One week, two cities, three concerts, four premieres -- 2006 is shaping up to be a busy year for award-winning composer Pierre Jalbert.

Pierre Jalbert

In the span of less than a week, the associate professor of composition and theory at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music will have four works premiere at performances in Chicago and New York City, including one at famed Carnegie Hall.

The burst of new music begins Jan. 20 with Chicago's Music in the Loft premiering "Diesis" for solo harp, performed by award-winning harpist and Shepherd School alumna Nuiko Wadden.

On Jan. 22, the Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music will premiere two commissioned works, "Icefield Sonnets" and "Four Porter Songs," at a concert that will also include selected movements from Jalbert's "Sonata for Marimba."

Finally, on Jan. 24 the Houston Symphony will give the New York premiere of "big sky" as it celebrates its first appearance at Carnegie Hall in eight years.

Jalbert wrote the new music during the past year, drawing on nature for the Houston Symphony composition, which makes its Texas debut Jan. 13-15 in Houston, and on poetry for the two Brooklyn Friends pieces.

"Icefield Sonnets" is based on works by of poet Anthony Hawley and offers a musical manifestation of the frosty elements of winter.

"Each poem speaks of the notion of 'North,' specifically in the winter months," Jalbert said. "It was my aim to capture some of the different moments of 'coldness,' from quiet stillness to more violent activity," which the former Vermonter does in three movements.

Winter and poetry also factor -- albeit bittersweetly -- in the story behind Jalbert's "Four Porter Songs."

The music was commissioned as a tribute to Christina Porter, a 21-year-old college student and aspiring poet who died Jan. 16, 2005, almost one year after sustaining a devastating head injury in a ski accident.

The work sets to music four of Christina's poems, "3 (three hee hee)," "The Song of Silverware," "Guitar Summer" and "Sketch of an Opera Singer Sleeping," and ranges from wry and humorous to more serious and elegant.

For the Houston Symphony's 11-minute concert opener, Jalbert wanted to create something that would represent the Southwest, Texas and Houston.

"I immediately thought of the grandness of the sky in this area of the country," Jalbert said. "Somehow, it always seems bigger, more vast, more infinite, whether it be in Houston or at places like Big Bend National Park or other parks in the western U.S. This became the inspiration for the piece -- not to paint a picture with music, but to capture the psychological state of being in such a place."

In "big sky," he conveys "grandness" using the orchestra as a whole, presenting large tutti gestures dominated by the brass and percussion, and then using slow, lyrical solo instrumental passages "as lone voices in a vast infiniteness."

This concert will mark the third time Carnegie Hall audiences have heard Jalbert's compositions, which have been performed throughout the U.S. and abroad.

In October 2001, the London Symphony Orchestra performed his "In Aeternam" at the Barbican Centre in London as part of the BBC's Masterprize Competition, in which he received first prize. He has also been commissioned and performed by violinist Midori, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Albany Symphony, the Vermont Symphony, the Fort Worth Symphony, the Santa Rosa Symphony, the Fischer Duo, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Zeitgeist, Network for New Music and the Maia String Quartet, among others.

He has received numerous awards for his compositions, including the Rome Prize, the BBC Masterprize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, BMI and ASCAP awards, a Society of Composer's Award and the Bearns Prize in Composition. His music is published by Theodore Presser Company.

From 2002-2005, Jalbert served as composer-in-residence with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and he served as composer-in-residence with the California Symphony from 1999-2002.

His current projects include a new orchestral work, commissioned through Meet the Composer's Magnum Opus Project, for three California orchestras and to be performed over the next three seasons (2006-2009).