Utah composer Kurt Bestor says his latest work, an Easter piece titled, "Passion of the Lamb," is not what might be expected from the successful LDS musician.
"Those people who are used to my normal compositional style of fairly conservative, nice, warm stuff will find more dissonance in the 'Passion of the Lamb,' " Bestor said."It's a classical piece. I would call it '20th Century tonal,' along the lines of someone like Walton, Elgar or Barber. It's got some impressionistic leanings as well."
The work premieres Monday, March 29, at 8 p.m. in Abravanel Hall as part of the Utah Chamber Artists concert conducted by Barlow Bradford. The program also features Bradford's own "Five Sacred Songs," which premiered last February.
Bestor says there is a reason for the dissonant moments in "Passion of the Lamb."
"You can't talk about the crucifixion without dissonance," he explained. "But at the same time, when you have the perfect resolution of the passion, it's consonant. You can't have consonance without dissonance."
Bestor also applied this idea to a broader aesthetic philosophy: "Oftentimes, in our society here in Utah, we try to shave off all the rough edges. We try to do that so that everything's safe and we don't offend anybody, and what we end up having is pablum or Velveeta cheese."
But isn't that what Bestor is known for? "That's the stereotype of what I am," he responded. "The stereotype of my music is safe."
Bestor says he has actually taken many artistic risks, pointing to his album "Innovators," with African drums beneath Bach's "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring," combined with a boys choir to paint a musical portrait of Albert Schweitzer. Or his piece "Timpanogos: a Prayer for Mountain Grace," which was premiered by the Utah Symphony and which may have surprised fans of his "new age" and Christmas albums.
"They loved it, but at first they were kind of going, 'Wow -- this is really different for Kurt,' " Bestor said. "I want them to say that. I don't want to lose them, but I want them to feel stretched."
Bestor stretched himself musically when he was "enticed away" from a degree in studio composition at Brigham Young University -- with one class left -- by the opportunity to write three-and-a-half hours of "production music." Bestor wrote classical, rock 'n' roll, country, blues and jazz, which was sold to production libraries and later used in film, radio and television.
The job proved to be a perfect training ground. "It got me into hyper-speed mode toward my career advancement," Bestor said."I was going to be a music doctor, and I was going to med school."
Since then, Bestor has made much of his his living as a film composer. He says his process for writing "Passion of the Lamb" is much the same as writing a film score.
"When I'm doing the 'Passion of the Lamb,' because of the way that I write, I kind of have to envision a film in my head."
Bestor got the idea for this work from the Passion Week celebrations of his Catholic upbringingand the famous Passion Play that takes place every 10 years in Oberammerau, Germany. Included in Bestor's seven-movement piece is one based on the very Mormon concept of Christ's visit to the Spirit World.
"Mormons don't generally use the term 'Passion,' which I think is too bad," said Bestor. "If a person believes in Christ, and believes that all that took place, what better term than 'passion.' "