Last
Last
Year: 2025
Heading: for solo violin and strings
Record Release:
November 21, 2025
Featuring Siwoo Kim, violin, and ECCO (East Coast Chamber Orchestra)
Movements:
1. Last Fall click to view video
2. Last Winter
3. Last Spring
4. Last Summer
5. Last Year
6. Last Month click to view video
7. Last Week
8. Last Night
9. Last Friday click to view video
10. Last Thursday
11. Last Wednesday
12. Last Sunday
Instrumentation: solo violin and string orchestra (3.3.3.3.1) A minimum of 13 strings (plus soloist) is required.
Duration: 47”
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Option: The work may be performed in its entirety or in a selection of movements as desired.
Description: Twelve slow, moody compositions for solo violin and strings, that are almost like 2nd movements of violin concertos.
Press:
Last Fall is serenely elegiac…a nostalgic journey. —Timothy Judd, The Listeners’ Club
The surprising thing for me was how these simple names freed up my mind from the stresses of the day and had me pondering moments from earlier times. Torke plants this seed in such a subtle way with these basic titles, and yet they are a powerful stimulus. —violinist.com
Program note: The Stoics recommend we live in the present: to fret over the past or stress about the future is counterproductive because these lie beyond our control. But I think there are other ways to respond to the past. We can cherish and even mourn what is no longer present. For me, our past populates our present, whether it be last year, last month, last week, or last Sunday. —Michael Torke