2018

Event Description

Picosa returns to North Central College for its fourth season as Ensemble-in-Residence for the Sounds of New Music Festival.  Our program presents a complex musical meal of small plate delights!  The evening opens with Augusta Read Thomas’ Scat for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano.  Scat is a signature piece for Picosa and is an instrumental version of the popular vocal jazz idiom of the same name.  We are delighted to have premiered the current version of Scat in 2015, which includes clarinet rather than the original viola.  Now published by G. Schirmer, this current version is noted as the composer’s preferred version.  Kajia Saariaho’s Cendres for flute, cello, and piano is a stark and haunting contrast to Thomas’ vibrant Scat.  Three local composers are featured in this program, Elmhurst College’s David DeVasto, University of Illinois-Chicago’s Marc Mellits, and North Central College’s Jonathon Kirk.  Picosa will premiere DeVasto’s Chasing the Wind for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano as the Guest Resident ensemble at Elmhurst College and will perform Kirk’s Crossing Field as the Ensemble in Residence for the Sounds of New Music Festival.  Of particular note is the graphic score (music notated in symbols and images rather than notes) to Crossing Field which audiences are welcome to see after the concert. The first half will close with Paul Schoenfield’s Charleston from the Sonatina for flute, clarinet, and piano.

The second half of the concert begins with Florent Ghys’ Etude for 11 Faces, an innovative new work that uses the visual images not only in the performance of the piece, but in the structure and creation of it as well.  Mario Davidovsky’s Synchronisms No. 12 is part of a series of Synchronisms by the composerwhich are monumental works that ushered in current genre of electronic contemporary music.  The Mellits’ Spam for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano a whimsical, well-crafted work originally composed for Grammy-winning contemporary music ensemble Eighth Blackbird.

 

Program

Augusta Read Thomas | Scat (flute/clar/violin/cello/piano)
Kaija Saariaho | Cendres (flute/cello/piano)
David DeVasto | Chasing the Wind  (flute/clarinet/violin/cello/piano) * World Premiere
Jonathon Kirk | Crossing Field (flute/cello/electronics)
Paul Schoenfield | Sonatina (flute/clarinet/piano)
pause
Florent Ghys | Etudes on 11 Faces (violin/cello/piano/electronics)
Mario Davidovsky | Synchronisms No. 12  (clarinet/electronics)
Marc Mellits | Spam  (flute/clarinet/violin/cello/piano)

 

Picosa Artists

Jennie Oh Brown | flute
Andrea R. DiOrio | clarinet
Elizabeth Brausa Brathwaite | violin
Patti Garvey | cello
Kuang-Hao Huang | piano
Jonathon Kirk | Composer-in-Residence

171 East Chicago Avenue
Naperville, IL 60540
United States
(630) 637-7469