This week’s crazy concert calendar has burgers, brews, British acousmatics, and Bach!
UW School of Music and DXARTS Presents Jonty Harrison
Jonty Harrison
In today’s innovative arts scene, you can make music from just about anything. Computers, sound clips, found objects—anything is fair game. But in recent decades British composer Jonty Harrison has been pushing the envelope even further, popularizing the notion that perhaps even the concert hall itself can be an instrument of musical expression.
Harrison is highly regarded as one of the central figures behind the British acousmatic school of composition: a type of electroacoustic music which is specifically composed for presentation using speakers as opposed to live performance. In 1982, he founded BEAST (Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre), a sound diffusion system designed to present electronic music over an orchestra of loudspeakers. And this week, he is turning Seattle’s own Meany Theater into a stunning soundscape by presenting a variety of works from throughout his compositional career.
The performance is this Thursday, April 9 at 7:30 p.m. at the University of Washington’s Meany Theater.
Seattle Modern Orchestra Presents 21st Century Violin
Graeme Jennings
The violin has been one of the central solo instruments of Western music since the Baroque era—and even now, five centuries later, composers are still finding new ways of exploring this vibrant instrument’s vast sonic possibilities. This weekend, Seattle Modern Orchestra will celebrate a colorful palette of 21st century violin music in a special concert featuring Australian violinist Graeme Jennings.
Jennings will perform the world premiere of a piece written for him by Seattle Modern Orchestra co-Artistic Director, Jérémy Jolley. The piece, titled “Controclessidra,” is scored for violin and electric guitar. Next on the program, Jennings will tackle Luciano Berio’s virtuosic “Sequenza VIII” for solo violin, the U.S. premiere of Salvatore Sciarrino’s translucent “Le Stagioni Artificiali,” and finally, Franco Donatoni’s melodic and modal “Spiri.”
The performance is this Saturday, April 11 at the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford. A pre-concert presentation will begin at 7:30 p.m. and the performance will begin at 8 p.m.
Bach, Brews, and Burgers at Naked City Brewery
Early Music Underground
What does Bach have to do with burgers? More than you might think. This weekend, Early Music Underground and Naked City Brewery are teaming up to present “Bach, Brews, and Burgers,” an evening of Baroque music in a not-so-Baroque setting: a local brewery and bar.
The concert setting may be new, but the music is classic—after all, if it’s not Baroque, don’t fix it, right? Feast your ears on the musical works of J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Johann Fasch, and Frantisek Tuma, performed by flautist Joshua Romatowski, violinist Steve Creswell, bassoonist Ron Evans, and harpsichordist Henry Lebedinsky.
Fun fact: C.P.E. Bach was known as “the Hamburg Bach” since he spent 20 years working as music director at the court in Hamburg, Germany (from which the American “hamburger” is derived). His famous “Hamburger Sonata” is on the program (or should we say menu?) for the evening’s performance.
The concert is next Tuesday, April 14 at 7 p.m. at Naked City Brewery in Greenwood.
For more concert listings, check out Second Inversion’s event calendar.