IMPROVISATION by us, here and now

This is a very special occasion for us. Performing in New Orleans for the first time is an overwhelming experience filled with excitement, exuberant joy, provocation and incredibly stimulating. We want to pay tribute to you for being here and to this occasion by pour ourselves through our instruments in a complete improvisation.

 

LIMESTONE AND FELT by Caroline Shaw

Limestone & Felt presents two kinds of surfaces – essentially hard and soft. These are materials that can suggest place (a cathedral apse, or the inside of a wool hat), stature, function, and – for me – sound (reverberant or muted). In limestone & felt, the hocketing pizzicato and pealing motivic canons are part of a whimsical, mystical, generous world of sounds echoing and colliding in the imagined eaves of a gothic chapel. These are contrasted with the delicate, meticulous, and almost reverent placing of chords that, to our ears today, sound ancient and precious, like an antique jewel box. Ultimately, felt and limestone may represent two opposing ways we experience history and design our own present.

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DÉDICASES  by Kjell Markussen

 “Throughout the years I have been composing smaller pieces as gifts for special occasions: weddings, baptism, anniversary....
They are dedicated to my friends, hence the title.  The pieces are just meant to be beautiful music as to show my deepest appreciation for my dearest friends and family”

 

AVAILABLE STOPS by Igor Santos. 

available stops is a work that takes art of organ registrations—with all of its possibility for timbre variation—as a point of departure. This is heard in the constant change of color for the hocketing unison notes and figurations, as well as an extended “mixture" stops section, with its constant parallel motion voicing and orchestration. Finally the “organ" reference is almost literal in that I use performer vocalization as another kind of registration/color palette—a technique explored in much of my recent work. The music is written, with admiration, for the Quijote Duo, premiered at the 2021 EarTaxi Festival in Chicago.

 

CRIMSONEANDO by Sixto Franco.

A short piece inspired by the opening track of the Beat album by King Crimson.  This track is defined by its polyrhythms. Crimsoning starts with a 5/8 gesture that serves as the accompaniment for a melody that varies between 7/8, 6/8 and 4/8.

 

SCHERZINO by Ricardo Lamote de Grignon.

Ricardo L. G. is well known for his works on the traditional Catalan music genre called Cobla. He focused his compositional efforts to develop an independent style that drifts away from the reigning postmodernism and it is closer to expressionism. His Scherzino for viola and piano is a playful work displaying neoclassicism mannerisms with folkloric tints.

 

NANA from Seven Popular Songs by Manuel de Falla.

Musical Paris was bubbling with things Spanish at the time Falla arrived. Debussy was composing Ibéria, Ravel was working on Rapsodie espagnole and L’heure espagnole, and Falla’s compatriot Albéniz had just completed the fourth book of his Iberia for piano.

Using a combination of authentic and “retouched” folk melodies, Falla succeeded in elevating what were simple, popular tunes to a higher artistic level by crafting truly integrated and original piano accompaniments, bringing to life the infectious melodies and rhythms inherent in the folk songs.

Nana is a brief Andalusian lullaby, which uses oriental modal inflections, placing it somewhere between E major and E minor.

 

CALLE 92  by Astor Piazzolla.

The Argentinian composer who revolutionized tango spent part of his life in New York in different occasions. In this tango, Piazzolla tries to reflect his experience living on the 92nd street.

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AMERICAN HAIKU by Paul Wiancko

Growing up in California, Paul Wiancko’s Japanese American heritage became increasingly important to him as he grew both as a man and musician. Wiancko was enchanted with Appalachian music as well as Japanese folk music. His American Haiku is an attempt to reconcile these different esthetics. It offers it’s listener an elegant rapprochement of two cultures all the while delving into the emotional depths of the three-part Haiku in its three movements: I. Far away, II. In Transit, III. Home. Each movement brings with it percussive rhythms coupled with rich, spacious chords recalling vast, rugged mountain ranges. The blending of viola and cello also play a crucial role in the composition’s harmoniousness, with the instruments overlapping in range and texture. In many ways, American Haiku is a treatise on the life of Wiancko and his journey into his own roots, showing that the universal language of music is perhaps the clearest way to translate the depths of Haiku.