January 22, 8:00 pm
January 23, 6:00 pm
First Pres Santa Monica
Elliott Carter
Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello & Harpsichord (1952)
Sophia Gubaidulina
Light and Darkness (1976) 80th Year
Joan Tower
Night Fields (1994)
Alfred Schnittke
Sound and Resound (1983)
David Lang
The Little Match Girl Passion (2007) WEST
COAST PREMIERE
Lyris Quartet
Mark Alan Hilt, organ
Steve Suminski, trombone
Pamela Vliek-Martchev, flute
Leslie Reed, oboe
Timothy Loo, cello
Gloria Cheng, harpsichord
Elissa Johnston, soprano
Adriana Manfredi, mezzo-soprano
Grant Gershon, tenor
Cedric Berry, bass baritone
Texts: H. P. Paulli, Picander; Gospel according to Saint Matthew, Hans Christian Andersen: "Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening -- the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded, and with naked feet..."
The most highly anticipated music of the season, David Lang's deeply
moving passion, swept the Pulitzer Prize committee in 2008, and its
first recording won a Grammy® in 2009. "The Little Match
Girl Passion" receives its West Coast Premiere in the original
quartet version, with music that strikes a perilous balance of hope
and suffering, darkness and light, tension and release. This riveting
program brings together a pair of eloquent Russian composers and
a trio of searching American composers in music written between 1952
and 2007.
Lyris Quartet is making its Jacaranda debut with music
by Joan Tower, America's leading woman composer. The Grammy-winning
pianist Gloria Cheng will play modern harpsichord in a work by Elliott
Carter, America's oldest living composer at 102! The organ will be
heard with trombone in a haunting duet by Alfred Schnittke. Another
organ work celebrates the 80th birthday of Russia's leading woman
composer. The four singers in "The Little Match Girl Passion" also
play percussion — glockenspiel, chimes, sleigh bells and bass
drum! |
