Composer and guitarist Bryce Dessner has been announced as the 2023-24 Creative Chair of Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich.
As the orchestra’s 2023-24 Creative Chair, Dessner will present different facets of his work with several concerts across the season. Audiences will be able to experience a rich cross-section of his musical output, from orchestral work Mari, conducted by Paavo Järvi, to seminal chamber works such as Tenebre and Murder Ballades. Dessner will also appear as a performer, as the solo guitarist in his orchestral work St. Carolyn by the Sea. The season also features the world premiere of Dessner’s new piano concerto, with Alice Sara Ott as soloist and Kent Nagano conducting. Pekka Kuusisto performs Dessner’s electrifying violin concerto, having premiered the work and performed it around the world. Finally Dessner will bring to Zurich the multimedia project Electric fields, co-created with and starring Katia and Marielle Labèque, David Chalmin and Barbara Hannigan.
Bryce Dessner is a Grammy Award-winning classically trained composer and musician, active at the highest level on the classical music scene. His works are commissioned and performed by the likes of San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra and Orchestre de Paris, and by Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Semyon Bychkov and Santtu-Matias Rouvali.
Dessner is also a renowned arranger and orchestrator, and a sought-after composer in the world of film, having collaborated for many years with Alejandro González Iñárritu on films such as The Revenant and Bardo, as well as with directors including Fernando Mereilles, Rebecca Miller, Joe Wright and Mike Mills. He is also well known internationally as guitarist and founder member of the Grammy Award-winning indie rock band The National.