist’s output is cut short. 
 

RIP, Sarah Gibson.

 

Best,

 

Geoff