According to composer Hans Otte, "The Book of Sounds” “rediscovers the listener as a partner of sound and silence, who in the quest for his world, wishes for once to be totally at one with sound.”
Performed here by Conrad Tao, Frederick Rzewski’s "Which Side Are You On?" takes a 1930s protest song by Florence Reece, the wife of a union organizer in the Kentucky coal mines, and explodes it into a gripping, kaleidoscopic set of variations.
George Walker composed his first String Quartet a year after the death of his beloved grandmother — a remarkable woman who had escaped from slavery. Ashley Horne (violin), Claire Chan (violin), Amadi Azikiwe (viola) and Wayne Smith (cello) perform.
With works by Marcos Balter, Natasha Trethewey, Paola Prestini and Yuan-Chen Li, this is a program about memory — about how memories can give us hope in moments of despair, and a sense of place in times of uncertainty, while simultaneously haunting us.
Bach’s unaccompanied sonatas and partitas for the violin are the emotional and technical summit of solo violin music. Sonata No. 2 contains the full spectrum of human experience in four strings — anguish, fury, quiet hope and virtuosity.
Simone Dinnerstein performs Philip Glass' Etude No. 16 and François Couperin's "Les Barricades Mystérieuses."
With music by Osvaldo Golijov and Beethoven, this is a program about healing — about how we can find joy after experiencing hopelessness, how we can regain strength after withering in weakness and how we can feel wonder after witnessing horror.