Concerto for Marimba and String Orchestra

Emmanuel Séjourné's Concerto for Marimba and String Orchestra (2003) has rapidly become one of the most performed and recorded new concertos in the marimba repertoire, winning the ICMA (International Classical Music Award) in its recording by Katarzyna Myćka with the Bamberg Symphony. Séjourné, a French percussionist-composer and professor at the Strasbourg Conservatoire, brings an improvisatory, jazz-inflected energy to the concerto form while maintaining rigorous structural clarity. The three movements move from a turbulent, driving Allegro through an intimate Andante notable for its long melodic arcs to a virtuosic finale that exploits the full four-mallet technique. The interplay between marimba and strings is exceptionally imaginative, the percussion instrument emerging with unprecedented lyrical character.