Erin Rogers - Composer/saxophonist

Bowerbird presents New Thread Quartet’s album release show featuring “A Little Night Music,” and Tori Cheah’s Walk for a Shell from their new album, Saxifraga.

About the program:
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.” Helena Tulve’s Öö, which is “night” in Estonian, sets an unsettled atmosphere of impending doom. The concert concludes with Walk for a shell, which Tori Cheah describes as a reference to a pilgrimage wherein one applies time and effort across a distance in an offering of respect for forces greater than oneself.