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Premiere of the Month: Saad Haddad’s new string orchestra work for the California Symphony

2025-02-21T09:35:00

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Arabic and Western musical techniques merge in a new piece for string orchestra

‘I’ve always wondered what would have happened if Bach had known about Arabic musical techniques. I love playing these experiments in my head,’ says US composer Saad Haddad about his compositional style, including his new string ensemble work Fantasia for Strings for the California Symphony. ‘And I like giving a nod to other composers, so this piece takes inspiration from a passage in Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis,’ he says…

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