A home for new and unusual music from all corners of the classical genre, brought to you by the power of public media. Second Inversion is a service of Classical KING FM 98.1.
Last December A Cello Conspiracy brought Joshua Roman together with four of his superstar cello friends for a one-night-only, sold-out cello performance. Presented as part of Town Music’s 10th Anniversary season, the concert featured Roman performing alongside an extraordinary cast of four Seattle Symphony cellists: Efe Baltacıgil, Nathan Chan, Meeka Quan DiLorenzo, and Eric Han.
This Tuesday, Feb. 20 at 7:30pm PST, we’re letting you in on the cello conspiracy with a concert broadcast of last December’s sold-out performance.Click here to tune in and stream the full cello performance from anywhere in the world!
Join us for an evening showcasing Seattle’s best cellists as they lend their bows to the vast expanse of cello repertoire: the classic,the contemporary, and the cleverly reimagined. From Rossini and Paganini to Reena Esmail and Christopher Cerrone, this program celebrates the cello’s full range of possibility.
Program:
Mozart: Overture from Marriage of Figaro (arr. Moore) Wagner:Overture from Tannhäuser Mozart: Sonata Christopher Cerrone: On Being Wrong Richard Strauss: “Beim Schlafengehen” from Four Last Songs Reena Esmail:Munni Badnam Anthony DiLorenzo: Kaleidoscope Paganini: “Moses” Variations for two cellos (arr. Demenga)
INTERMISSION
Josquin:Untitled (arr. Jacot) Anne Wilson:Lament Purcell:Fantasia Upon One Note (arr. Moore) Edward Elgar: “Nimrod” from Enigma Variations Rossini:Overture from Barber of Seville Led Zeppelin: “Stairway to Heaven”
Town Music’s 10th Anniversary Season continues this spring with a performance by Roomful of Teeth on Friday, March 9 and a performance by Joshua Roman with the JACK Quartet on Thursday, May 10. For tickets and information, please click here.
Tune in to Classical KING FM 98.1tonight (Friday, Feb. 9) at 8pm PST for an in-studio performance of the Sound Ensemble on NW Focus LIVE.Click hereto stream the performance online from anywhere in the world.
Founded and directed by conductor Bobby Collins and tuba player Jameson Bratcher,the Sound Ensembleis a new music collective dedicated to defying traditional concert hall expectations. With a flexible lineup of winds, brass, strings, piano, and wide-ranging percussion, the ensemble crafts performances that are at once thought-provoking and accessible for contemporary classical newcomers and seasoned new music enthusiasts alike.
For tonight’s program, they’ll perform Schoenberg’s immortal Transfigured Night alongside selections from a new world premiere by composer Kevin Clark. The piece, titled Eleanor and Hildegard, was inspired by two historic women from the Middle Ages: one of the greatest patrons of music, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and one of the greatest composers, Hildegard von Bingen.
Tonight’s NW Focus LIVE performance serves as a preview for the Sound Ensemble’s upcoming concert, A Life Transformed, which takes place this Saturday, Feb. 10 at 7pm at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford.Click herefor tickets and additional information.
Second Inversion presents a LIVE broadcast of Third Coast Percussion performing their original score for Paddle to the Sea, streaming worldwide this Thursday, Jan. 25 at 8pm PST. Click here to tune in.
A small wooden figure in a canoe is the protagonist of Holling C. Holling’s 1941 children’s book, Paddle to the Sea. Later adapted into an Oscar-nominated film, the story follows the epic journey of a small wooden boat that was carved and launched by a young Native Canadian boy.
“I am Paddle to the Sea” he inscribes on the bottom of the boat. “Please put me back in the water.”
Over the course of the film, the boat travels for many years from Northern Ontario through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway out to the Atlantic Ocean and far beyond—and each time it washes ashore, a kind stranger places it back in the water.
This Thursday Third Coast Percussion performs their own original live score for Paddle to the Sea alongside a screening of the film at Meany Center for the Performing Arts. The music will be released as an album on Feb. 9—but you can get an exclusive first listen during Second Inversion’s LIVE broadcast of the performance this Thursday, Jan. 25 at 8pm PST. (Streaming worldwide! Click here to tune in.)
Third Coast’s film score is inspired by and interspersed with music by Philip Glass and Jacob Druckman, along with traditional music of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. All of the music in the score is inspired by water, with Third Coast performing an entire ocean of sounds ranging from pitched desk bells to skittering wood blocks, ceramic tiles, bowls of water, and one particularly special instrument: the mbira.
The mbira is a thumb piano that plays a leading role in the Shona music from Zimbabwe. In fact, one of the pieces on the album, Chigwaya, is a traditional song used to call water spirits in the Shona religion—a song which was taught to Third Coast by their mentor Musekiwa Chingodza. By incorporating elements of their Western classical training with their study of the traditional music of the Shona people, Third Coast weaves together their own epic musical journey.
And in the spirit of Holling’s original story, the music itself becomes the small wooden boat: rather than keep it for themselves, the musicians add what they can and send the story out into the world again for others to discover.
Third Coast Percussion performs Paddle to the Sea on Thursday, Jan. 25 at 8pm at Meany Center for the Performing Arts. Click here for tickets and additional information.
England across the ages is the theme of tonight’s A Far Cry concert, poetically titled Albion after the oldest known name for the island of Great Britain. Join us Friday, Jan. 19 at 5pm PT / 8pm ETfor a LIVE video stream of the Boston-based chamber orchestra as they perform music by a handful of England’s most iconic classical composers.
Internationally acclaimed tenor Nicholas Phan joins the orchestra for Benjamin Britten’s timeless Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, Op. 31. Composed during World War II, the piece sets six poems by British poets on the subject of night, in all its darkness and splendor. Also on the program is Ralph Vaughan Williams’ 1950 Concerto Grosso for string orchestra, plus a Baroque throwback to the music of Henry Purcell, Matthew Locke, and Nicholas Lanier.
Visit this page tonight, Friday, Jan. 19 at 5pm PT / 8pm ET for a LIVE video of A Far Cry’s Albion, streaming right here:
Henry Purcell Overture and Air from King Arthur Sweeter Than Roses
She Loves and She Confesses Too (arr. René Schiffer)
Matthew Locke Lilk and Curtain Tune from The Tempest
Nicholas Lanier No More Shall Meads be Deck’d with Flowers (arr. René Schiffer)
Matthew Locke Prelude to Act V from The Fairy Queen Evening Hymn (arr. René Schiffer)
Ralph Vaughan Williams Concerto Grosso
INTERMISSION
Benjamin Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, Op. 31 Nicholas Phan, tenor Hazel Dean Davis, horn
To learn more about our live-streaming video broadcasts of A Far Cry,click here.
A Far Cry’s Albion performance streams live on this page on Friday, Jan. 19 at 5pm PT / 8pm ET. For more information about the orchestra, please click here.
The Spontaneous Combustion New Music Festival is lighting up stages around Seattle this month with performances by the likes of Ashley Bathgate, Sandbox Percussion, The City of Tomorrow, and more.
Founded this year by composer Scott Anthony Shell, the festival begins in Seattle with a string of performances spanning from January 19 through February 1, with festival artists also touring through Portland and Eugene, Oregon, and cellist Ashley Bathgate continuing on down the California coast.
“I want this festival to be a performer-centric model rather than composer-centric, in that the performers can program their own repertoire and showcase music they are most comfortable performing,” Shell said. “I also wanted a wide range of genres to be represented within the field of contemporary classical music.”
The festival lineup features Delgani String Quartet, Orlando Cela, Hub New Music, Iktus Duo, Sandbox Percussion, the City of Tomorrow, and Ashley Bathgate. Many of the featured artists are prominent players from New York and the broader East Coast new music scene, and musically they span the gamut from contemporary classical to experimental and avant-garde.
“There are plenty of East Coast transplants and open-minded people on the West Coast so I think there is a receptive audience for new music, even by those unfamiliar with it,” Shell said.
This year’s event features composers ranging from 20th century greats like Lou Harrison, György Ligeti, and Alan Hovhaness to some of the 21st century’s top composers like Andy Akiho, Laura Kaminsky, Steve Reich, and Andrew Norman. And this year is only just the beginning.
“I want the festival to contribute towards the awareness and appreciation of this amazing art form through live performances of these incredible musicians,” Shell said. “I hope it can be an annual event where I would be able to also incorporate other educational tools with a focus on community outreach and community building.”
Let’s meet this year’s performers:
*Please note, dates listed below are for Seattle performances.Click here to explore dates for other cities on the festival tour.
Delgani String Quartet Friday, Jan. 19, 8pm | Good Shepherd Chapel This Northwest quartet performs a new work by Benjamin Krause inspired by the Oregon Cascade Range, from the ghostly lava fields to the glorious trees, craters, and crevices. Works by Alan Hovhaness and György Ligeti round out the program.
Orlando Cela Sunday, Jan. 21, 3pm | Youngstown Cultural Arts Center Orlando Cela is a Boston-based, Venezuelan-born flutist specializing in contemporary and experimental flute repertoire. For this performance, he explores every timbre and extended technique of the instrument through a virtuosic program featuring music by Roger Briggs, Bryan Ferneyhough, Jean-Patrick Besingrand, Mac Waters, and Robert Dick—plus, one of his own original improvisations using Indian Classical music form.
Hub New Music Monday, Jan. 22, 7:30pm | 18th & Union With a unique instrumentation of flute, clarinet, violin, and cello, this Boston-based ensemble makes its Seattle debut at Spontaneous Combustion. Their program features a world premiere performance of Robert Honstein’s Soul Horse, along with Laura Kaminsky’sThe Full Range of Blue, a visceral work written in response to the aftermath of 9/11. The program finishes with David Drexler’s Forgotten At Dawn, a winner of the Spontaneous Combustion International Call for Scores.
Iktus Duo Thursday, Jan. 25, 8pm | Good Shepherd Chapel Flutist Hristina Blagoeva and percussionist Chris Graham team up for a dynamic program exploring an eclectic mix of styles within the contemporary classical genre, from the Eastern-inspired works of Lou Harrison to the wide-ranging musical musings of Joseph Pereira, Adam Vidiksis, James Romig, and Washington-based composer Bruce Hamilton.
Sandbox Percussion Saturday, Jan. 27, 7pm | Music Center of the Northwest A leading proponent of contemporary percussion music, Sandbox Percussion performs pivotal 20th century works and experimental 21st century works alike. For this performance, they lend their mallets to music by Steve Reich, Andy Akiho, Victor Caccese, Jonny Allen, Elliot Cooper Cole, and Thomas Kotcheff.
The City of Tomorrow Tuesday, Jan. 30, 7:30pm | The Royal Room The City of Tomorrow is an avant-garde wind quintet that performs contemporary classical and experimental music rooted in environmentalism and humanism. This particular performance explores spatial relationships through music, featuring custom lighting design by Alex Deahl and a graphic score by Seattle-based composer John Teske that is based on topographical maps, which the quintet will use as a basis for improvisation and movement.
Ashley Bathgate Thursday, Feb. 1, 8pm | Rainier Arts Center Perhaps best known as the cellist of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Ashley Bathgate is also an extraordinary soloist in her own right, constantly pushing the boundaries of traditional cello repertoire with her performances of contemporary, avant-garde, and experimental works. For this performance she plays works with and without electronics by Steve Reich, Andrew Norman, and many more. For a sneak preview of her playing, check out our in-studio video below of Bathgate performing Michael Gordon’s Light is Calling for cello and audio playback.
The Spontaneous Combustion New Music Festival is in venues across Seattle January 19 through February 1.Click here for tickets and more information on other festival dates and locations down the West Coast.
Third Coast’s film score is inspired by and interspersed with music by Philip Glass and Jacob Druckman, along with traditional music of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. All of the music in the score is inspired by water, with Third Coast performing an entire ocean of sounds ranging from pitched desk bells to skittering wood blocks, ceramic tiles, bowls of water, and one particularly special instrument: the mbira.
