THIS EVENING! (May 9) 7:30 PM - in the Music Center Recital Hall, Amy Beal and I are thrilled to launch the first performance of The ABC Ensemble. And we’re joined by the ensemble This Never Happened, led by acclaimed Mexican composer and UCSC doctoral student Rodrigo Barriga.
The ABC Ensemble is dedicated to piano music and non-piano music, open scores and open questions, expanded ideas of play and performance, and collaboration with risk-taking artists. This is the group’s first concert — and for the show Amy and I will play music for two pianos by legendary experimentalists Robert Ashley and David Mahler. We are also joined by the aforementioned Rodrigo Barriga, along with Marc Perez and Shanna Sordahl, to present music that we’ve commissioned from them — music that turns on a dime from lyricism to noisy play to experiments in what a performance should be, or could be, at its “first principles.” Music for two pianos, four pianos, and finally for five concert grand pianos — including two Bösendorfer’s donated by alumnus Ken Corday, the department’s two beloved Steinway grands, Hansel and Gretel, and one very large Bösendorfer that boasts an extra “sixth” of bass, totalling 96 keys.
This Never Happened is a newly formed ensemble and collective focused on the performance of open and indeterminate works, of which every new realization will necessarily be different from the previous one. For this performance, the ensemble is made up of Lydia Barrett, Rodrigo Barriga, Kevin Corcoran, Chris Everingham, Joseph Finkel, Lukáš Janata, Sean Keenan, Marc Perez, and Shanna Sordahl.
3:00 PM TODAY (Sunday) - Music Center Recital Hall
Pianist Keisuke Nakagoshi is one of San Francisco's truly great soloists, playing across the piano's wide repertoire with sensitivity and imagination. Today at 3 pm in the Music Center RH, he offers us a unique concert of 21st-century piano music, including a new interpretation of my own work Respiration, Memory, Addiction, and music by five other composers from Japan and the United States.
Études, by Samuel Adams (son of acclaimed composer John Adams) a reflection on the traditional idea of an etude, that lengthens the form, almost paradoxically, from a "study" or technical sketch, to a broad reflection. My doctoral student Ben Dorfan has composed a beautiful, energetic piece of rhythmically driven segments — whose guiding principle, in his own words, is a reflection on change that "happens both gradually and all at once", keeping our experiences "poised between stability and drift." Karen Tanaka's work, a "joyful dance", similarly reflects on the character of water in motion over a fixed space, both ever-renewing as it flows but constantly the same. Petrichor, a work by ‘Latin Grammy’-nominated pianist Sam Reider, has, in turn, a kinship with Tanaka in its reflection on our experience of "the fresh smell of the earth after a first rain"; like Dorfan's and Adams' experiments in form, Reider's work is "built around a simple rhythmic motif", in this case inspired by West African balafon music. About her work "The Kingfisher's Hour", Atsushi Yamanaka writes:
"On the path home from elementary school, there was a riverbank beyond the verdant woods, and perched upon the branch was a Kingfisher. I gently gazed at its emerald green plumes with a hushed breath, and its beauty seared into my mind as a vivid memory."
My own work—Respiration, Memory, Addiction—is a reflection on trauma and depression, specifically extending from my own experience of addiction to opioids. For this work I have written a reflection — a kind of listener's guide, even including a few listening excerpts — which I'll be grateful to hear from you about, if it strikes you in any particular way.
I hope to see you there!
This year's April in Santa Cruz Festival of Creative Music brings you seven new experiences of music, sound, and the world in which it emerges ... and it starts today! (Wednesday April 15, 6:00 PM) ... with pioneering Brazilian rapper Edd Wheeler, and closes more than a month later, (Thursday May 21, 7:30 PM) with Stanford guzheng master Hui You, and virtuosos of Persian music within our own community, in concert with San Francisco's Del Sol Quartet.
FIND OUT MORE AT -
http://aprilsc.ucsc.edu
Join us for “Questions That Matter” with The Humanities Institute — tonight at Kuumbwa Jazz Center:
Linguist Pranav Anand will interview me with my dear collaborators Camilla Hawthorne and Perre DiCarlo, about The Trial of Spock—An Opera-in-Progress. And we’ll play some lovely clips from last weekend’s workshop.
"Chris— you know why I've come. My plan is set. I've never disobeyed you before, but this time I must. The time for this journey is now."
—Lieutenant Spock to Captain Pike
Trial of Spock: Act I, Scene 3
Up next, away from the lovely Italian village in the 20th Century to outer space in the 23rd Century! This coming Sunday I will be a part of a workshop on an opera @ucscmusic . I'm excited to be singing Spock in the workshop of the new opera The Trial of Spock composed by @benleedscarson . I am looking forward to taking a break from Verismo Opera to sing some new work alongside some talented singers, familiar and new! If you are a sci-fi and new music fan please come check it out on March 8th at 4 pm!
Reservation link below
/e/the-trial-of-spock-an-opera-workshop-sunday-march-8-tickets-1982311622425?aff=oddtdtcreator
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#operasinger #new opera #Spock #fyp
Spock abducts his former captain Chris Pike, hijacks the U.S.S. Enterprise and takes its crew captive on a journey to the forbidden planet Talos IV.
While the crew races against time to reverse course, Spock, on trial for mutiny, presents hyperreal evidence about the sole survivor of a crashed vessel, Vina—who years ago Pike risked everything in an attempt to rescue. Or perhaps it was Vina, wielding illusion and fantasies and the support of powerful friends, attempting to rescue Pike?
In The Trial of Spock, we learn why Spock risks career and the lives of his colleagues to make this untenable journey, buying time for Vina to plead with the Federation’s judges to let her virtual life offer Pike release from a heartbreaking existence.
A free public recording of five scenes at UC Santa Cruz Music Center. Supported by The Humanities Institute @ucscthi & UCSC Arts Division @ucsc_arts_division Composed by @benleedscarson Featuring @delsolquartet@nic_the_tenor@nicolegabriellekoh@kuokuosan@joseph.calzada.official@emilysoprano23@awboyer126@skwh@camillahawth March 8 @ 4PM #startrek #opera #startrekopera #trialofspock
