New World Symphony’s concert hall opens with a guiding star

Somewhere the ivory tower is still open for business, crammed with fussy, midnight-oil-burning artists laboring in the service of fame. You won’t find Thomas Adès anywhere near the place.

What you’ll hear in ‘Polaris’

Composer Thomas Adès’ Polaris gets its message of the stars and the sea across by using small brass groups — trumpets, horns, trombones, tuba — standing on platforms above the main stage and the rest of the New World Symphony.

The brass groups play a series of notes that spring back, as if magnetically charged, to a central note. Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas says the music grows from a simple melody.

“Almost everything in the piece comes out of a haunting little tune and reflections of it. And the tune is initially played rather quickly by groups of the instruments who are onstage. And then, much more slowly and lyrically, the tune begins to appear played by these different brass groups.

“But there’s a kind of very poetic quality about this initially, before it goes layer by layer to some pretty wild places.”

Adès says he wanted to make use of the “satellite positions in this hall” — which he had not visited — when composing.

“That was a deliberate choice. I wanted it to inform the piece, not dictate it,” he says. “I’ve written the piece so that members of the brass have these big, mobile phrases that are played over everything else. It’s very much built to show off the space, so you can hear the hall to its fullest advantage.”

GREG STEPANICH

This story was originally published January 23, 2011 at 8:01 PM.