not quite yet

Four years and a few months ago, I reviewed a concert with a 12-year-old prodigy named Alma Deutscher playing her own violin concerto which she'd written at the age of 9.

I had rather mixed feelings about the music. On the one hand, I didn't think a pleasantly melodic work should be penalized because it was written in 2015 instead of 1845 which is what it sometimes sounded like. On the other hand, it was anodyne enough that I doubted it would get played at all if it weren't for the publicity attendant on the composer's age.

On the third hand, I could hardly blame the composer. I pointed out that even the greatest child-prodigy composers of the past, Mozart and Mendelssohn, were writing at the same age music that was likewise pleasant and fully competent, but no more than that: impressive mostly just for the composer's age. They didn't produce any of the masterpieces they're remembered for until their late teens - Mendelssohn wrote his Octet when he was 16 and Mozart his 'little' G-minor symphony at 17.

So I concluded, "I would like to check in with Deutscher in a few more years and hear what she’s writing then."

And lo and behold, the San Jose Opera has announced a production of Deutscher's opera Cinderella for the next season. Deutscher herself, now 17, will be making her debut as a conductor. But! This isn't a new work, it's another one from 2015 although it has been revised since then, and this is actually a revival of a production put on in tandem with the symphony concert I reviewed. Apparently nothing of hers that's been recorded is much more recent than that either, so I'll have to wait a bit longer to hear what Deutscher is composing a few years later.