On Friday, March 14, the Temple University Wind Symphony will have the rare opportunity to bring a brand-new piece of music to life. 

Temple’s top wind band will perform the world premiere of Only Moments to Live, a concerto composed by Emma O’Halloran, during its Old, New and Timeless program at the Temple Performing Arts Center. Temple is one of 15 institutions that commissioned the piece by O’Halloran, but the university’s wind symphony has the distinct honor of premiering the piece to the world. The wind symphony will also be recording the concerto on Saturday, March 15, for release on BCM&D Records, the Boyer College of Music and Dance’s record label. 

“We’re very grateful to have this opportunity, and that our Department Chair Terell Stafford and Dean Robert Stroker have supported this project and allowed us to run with it,” said Patricia Cornett, director of bands at Temple and conductor of the Temple University Wind Symphony. 

“It’s like bringing a baby into the world. We’re responsible for setting a framework for every performance that might follow,” added Matthew Levy, an adjunct faculty member and artist in residence at Boyer, where he teaches saxophone and chamber music. 

Levy is a founding member of the renowned saxophone ensemble, PRISM Quartet, and he was instrumental in organizing the commission of O’Halloran’s concerto. That process began in the summer of 2023 when Levy was invited by Cornett to perform as a soloist with the wind symphony. 

“Of course, there are some preexisting pieces, but we were mostly interested in commissioning a new work,” Levy said. He brought together a consortium with 14 other top saxophonists and their affiliated institutions, who would fund the commissioned piece and each get a chance to perform it following the world premiere. 

Levy and Cornett then had to decide on a composer to commission for the piece, and Levy recommended O’Halloran. The pair first crossed paths in 2014 when O’Halloran was a doctoral student at Princeton University and composed a piece for Levy’s PRISM Quartet. That piece has since become a staple of saxophone repertoire and is performed by groups around the world. 

“Emma stood out as this extraordinary voice, who married lots of really interesting kinds of music. She’s from Ireland, but she was immersed in Latin music when she lived in Florida,” Levy said. “There’s a post-minimalist quality to her work that has repetition, but it always evolves into something extraordinary. It’s this really interesting combination of musical interests that all appeals to me.” 

Friday's performance of Only Moments to Live comes more than a decade after O'Halloran and Levy first worked together in 2014. (Photography courtesy of Joseph V. Labolito)

Concertos are musical works that feature a soloist accompanied by an ensemble, in this case a concert band, and Levy is excited to work with O’Halloran once again as the concerto’s soloist. 

“Occasionally, in my work as a soloist and with PRISM, we come across composers you just want to come back to over and over again, and Emma is one of those few people,” he said. 

“Because of her relationship with Matt and PRISM, she’s been able to write a piece that really plays into Matt’s strengths as a player and things that Matt can do,” Cornett added. “There’s a lot of improvisation in this piece, which not every classical saxophonist is going to necessarily be comfortable with, but because it’s Matt, and he’s a genius, it’s working really well.” 

Only Moments to Live is about using mindfulness as a tool for managing life’s ups and downs. 

“Over the past few years, it’s become increasingly important to me to slow down and cultivate presence in this fast-paced world,” O’Halloran said in an artist statement about the piece. “By integrating mindfulness practices into my daily life, I’m learning how to manage pain and anxiety, and to be fully present to good moments as well as the bad, and my life feels richer for it.” 

O’Halloran will be on campus the week leading up to the premiere, where she will have the opportunity to work directly with Levy, Cornett and the wind symphony. 

“There’s really nothing like having a living composer in the room interacting with the students and giving live, real-time feedback about what they hear,” Cornett said. “Band does not have the hundreds of years of repertoire that orchestra or choir have, but what we do have is a living, breathing connection to new music that is really gratifying.” 

Only Moments to Live will premiere at next Friday’s Old, New and Timeless concert. The program also includes performances of works from Renaissance composer Tielman Susato, Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as music from the Star Wars films by John Williams. 

The concert is free and open to the public, and it will also be live streamed. Visit the show’s webpage for more information.