Wednesday, May 2, 2012 | 7:00 pm
Chapel of the Holy Innocents | Bard College
Free and open to the public
The final main-stage event of our third season at Bard College features the typical music of our lives: this is the unforgettable music of the beauty that always surrounds us. Come join us for this cathartic finale to an incredible season!
The night opens with the world premiere of Yotam Haber's in memoriam: Last Skin, a vibrant and pulsing work for eight re-tuned violins. With a set of quarter-tone tunings that push to the very edges of string playing, this piece forges a breathtaking sound world that will come into being for the first time in this performance.
A winner of the Contemporaneous 2011 Call for Scores, Brooklyn composer Ted Hearne's Cordavi and Fig is a fast-paced, jagged, and driving work for chamber orchestra, including a player who makes sounds exclusively on the inside of the piano.
The second world premiere of the evening, composer and sound designer Mark Van Hare's new piece, Bard_11_28, is intricately fabricated from improvisations of the players themselves. Spacious and intense, the spontaneity of the performers becomes the material with which this incredible and innovative work is crafted.
Contemporaneous member Tamzin Ferré Elliott's string quintet Heart on Her Sleeve is an intimate and poetic work whose title takes inspiration from the dance of Silvie Guillem. At times resonant and solemn, at times beautiful and violent, Heart on Her Sleeve carries and suspends the listener in a breathless state of wonder.
Finally, Evan Ziporyn's Typical Music is a far-reaching and heart-pounding adventure through Balinese Gamelan, blues, and the virtuosic finger-flying musicianship of the piano trio. A deeply satisfying and exuberant journey, Typical Music is bursting with joy, a piece unhindered by the boundaries of genre. This is music that is "all in."
Program:
Yotam Haber (b. 1976): in memoriam: Last Skin (2011) ††
Ted Hearne (b. 1982): Cordavi and Fig (2007) — winner, Contemporaneous 2011 Call for Scores
Mark Van Hare (b. 1987): Bard_11_28 (2011) — Contemporaneous commission ††
Tamzin Ferré Elliott (b. 1992): Heart on Her Sleeve: a piece on the lines of Silvie Guillem (2011/2012)
— Intermission —
Evan Ziporyn (b. 1959): Typical Music (2000)