Former Tucson Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Steven Moeckel is coming home next weekend to help the St. Andrew’s Bach Society close out its 2021 concert series.
Having Moeckel, concertmaster for the Phoenix Symphony and the Santa Fe Opera orchestra in New Mexico, on a Tucson stage is reason enough to celebrate. But throw in a world-premiere of a work that Moeckel commissioned during the pandemic and the celebration takes on a whole new level of wow.
During next Sunday’s concert with harpist Stephen Hartman, Moeckel will perform the premiere of “The Unreal Dwelling After Basho,” composed by Phoenix Symphony double-bassist Glenn Stallcop.
Moeckel said the piece perfectly summed up the frustration and anxiety he was feeling in the summer of 2020, not long after learning that the Phoenix Symphony had called off its 2020-21 season because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“A huge part of my personality was taken away from me by this pandemic and by not being able to perform and connect with people,” said Moeckel, who has been performing since he was 4. “This piece reflects those feelings 100 percent.”
Moeckel said he reached out to Stallcop after returning from a three-week trip wandering the woods along the Oregon coast in summer 2020. After months of isolation after the pandemic became a thing in March 2020, he needed to clear his head and find purpose in the uncertainty created by the pandemic.
“I asked him to write me something, anything,” he recalled. “He wrote this piece in five days.”
Stallcop was inspired by Moeckel’s tales of wandering around the Oregon woods and based “Unreal Dwelling” on the writings of 17th century Japanese poet Matsuo Bashô, who also spent time wandering the woods of Japan.
“Unreal Dwelling” opens Moeckel’s new album “Sei Solo — Looking Within,” his first-ever record of unaccompanied solo violin works that he recorded at a Phoenix neighbor’s home studio last November. The album includes solo violin works that Moeckel rarely performs including Eugene Ysaÿe’s violin sonata “Ballade” and a pair of Paganini caprices.
Moeckel will perform the Ysaÿe sonata and “Unreal Dwelling” during the concert with Hartman, who will take a solo turn with Salzedo’s “Minuet, Siciliana and Seguidilla” for Solo Harp.
Hartman also arranged a pair of works on the program for harp and violin including Vaughan Williams’s “The Lark Ascending,” originally composed for violin and orchestra.
“The solo works (on the program) create this agitation and then harp brings out the violin’s sheer beauty,” Moeckel said. “It will be a really beautiful experience.”
