Sean Shepherd Composes Latticework for Leila Josefowicz and Paul Watkins
Sean Shepherd’s Latticework premieres this summer with violinist Leila Josefowicz and cellist Paul Watkins.
This summer, violinist Leila Josefowicz and cellist Paul Watkins perform Sean Shepherd’s new work for violin and cello, Latticework. The world premiere is given on June 8 at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, followed by performances at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival (Jul 15) and Chamber Music Northwest (Jul 24-26). The duo also performs the work in early 2026 at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (Jan 22) in New York.
While composing this work for violin and cello, Shepherd considered the duo masterworks of Ravel, Kodály, Berg, Bartók, and Dutilleux—for whom the size of the ensemble did not impact the scope of the works they wrote.
Shepherd describes how his ideas began to take shape:
“I thought of the overlapping range of these two instruments—the violin’s lowest string sounds a pitch below the cello’s highest. And I began working with ideas of interweaving as abstractly as possible, and images of twisting shapes, veins on tree leaves, spiders creating intricate webs, and any number of ideas in textiles—threads, stitches, machines like looms—permeated the early footprint of the piece.”
Latticework is structured in two parts, as follows:
Part I
Ornament I
Long Strands
Flicker I
Dervish
Ornament II
Part II
Flicker II
Mime
Ornament III
The Silk Spinner
Flicker III
Several of the movements play a structural role in the piece rather than stand on their own.
Shepherd explains: “Two kinds of music that I’ve named Ornament and Flicker do lots of returning and bookending as the piece progresses. The music of Ornament, presented in differing textural settings upon each return, is essentially static; Flicker is dynamic and follows a fluid, musically developmental path. The ways these many musical objects work together each play out differently, and at different rates, over time.”
The composer dedicates the 20-minute work to Josefowicz and Watkins, “for whom craft and passion (in performance and in their beings) are as deeply intertwined as any two to ever pick up the instruments.”
Concert Information
Sunday, June 8 at 5pm ET
Seligman Performing Arts Center | Beverly Hills, MI
More info
Gloria Chien, piano
Leila Josefowicz, violin
Philip Setzer, violin
Paul Neubauer, viola
Edward Arron, cello
Paul Watkins, cello
Alexander Kinmonth, oboe
The Dolphins Quartet, Shouse ensemble
The Paddington Trio, Shouse ensemble
Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings
SEAN SHEPHERD Latticework (World Premiere)
BENJAMIN BRITTEN Six Metamorphoses after Ovid
JOSEPH HAYDN Cello Concerto No. 1
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Piano Quartet No. 1
> Further information on Work: Latticework
Photo: Jennifer Taylor