Music Monday: Kevin Puts

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Once and a while I’ll hear a piece of orchestral music that makes me stop what I’m doing an just listen. Thankfully I wasn’t operating heavy machinery or performing a surgical operation when I heard this string quartet composition by Kevin Puts.

Kevin Matthew Puts is an American composer, best known for his opera The Hours and for winning a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for his first opera Silent Night and a Grammy Award in 2023 for his concerto Contact.

If you enjoy a bit of dissonance in your modern orchestral music but not too much dissonance because it can become grating to the soul, here’s the first movement of the Grammy winning concerto:

Since I had never heard of Puts before I checked out a few more of his compositions and thought his Marimba Concerto would be a good choice.

I don’t know what is more impressive, writing this piece of the playing of the marimba part. If you want to jump ahead, it gets crazier around 7:50.

-Leon

Leon Stevens is a multi-genre author, composer, guitarist, songwriter, and an artist, with a Bachelor of Music and Education. He published his first book of poetry, Lines by Leon: Poems, Prose, and Pictures in January 2020, followed by a book of original classical guitar compositions, Journeys, and a short story collection of science fiction/post-apocalyptic tales called The Knot at the End of the Rope and Other Short Stories. His newest publications are the novella trilogy, The View from Here, which is a continuation of one of his short stories, a new collection of poetry titled, A Wonder of Words, and his latest sci-fi mystery, Euphrates Vanished.

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Leon Stevens is a multi-genre author, composer, guitarist, songwriter, and an artist, with a Bachelor of Music and Education. He published his first book of poetry, Lines by Leon: Poems, Prose, and Pictures in January 2020, followed by a book of original classical guitar compositions, Journeys, and a short story collection of science fiction/post-apocalyptic tales called The Knot at the End of the Rope and Other Short Stories. His newest publications are the novella trilogy, The View from Here, which is a continuation of one of his short stories, a new collection of poetry titled, A Wonder of Words, and his latest sci-fi mystery, Euphrates Vanished.

My new book page: http://books.linesbyleon.com/

Free books? Sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter and choose one or more!

books.linesbyleon.com/Newslettersignup

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Published on August 18, 2025 04:34
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