Beautiful Life, Beautiful Passing: Composer Steven Mackey on Creating Music at the Intersection of Life, Death, and Memory

<p>Composer <a href="https://www.boosey.com/pages/cr/composer/composer_main?composerid=2739&ttype=BIOGRAPHY">Steven Mackey</a> has come a long way since his teenage years studying physics at the University of California, Davis, and learning blues-rock riffs on his guitar.</p> <p>Today Mackey stands as a celebrated composer and electric guitarist whose work is regularly performed by orchestras around the world — including the <a href="https://www.laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/1094/beautiful-passing-west-coast-premiere">Los Angeles Philharmonic</a>, the <a href="https://www.kennedy-center.org/nso/home/2022-2023/nso-robertson-rangwanasha/">National Symphony</a>, and the <a href="https://www.bso.org/works/concerto-for-orchestra-mackey">Boston Symphony</a>. He&#39;s taught composition at <a href="https://music.princeton.edu/people/steven-mackey/">Princeton University for nearly 40 years</a> and has served as a composer in residence at the Curtis Institute of Music, Tanglewood, and the Aspen Music Festival.</p> <p>On his latest album, <a href="https://www.canaryclassics.com/recordings/beautiful-passing"><em>Beautiful Passing</em></a>, Mackey brings together two works inspired by personal experiences that deeply informed his views on memory, life, and death: <em>Mnemosyne’s Pool</em>, which <em>Musical America</em> called &quot;the first great American symphony of the 21st century&quot;; and <em>Beautiful Passing</em>, a violin concerto Mackey composed after watching his mother pass away from cancer.</p> <p>Despite the presence of death woven throughout both works, Mackey made sure to find moments for levity and humor in his music. &quot;Part of death is a farewell to this joyous life and the energetic people my parents were,&quot; Mackey says on the latest episode of the <em>Classical Post</em> podcast. &quot;There&#39;s a depth of emotion that music is really uniquely suited for. Where words are a struggle to come by, music bypasses those language centers and gives you a direct emotional response.&quot;</p> <p>In this epi