January 9, 2026

There is a programmatic parallel between Verdi’s Nabucco Overture and Jared Miller’s Piano Concerto, Shattered Night, the two works that made up the first half of our Lansing Symphony concert Friday. Nabucco tells a story from ca. 586 BCE of Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Solomon’s temple as well as Hebrew homes and businesses in Jerusalem. Jared’s work is his response to the tragedy of Kristallnacht, (Night of Broken Glass), when thousands of Jewish homes, places of worship and businesses were ransacked in 1938.
 
It is with that description that the similarities end. The composers were writing nearly two centuries apart, so naturally in completely different musical languages. The two works could not sound more different, but the side-by-side comparison is intriguing.
 
Before going any further, I have to say that Jared’s work is among the most heartfelt, poignant and moving works written in this century that I have encountered. In his description of the work, he tells us that the music is not meant as a depiction of the events of Kristallnacht, but more his emotional reaction, as a Jewish person who lost most of his mother's family in the Holocaust, to those happenings over 80 years ago, a time that witnessed an unimaginable breakdown of civility, decency and humanity.
 
As is often the case with exceptionally powerful works, it is a journey. In this work, we move in and out of music of unrest, turmoil and violence, toward music of peace, dreamlike states and even tranquility. The aural images of shattered glass are present in much of the work in myriad forms, from the cold, violent slashes of the opening percussion gestures to the prominent Mark Tree passages reminiscent of shards of glass falling in slow motion, as if in a dream. (The Mark Tree is a percussion instrument you’ve heard many times in pop and movie music. It is a set of small, graduated metal tubes that hang from a beam. The musician’s finger runs along the row, creating a gentle cascade of tiny chime sounds).
 
Pianist Han Chen was the perfect partner in this work. He brought a full range of fragility, delicacy, power, and most importantly, pacing. He knew how and when to maintain a surreal, dreamlike atmosphere, resisting the urge to flow forward, and when to let loose with unbridled momentum. He was stunning.
 
So how does a composer bring a work on this subject to a close? An important feature of the work is that musically it is based on quotations from a popular melodic setting of the Hebrew prayer Sh’ma Yisrael. The quotations remain clear but are transformed over the course of the work as if representing a single point of view that changes with each given scene. In the final scene, after the most shattering climax of the entire work, the Sh’ma Yisrael appears again in the cellos, rising from the rubble in a setting of looped reverberation created by dividing the cello section into 7 individual parts, each echoing the main melody. The effect is like musical slow motion, time suspended. With the next phrase, violas are added, also in divided slo-mo, then the second violins, then the firsts, all divided. Each player in the orchestra is a soloist on their own line, tracing the melody, but lagging behind, following the leader as if a procession of souls, the destination being a climax that is nothing short of cathartic, transcendent and yes, reaffirming and strong. As the theme fades away to the end of the work, we are left with a scene of beauty and serenity, suggesting the possibility of a future of hope and peace.
 
 
Following the concert and over the last few days, I’ve had several conversations, phone calls, and text messages remarking on the impact of this work. I’m also aware it may not have been to everyone’s taste, and that’s ok.  Shattered Night is a highly emotionally-charged experience.  If a listener was expecting 20 minutes of pure beauty, that’s not what this work is. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was not to everyone’s taste in its day either. That’s why we play music of our time, so that it can become the music of the future, and as such, timeless. The payoff is worth the investment.
 
In the days leading up to the concert, I imagined today’s post would be about Brahms. We played his First Symphony, the greatest first symphony ever written by the GOAT of composers, but after experiencing the power and impact of Jared’s work on the audience, our players, and myself, I realized it deserves the focus today. Brahms has had no shortage of good press.
 
February 1, 2026
 Lansing Symphony Orchestra
WINTERLUDE
 St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
Lansing, Michigan
3:00 p.m.
 
David DIAMOND         Rounds for String Orchestra
ALBINONI                    Adagio for Organ and Strings
VIVALDI                       Winter from The Four Seasons
                                                Florina Georgia Petrescu, violin
Clarice ASSAD             Impressions for Chamber Orchestra
HOLST                         St. Paul’s Suite
 
#JaredMiller #HanChenPianist #LansingSymphony