Explorations V.7 – New Thread Quartet @Dimenna
Date: September 14, 2024
Time: 7:30 pm
New Thread Saxophone Quartet is kicking off its 2024-2025 Season with Explorations Vol. 7: A Little Night Music. This collection of pieces grips, soothes, and marvels after dark.
While Irish composer Emma O’Halloran was living in Miami, she listened to the ocean waves at night for comfort and reflection. Her Night Music ripples and whirls like the sea with a nod to Latin music and Miami Sound Machine, the mixtape that kept O’Halloran company during that year abroad. LA-based Kay Rhie composed Night Blooms for mixed trio following her father’s death in 2019. Adapted for saxophone quartet, the piece tells the story of his final days in the hospital. As she watched his breathing machine expand and contract, Rhie was reminded of flowers that bloom at night and how “many first-generation immigrants probably dreamed of beautiful ‘blooms’ during the quiet hours when not too many people took notice.” Wong Foo Jeng’s light/erasure draws inspiration from several art pieces and literary works that address the idea of confronting an object that was defaced, abstracted, or erased from its previous form. Wong’s distortion of musical material symbolizes the disappearance of stars from the night’s sky due to artificial light pollution. Öö, Estonian for “night,” sets an unsettled atmosphere of impending doom. Helena Tulve provides the perfect closer, in which the night is darkest before the dawn.
Explorations Vol. 7: A Little Night Music
Saturday, Sept 14 @ 7:30pm
The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, Benzaquen Hall
450 West 37th Street, New York, NY, 10018
Tickets – suggested $15 donation
Reception to follow.
Program
Emma O’Halloran – Night Music (2014)
Kay Rhie – Night Blooms (2019, rev. 2023)
Wong Foo Jeng – light / erasure (2024)*#
Helena Tulve – Öo (1997)
