“The road from St. Albert to New York City is a long one. But for internationally-acclaimed composer Zosha Di Castri, the journey isn’t about the 4,000 kms separating the two cities; it’s about the opportunities she’s made the most of along the way.
In 2002, when she was just 16, Di Castri had the opportunity to learn composition through the Edmonton Symphony’s Young Composer Project and have her first formal composition premiered by the orchestra. Twenty-three years later, Di Castri, now a professor of composition at Columbia University and a Guggenheim Fellow, will once again have her music performed on the Winspear Centre stage. Her piece, Time-Time-Time, will receive its Canadian premiere as part of next year’s New Music series with the ESO.
As the name implies, this is music that explores the surprising and paradoxical nature of time and how it can seem simultaneously slow and fast. In what was a challenging period, Di Castri still found the opportunity for inspiration.
“I was writing this during the pandemic while having an infant at home. This feeling of the distortion of time was on my mind, having these days that feel like they last forever, and yet five months later, having a kid doing all these things they weren’t before. I was curious to see how this could be expressed through music…”
