This is a great week for Maine composers. Contemporary local classical art music buffs, brace yourself for three straight shows premiering 21st-century compositions by different composers. A gallery of sound is upon us.
On Friday, the G-Sharp Duo featuring violinist Emilie-Anne Gendron and pianist Yelena Grinberg (who by the way, won first prize in the 2006 International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition) will perform the Maine premiere of Moon Petals (2005) by Hiroya Miura, Bates College professor and orchestral director. Composed specifically for the G-Sharp Duo, Moon Petals is dedicated to the late composer and music theorist, Jonathan Kramer, who tutored Miura at Columbia University (where the piece was first premiered).
Kramer’s exploration of surrealism in music later in life, and creating music with its own commentary, influenced Miura. “Moon Petals plays with a fluid structure with motivic associations, which is rather close to the surrealistic dream logic,” he explains. “It was inspired by the paintings of Belgian surrealist Paul Delveaux. . . . I was fondly recalling my exchange with Jonathan during our composition lessons at Columbia.”
The G-Sharp Duo’s Lewiston performance on Friday is the only one, so don’t miss it. They will also play Schubert, Beethoven, and Schumann. The DaPonte String Quartet perform that night (in Newcastle), but you can catch them in Portland on Saturday, and Brunswick on Sunday. Enter Gia Comolli.
The DSQ delivers the world premiere of Comolli’s Quintet for Harp and String Quartet (2006) this weekend, a four-movement piece written for harpist Jara Goodrich, who gave Comolli guidance in composing for harp. “They’re all string instruments, but the harp can sustain longer . . . I had fortissimo sections, and Jara told me ‘beware of being too loud, especially in the lower register’ and that the high notes don’t sound as well.”
The first movement, titled “Chimes,” stems from ideas Comolli saved listening to wind chimes on her front porch. “Ritmico” has asymmetrical five-beat rhythms, and explores using rests with the harp. “Maestoso” leads right into “Circus,” a piece inspired from an article about a sick elephant. “You can hear them [elephants] coming in right at the beginning.” She hopes to incorporate “Circus” into a larger work, yet to be composed, also to be titled Circus — drawing conceptual inspiration from Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
On the creative process of composing, Comolli notes “it’s different every time. I’m always saving ideas.” The DSQ also perform Mendelssohn, Debussy, and Beethoven.
Another world premiere is happening on Saturday, can be caught on Sunday instead, if you’ve reserved that night for Comolli’s Quintet.
Minnesota composer Elizabeth Alexander’s series of songs, They Have Freckles Everywhere: Seven Pieces of Me (2007), will be premiered by Women in Harmony, joined by the Hall School Chorus directed by Jayne Sawtelle, Saturday and Sunday at the Williston West Church in Portland. It is the first work commissioned by WIH, and the songs are set to poems about body parts, by Many Rivers students from Hall Elementary School. The students visited “The Body Eclectic” exhibition at the Maine College of Art a year ago, and took photographs and wrote poems about parts such as the mouth, hair and eyes. Many Rivers teacher and WIH singer Rita Rubin-Long shared the poems with her chorus, and the collaboration was born. Alexander, who visited Hall School in April to meet the poets and describe the creative process, is flying in again for the premieres at both shows.
