Tyler Taylor was astounded when he found out he won San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Emerging Black Composers Project.
Taylor, who has degrees in composition and horn from the University of Louisville in his native Kentucky, a master’s degree from the Eastman School of Music and a doctorate from Indiana University, applied in 2023 at the suggestion of a friend.
“When I got the call that I was the winner, I was pretty amazed,” says Taylor, whose piece “Embers” is on San Francisco Symphony’s program this weekend.
Taylor, 33, won the EBCP’s 2024 Michael Morgan Prize, which includes a $15,000 award; mentorship by San Francisco Conservatory’s Edwin Outwater and San Francisco Symphony’s Daniel Bartholomew Poyser; and a San Francisco Symphony commission.
Cristian Măcelaru conducts the world premiere of “Embers” on May 22-24 in Davies Symphony Hall. The program also features Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concert No. 1 with pianist Simon Trpčeski and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.”
About 10 years ago, Taylor started composing music that creates abstract musical analogies for social-political happenings.
“Composition as it functions in my life is a way of tackling some of the more complex aspects of life, my life, our lives, because a lot of the things we experience, we experience together, or are broad human experiences that we can share,” he says. “Sorting through those social-political ideas has been my way of channeling that aspect of my life into something that allows me to work through it.”
The title “Embers” suggests a smoldering ash heap that might flare up again and send sparks flying or die away until extinguished.
“Anytime I pick a title, I’m always trying to think about how the word can be used in different contexts and how poetic those contexts can be,” he says. “If you think about what the analogy of an ember could be for a person in the 21st century, and the power or lack or power that can be associated with an ember or this person, there are all sorts of parallels and ideas that can be drawn there.”
Taylor— whose mentors include Grammy-nominated composer Derek Bermel and composer and Louisville Orchestra Music Director Edward “Teddy” Abrams — admires Mahler and Strauss and shares their preference for large orchestras. That’s reflected in the 16-minute “Embers,” which has densely orchestrated moments and passages with fewer instruments.
“That is something Mahler does very well, and when you have these large orchestras you’re able to swivel back and forth between very small, intimate, chamber-like moments and then these devastating tuttis — a collection of instruments that large and different all on stage working simultaneously is very interesting and dramatic,” he says. “And with Strauss, the density of the textures and the way he uses motif is deeply intertwined into the counterpoint of his music.”
The piece begins with the first violins playing an expressive melody, albeit subdued. The violins’ theme, which is later interpreted by every part of the orchestra, represents voices that need to be heard in society but are often suppressed.
“We can see this pattern throughout history, of voices that are trying to be heard and struggle to be heard and how someone may feel their voice is being silenced or is never heard, and the sort of power, or lack of power, that comes from your voice heard, or having your voice silenced,” he says. “There are various ways in which that voice is trying to be heard throughout the piece and is reinterpreted, re-approached, taken up, rejected or cut off, or sometimes even put on a pedestal or amplified.”
In other passages, commanding trumpets make an ecstatic statement, then are hushed into submission. They’re expressions of optimism amid a swirl of powerful orchestral complexities.
Taylor says, “The stuff that is happening around them is a flurry of really fast-moving, high woodwind writing and string trills and tremolos, just a lot of excitement and intensity. When it comes back a second time, a lot of the stuff from the earlier portions of the piece is happening with it. And so the optimism, that same kind of bright, ecstatic quality is different. This time, it’s a lot more labored, there’s some darkness to it.”
Like all of Taylor’s compositions, “Embers” is abstract. He says, “I want to leave the space for listeners in the audience approaching this piece to fill in the gaps. It’s really important for composers to allow audiences that privilege of connecting to a piece and an experience that is unique to them.”
San Francisco Symphony’s “Măcelaru Conducts Dvořák’s New World” is at 7:30 p.m. May 22-23 and 2 p.m. May 24 in Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave. San Francisco. Tickets are $30-$185 at sfsymphony.org.