Christopher Dietz composes music inspired by a wide variety of sources, both real and conceptual. Poetry, sound as sculpture and color, how toddlers play, deep time and the cosmos, rhythm as geometry, religion and politics, animal behavior, and the music of others are a few of the subjects that have informed his musical imagination. A similarly diverse approach to the creation of each new piece has resulted in a collection of works distinct in their surface features yet bound together by a common vitality, nuanced palette, and a commitment to engaging with others.
The focus of his MacDowell residency was composing a considerable portion of his three-movement work for the Toledo Symphony, entitled Origin Story. The piece draws imagery from both myth and science to comment on our ancestors as well our role as future ancestors. Origin Story was begun in late 2018 during a residency at the Blue Mountain Center in New York, and is scheduled to premiere under the baton of Alain Trudel in April 2020.
