Date/Time
Date(s) - 3 Mar 2012
8:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Location
Mt. Tamalpais Methodist Church
Songs With(out) Words: Is there there there?
John Muehleisen … is knowing … (settings of Gertrude Stein texts) *
Robin Estrada Paghahandog #
Reena Esmail The White Key ^
David Conte The Homecoming
Huang Ruo Without Words
A visit to “The Steins Collect” at SF-MOMA last summer inspired Seattle composer John Muehleisen to write “…is knowing…” for us, setting four poems by Gertrude Stein and anchoring this program in which we explore the border between the poetry of words and pure musical sounds.
Robin Estrada’s Paghahandog explodes in kaleidoscopic vocalizations barely recognizable as a short Tagalog text of joyful dedication. An audience favorite at its 2010 premiere, we bring it back by popular demand and to be recorded for our next CD.
We are proud to present the West Coast premiere of young Indian-American composer Reena Esmail’s somber and moving White Key, in which she sets Carol Muske-Dukes’ poem written on the occasion of the sudden death of her husband, San Francisco-born character actor David Dukes.
John Stirling Walker’s memorial for Martin Luther King, Jr. inspired San Franciscan David Conte to write The Homecoming for the 40th anniversary of King’s death. Calling it “impassioned and thought-provoking” in his San Francisco Classical Voice review of Chanticleer’s 2008 premiere of the piece, Jason Serinus wrote that “Both poem and music have so much going for them that the work demands repeated hearings.”
In Without Words, Huang Ruo, cited by The New Yorker as “one of the most intriguing of the new crop of Asian-American composers,” paints the minimal text of Li Yü (the last emperor of the Tang dynasty) with delicate brushstrokes.
* Volti commission, World Premiere
# Volti commission, encore performance
^ West Coast Premiere