ABOUT JACARANDA

In 2015 he made a performance edition of Alfred Schnittke’s Septet, originally premiered at the 1982 Memorial for Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow. Concertos included Lou Harrison’s Suite for Violin and Strings, Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa, Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp, Britten’s Young Apollo, Paul Hindemith’s Kammermusic, and Messiaen’s La Ville d’en Haut, an LA premiere with pianist Gloria Cheng. Hilt conducted music for vocal and/or chorus with chamber orchestra including songs by Charles Ives, Samuel Barber’s Knoxville Summer of 1915, Stravinsky’s Mass, Franz Liszt’s Via Crucis, Takemitsu’s Signals from Heaven, Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate, Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb, Alberto Ginastera’s Cantata para America Magica (with Lucy Shelton), Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel, and Eric Zeisl’s Hebrew Requiem. About a rare performance of Schubert’s Song of the Spirits Over the Waters, LA Opus wrote, “Hilt and his committed voices and strings gave it there all in a riveting performance…one that explored every tortured byway to its final relieving cadence.”

Symphonically, Hilt has conducted Carlos Chavez’s Sinfonia India, Franz Schreker’s Chamber Symphony, Adagio from the Tenth Symphony by Mahler arranged for the Kremerata Baltica, and “Demeurer dans l’Amour,” the string orchestra movement from Messiaen’s last major work Eclairs sur l'Au De-la..., another LA premiere. Additionally, he conducted the ballet suite Estancia by Ginastera, and Charles Ives’ Unanswered Question. Of particular note were his stunning performances at Barnum Hall of Et Expecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum for winds and percussion by Messiaen, and, at First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica, performances of Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony, and Requiem für Eine Polka by Henryk Górecki.

Since 2008, Hilt has been director of the Harvard-Westlake Upper School orchestra program comprised of a symphony orchestra, string ensemble, percussion group, and chamber music. To raise the capacity of the orchestra, he commissioned new works by David Lefkowitz, Joan Huang, Gernot Wolfgang, and Adrienne Albert. Hilt is music director and organist of the First Presbyterian Church. His tenure began with directing a Bach 2000 mini-festival. Bach, Messiaen, Cage, Sofia Gubaidulina, Pärt, and Philip Glass are prominent in his mostly 20th century organ repertoire. Beginning as a self-taught teenager in Kansas, with studies at Wichita State and Southern University of Illinois, Hilt gained extensive experience as a keyboardist, choral director, accompanist, vocal coach, and opera conductor.