Photos: Jeremy Gill's FOUR LEGENDS FROM THE SILMARILLION Arrives on BMOP/sound

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), led by conductor Gil Rose, announced the release of Jeremy Gill: Four Legends from the Silmarillion, a sweeping one-hour cycle of four symphonic tone poems by American composer Jeremy Gill. Rather than setting themes from the more well known The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, Gill draws his inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkien's posthumously published The Silmarillion.

Commissioned (three of the four works) and premiered in 2025 by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Four Legends from the Silmarillion captures a world of mythological legends by portraying Tolkien's vast, dark and folkloric 'pre-Hobbit' storytelling of middle earth. Gill musically depicts the drama and most famous characters in Tolkien's epic creation myth, where there lies a labyrinth of history, society, and power. According to Gill, the piece sojourns, 'in the vehicle of the symphonic tone poem, through a sprawling epic that spans from the unseen deeps of the ocean to the uttermost rim of the world, from the ultimate future to the place among the stars…before the Earth was created.'

This marks the second BMOP/sound recording by Jeremy Gill. Jeremy Gill: Before the Wresting Tides (#1055) released in 2017 was hailed by Gramophone as 'superb…the recording first-rate…a very warmly recommendable disc.'

Jeremy Gill: Four Legends from the Silmarillion is set for CD and digital release on 10.25.26 as BMOP/sound #1111.

About Jeremy Gill

Jeremy Gill's music is celebrated for its emotional breadth and diversity of expression. His vocal music ranges from 'vibrant settings' (Gramophone) of texts by Blaise Pascal, Italo Calvino, Anne Carson, Ann Patchett, and Georg Trakl to 'vividly colored' (The New York Times) dramatic reworkings of Ancient Greek texts through modern authors like Don Nigro and Michael Zand. His orchestral music is 'replete with imaginative textures' (The Dallas Morning News) and includes concertos, tone poems, and symphonies. His chamber music possesses a 'trance-like intensity' (The Boston Musical Intelligencer); it is 'fresh and clever,' 'a compositional tour-de-force' (American Record Guide) that reveals 'a rapidly shifting exploration of past, present, and future' (I Care If You Listen). The 2026–27 season features the world premieres of Ida by Lamplight, a chamber opera commissioned by Chautauqua Opera, setting a libretto by Jerre Dye; Soft as the massacre of Suns, an oboe concerto for Erin Hannigan, commissioned by the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University; and 11 Fantasies on a Phrygian Chorale, commissioned by the New York Classical Players.

About BMOP

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is the premier orchestra in the United States dedicated exclusively to commissioning, performing, and recording music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. A unique institution of crucial artistic importance to today's musical world, BMOP exists to disseminate exceptional orchestral music of the present and recent past via performances and recordings of the highest caliber. Founded by Artistic Director Gil Rose in 1996, GRAMMY Award-winning BMOP has championed the works of composers whose careers span nine decades. Each season, Rose brings BMOP's award-winning orchestra, renowned soloists, and influential composers to the stage of New England Conservatory's historic Jordan Hall in a series that offers orchestral programming of unrivaled eclecticism. Musical America's 2016 Ensemble of the Year, BMOP was awarded the 2021 Special Achievement Award from Gramophone Magazine as 'an organization that has championed American music of the 20th and 21st century with passion and panache.' The musicians of BMOP are consistently lauded for the energy, imagination, and passion with which they infuse the music of the present era.

About BMOP/sound

BMOP/sound, BMOP's independent record label, was created in 2008 to provide a platform for BMOP's extensive archive of music, as well as to provide widespread, top-quality, permanent access to both classics of the 20th century and the music of today's most innovative composers. BMOP/sound has garnered praise from the national and international press. It is the recipient of a 2020 GRAMMY Award for Tobias Picker: Fantastic Mr. Fox as well as nine GRAMMY nominations, and its releases have appeared on the year-end 'Best of' lists of The New York Times, The Boston Globe, National Public Radio, American Record Guide, DownBeat, WBUR, NewMusicBox, and others. Admired, praised, and sought after by artists, presenters, critics, and audiophiles, BMOP and BMOP/sound are uniquely positioned to redefine the new music concert and recording experience. Launched in 2019, BMOP's digital radio station, BMOP/radio, streams BMOP/sound's entire catalog and airs special programming.