A 'what's this' kind of concert

'It's a concerto -

dude

!"

Such was the standard reply composer Jennifer Higdon had to any complaints from the youthful string trio Time for Three while preparing their world premiere for the Philadelphia Orchestra later this week. The piece's title is in Internetspeak:

Concerto 4-3

. The style is multigenre - obviously, since the soloists have equal allegiances to bluegrass and Brahms.

All of which sounds fun, when in truth, that kind of genre blurring in a formal symphony orchestra concert setting is a minefield. In this case, few pairings of composer and performer are so aware of that - as they walk into rehearsals for the Thursday premiere at the Kimmel Center.

The trio, all in their late 20s with Curtis Institute of Music diplomas and plenty of blue-chip classical credits, have pulled off remarkably seamless fusion feats in recent years with their own concerts, and earned endorsements from Peter Nero, Simon Rattle and Paul Newman. A symphony orchestra subscription concert, however, is different.

"There's no reason why you can't bring that message to people who normally hear the Tchaikovsky

Violin Concerto

," says the Philadelphia-based Higdon, who recently became America's most often-played living composer and received another Grammy Award nomination. "Bluegrass is so communicative. But the chord progressions are much simpler, and that doesn't always play well in an orchestra setting. You want to incorporate enough of the things bluegrass uses . . . and that was hard. Really tricky, actually. So I wrote it backward, the last movement first, and that one is the most classical."

The goal is music that's here, there, and both. "I hope people will look at their tickets and say, 'Where am I?' " says bassist Ranaan Meyer.

Cross-genre composer/performers with bluegrass roots - Marc O'Connor, for instance - have had considerable success in the recording market. Independently, Clarion records issued

The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass.

Nashville-based composer Edgar Meyer has written classical works, though his

Violin Concerto

is only tinged with the vernacular. That won't be the case with

Concerto 4-3

. Though Higdon's roots in her rural eastern Tennessee upbringing include marching bands and daily doses of the Beatles'

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

, she also spent plenty of time with Smokey Mountain fiddlers.

That side of her is asserting itself for the first time in

Concerto 4-3

, though in a collaboration that's as close to family as composers and performers usually get. Most Curtis grads know Higdon, a faculty member, from her contemporary music seminars. Her history with Time for Three violinist Zachary De Pue dates back further.

While an overcaffeinated undergraduate at Bowling Green State University in the early '80s, Higdon studied composition under his father, Wallace De Pue. She vaguely remembers 6-year-old Zach racing around the school halls. De Pue didn't remember her at all until he was playing the premiere of Higdon's

blue cathedral

with the Curtis orchestra. Then he thought back: "I remember this nervous wind that would go by."

Time for Three's history began gradually as its members stumbled into one another during their Curtis years, one of their breakthroughs being a 2003 Philadelphia Orchestra concert at the Mann Center: Bassist Meyer (an orchestra substitute) and violinist De Pue (a tenured member) were all set to play Beethoven's

Symphony No. 9

when the power went out and the pair, who were known to do some country fiddling on the side, were asked to play some of their own stuff while Peco went to work.

The third member, Nicolas Kendall, divided his time among the Dryden String Quartet, the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, and solo gigs. When the trio realized they had something viable with their pop/classical fusion, they worked with Astral Artistic Services in Philadelphia for ways to present themselves within the industry. One result was a full season of touring the United States in 2006-07.

They've pulled back in the current season: De Pue accepted the concertmaster position at the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Meyer concentrated on composing, and Kendall premiered a Chris Brubeck concerto,

Spontaneous Combustion

, with the Anchorage Symphony.

The Higdon concerto has involved an intense collaboration, conducted at her spacious Spruce Street apartment between her trips to London for the successful post-Thanksgiving premiere of her

Percussion Concerto

and the trio's far-flung individual and collective engagements. One problem is capturing in a formal setting what Time for Three does without thinking under less structured circumstances. In Chris Brubeck's concerto for Kendall, he notated things that Kendall had improvised on tape, only to have the violinist look at it on paper, not recognize it as anything he'd ever done, and claim that it was unplayable.

Higdon didn't even attempt notation at times: She taped effects, assigned them numbers within the score, and will issue the corresponding flourishes in a recorded CD sent out to prospective performers along with the score. Still, when the players couldn't help whining about the challenges she set for them, the composer coined the phrase: "It's a concerto -

dude!

"

The question that has yet to be answered is how all of this will mesh with the majestic Philadelphia Orchestra. Don't think Higdon hasn't thought about that. "You never know what kind of orchestra you're walking into, and you kind of have to be careful how much you deviate from their norm," she says.

"Christoph [Eschenbach] has done an excellent job of pushing and pulling the orchestra out of its comfort zone," Meyer says. "I'm sure it's been painful, but it's wonderful."

"In art," Higdon says, "you always have to go out of your comfort level."

Just to make sure they experience the right kind of discomfort at the orchestra rehearsals this week, the trio organized their own orchestra at the Curtis Institute before Christmas to read through the piece.

"That's taking the initiative!" Higdon says.

"Up till that night, it was '

Maybe

I get [the concerto],' " Meyer says. "As much knowledge as I can get from reading a score and using my imagination . . . there's nothing like the real thing."

"The middle movement is hard," Higdon says. "Nothing occurs on the beat. If it does, there's nothing more square or hideous."

"You could only do this at a school like this, where the kids are capable of reading a new piece and making it coherent right off the bat," says De Pue.

"A lot of friends were willing to chip in," says Kendall. "We had pizza."

The premiere appears in a festival dedicated to the godfather of genre fusion, Leonard Bernstein, with

Concerto 4-3

appearing alongside

Symphonic Dances

From

West Side Story

Thursday with intermittent performances through Jan. 25. Also in the festival is the Jan. 17-25 premiere of Higdon's

The Singing Rooms

for the also unconventional lineup of orchestra, chorus, and violin soloist Jennifer Koh.

Few living composers, particularly those at the less-than-venerable age of 45, have major premieres on consecutive weeks with the same major orchestra. But that's not out of character with Higdon's recent history: Besides her recent Grammy nomination for

Zaka

, written for the contemporary group eighth blackbird, Higdon's Web site carries a dizzying array of performances: Both

Concerto 4-3

and

The Singing Rooms

will enjoy mileage from Wheeling, W.Va., to Pittsburgh.

Yet another new work, a violin concerto, will be premiered by Hilary Hahn Feb. 7, 2009, at the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra with performances to follow in Toronto and Baltimore. That brings Higdon up to eight concertos, including a piano concerto that's finished but missing in action. That one was to be premiered last season in Washington, when soloist Lang Lang pulled out at the relatively last minute for oddly vague reasons. Higdon recalls, "He told me, 'I just can't do it.' He must've said that six times on the phone." The premiere has been delayed to 2009, with Curtis grad Yuja Wang as soloist.

Though all of Higdon's concertos have been so different that she doesn't feel she's even beginning to run out of ideas, conductor Robert Spano, another Bowling Green friend, has advised her to concentrate on other forms. To that end, she's embarking on the ultimate challenge - a yet-to-be-announced opera.

Still in the process of obtaining rights to any number of literary properties, she can't say a librettist is even on the horizon. Who knows when she'll be able to actually do the composing. "We've got so many tentacles out. . . . It's been going on a year and a half now," she says. "It's really scary."

The Philadelphia Orchestra will perform Higdon's "Concerto 4-3" Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Jan.15, 23 and 25. "The Singing Rooms" will be performed Jan. 17, 18, 19, 23 and 25. All performances are at the Kimmel Center. Information:

» READ MORE: www.philorch.org

or 215-893-1999.