Friday 10 July 2020

Dan Brown's Wild Symphony

Dan Brown's Wild Symphony
Dan Brown, the author of the bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code, has a new book out later this year. Not, perhaps, a project that might be mentioned on a classical music blog, but Brown's new book is slightly different, Wild Symphony is a picture-book for children (produced with illustrator Susan Batori) and it comes complete with music which has been written by Brown himself. And when people buy the book they get an app, so that they can listen to the music as well.

The music for the project was recorded in Zagreb, and the concert premiere of Brown's Wild Symphony is planned for 10 October 2020, with the American premiere planned for November in Portsmouth, Connecticut with the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra, though given the current situation the record company, Parma Recordings, is not certain what form these will take. Stay tuned.

Inspired by classics such as Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf and Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals, Brown's Wild Symphony, his first work for orchestra, features twenty-one musical portraits drawn from the animal kingdom.

On a personal note, Dan Brown's younger brother Gregory W. Brown is composer based in New England, and I took part in the UK premiere of his Missa Charles Darwin, which uses the structure of the mass but with texts taken from Charles Darwin; it was also the European premiere of a new version of the work for mixed chorus it having originally been written for the all-male group New York Polyphony.

Further details from the Wild Symphony website, where there will be a list of live performances of the new work.

Dan Brown's Wild Symphony! from Peter Vandall on Vimeo.

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