Invisible Hands (2018)

for electric viola and chamber orchestra
duration: 15'

Click to peruse the full score (2.9 MB PDF)

Commissioned by The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Dirk Brossé, Music Director

World premiere:
April 1 & 2, 2018 at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA

Audio file

Program Notes

Press

Praise for Invisible Hands
"Such a wonderful experience presenting the world premiere of Martha Mooke's stunning, genre-transcendent new work." — William Rhoads, Executive Director, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia

"A virtuoso performer on the electric viola, and associated with a variety of more or less unconventional performing groups and performance venues, she is nevertheless by no means to be denied credit for forging a truly personal style and language that draw on fertile links with tradition.

Inspired by Joseph Campbell's assertion, in response to a question whether he ever had the sense of being helped by hidden hands, that this happened to him all the time, the work she has created for the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia partakes vividly of the mysticism that sits at the heart of Campbell's thought and has also been a powerful element in shaping her own world view.

...eloquently demonstrated her capacity for balancing luxuriantly saturated textures with zestful rhythmic vitality and a treatment of dissonance that never spills over from the stimulating into the merely torturous." — Bernard Jacobson, SeenAndHeard-International.com