Frozen in Time is a three movement concerto for solo percussion and orchestra by Israeli-American composer Avner Dorman.
The work was commissioned by the Socrates Stiftung Karin Rehn-Kaufmann with support from the Hamburg Philharmonic and the Israeli Consulate in Berlin.
The piece was completed in 2007 and received its world premiere in December 2007 by Martin Grubinger and the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg conducted by Simone Young.
Rhein continued: A 25-minute percussion concerto written for Wednesday's soloist, the young Austrian percussion whizbang, Martin Grubinger (who premiered it in Hamburg in 2007), its three movements purport to be "imaginary snapshots" of the primordial land masses that supposedly broke off from the continent of Pangaea – "Indoafrica," "Eurasia" and "The Americas" are the movement titles.
The listener requires no such programmatic crutch to appreciate what this colorful, high-energy showpiece is about: two furious fast movements surrounding a slow, lyrical movement, moshing together grunge rock, Afro-Cuban jazz, ethnic, swing, blues and other popular musical impulses in a way that appears perfectly natural rather than simple-minded pastiche.