JIJI

JIJI is a guitarist appearing with the Houston Symphony as soloist in Steven Mackey's Aluminum Flowers, a concerto written for both classical and electric guitar. The program pairs this contemporary work with Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments and Mozart's final symphony, the "Jupiter."

In Aluminum Flowers, listeners can expect JIJI to switch between the warm, plucked sound of a classical guitar and the sustained, amplified tone of an electric guitar, often within the same movement. Steven Mackey's writing tends to explore contrasts in guitar timbre, from delicate single notes to fuller chords, set against an orchestra that responds to and frames those colors. Expect a soloist part that requires both the precision of classical technique and the sustain and effects vocabulary of electric guitar playing. The piece sits alongside Stravinsky's angular, wind-only textures and Mozart's crisply argued final symphony, giving the evening a wide span of orchestral color, from thin and modern to full Classical-era orchestration.