Zosha Di Castri Receives a New York Premiere by Gustavo Dudamel This Week

Zosha Di Castri, Francis Goelet Associate Professor of Music Composition, has a new work, Invisible House, which will receive its world premiere with the New York Philharmonic. Conducted by the orchestra’s new music and artistic director, Gustavo Dudamel, Invisible House will be performed September 16-19, and October 1, at Lincoln Center, opening the season alongside works by John Adams and Sergei Prokofiev.

Invisible House was inspired by the work of Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky, who wrote poignantly about the challenge—and yet necessity—of creating art in difficult times in his poem Author's Prayer. Di Castri’s musical response is an urgent call to action, as well as a desire to connect with a lost ancestral home. The work also draws from Di Castri’s Ukrainian great-grandfather’s memoirs, which cover his time as a soldier in World War I and his immigration to Canada. Invisible House bears witness to these struggles, connecting back through Ukrainian polyphonic folk music.

In addition to the New York performances, the New York Philharmonic will play Invisible House when the orchestra tours Europe in October, with performances in Barcelona, Hamburg, Madrid, Paris, and Vienna.

How did this come about, that your piece is premiering as Dudamel starts his first season with the New York Philharmonic?

I received the call from the New York Philharmonic quite some time ago, and was deeply honored that they would think of my music for these special opening concerts and the European tour. The orchestra has played my music before, and I had the pleasure of curating one of their Kravis Nightcap concerts in 2023, so I am very glad to be continuing my collaboration with these terrifically talented musicians.

How does it feel to have a world premiere of yours coincide with Dudamel’s New York premiere?

Thrilling! He is someone I have looked up to and hoped to work with for years, so this is a dream come true. I think he is going to bring an incredible energy to the New York Philharmonic, and will open the orchestra to new audiences throughout the city. We already see evidence of this with his recent Radio City Music Hall collaborations with Lizzo, St. Vincent, Aaron Tveit, and Joaquina, alongside works by composers like Philip Glass, Jessie Montgomery, Leonard Bernstein, and George Gershwin.

What are you teaching this semester, and in the spring?

This fall I am teaching Undergraduate Composition, where the students will be writing pieces for PinkNoise Ensemble, a great group of new music specialists and improvisers here in New York City. (Mark your calendars for the class concert on December 16 at St. Paul’s Chapel!) 

I am also teaching the Graduate Composition Seminar, and supervising lessons with the Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition students. In the spring, I will teach Composing for Dance, a class I really enjoy leading, in collaboration with Barnard’s Movement Lab.

What are you working on now?

I am working on a duo for cello and organ dedicated to the memory of the late Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, which will be premiered by cellist Anssi Karttunen and organist Olivier Latry in Paris later this year.

Which three composers/musicians, dead or alive, would you invite to a dinner party, and why?

I’d love to have dinner with Tom Waits, Florence Price, and the Australian composer Liza Lim. I’d want to hear all about Florence’s life and experiences as an intrepid African American symphonic composer and mother of two in the late 19th- and early 20th-century.

I always find it inspiring to talk with Liza, whose music explores collaborative and transcultural practices, ecological connections, and ritual transformations. I’d want to ask her more about her piece that recently premiered, Tongue of Land, a concerto for carnyx—an ancient Celtic trumpet dating back 2,000 years!—and orchestra. 

And Tom would bring his wild, Black Rider creative energy and the bourbon, as we nerd out over Alban Berg and Kurt Weil!