Sō Percussion
with Dawn Upshaw & Gilbert Kalish
Dawn Upshaw, a five-time Grammy Award-winning soprano, and Gilbert Kalish, a celebrated pianist and her frequent collaborator, join forces with Sō Percussion, a quartet at the forefront of American musical culture.
The program features George Crumb’s song cycle The Winds of Destiny, which recasts nine songs and spirituals from the Civil War era, including “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” and “Shenandoah,” as dramatic monologues. The program also features the world premiere of Narrow Sea, a work co-commissioned by the Center for the Performing Arts and written by composer Caroline Shaw, who performed with Roomful of Teeth last season at Schwab Auditorium. Narrow Sea, which reaches back into America’s history of song, is written as a response to The Winds of Destiny. Both Shaw and Crumb are Pulitzer Prize winners. The program also includes a selection of music from Bryce Dessner’s Music for Wood and Strings.
Sō Percussion is a flexible, omnivorous entity. A writer for The New Yorker describes the music of Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting as an “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam.” The quartet’s adventurous spirit was passed down from composers like John Cage and Steve Reich, plus pioneering ensembles such as Kronos Quartet and Nexus Percussion. The ensemble’s career includes more than twenty albums, tours throughout America and the world, an array of collaborative projects, several educational programs, and a steady output of original works.
Upshaw enjoys international celebrity as a singer of opera and concert repertoire ranging from the sacred works of J. S. Bach to the freshest sounds of today. Her ability to reach to the heart of music and text has gained her the devotion of a diverse audience. Upshaw’s most recent Grammy, in 2014, was for Best Classical Vocal Solo for Maria Schneider’s Winter Morning Walks.
Kalish, pianist of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players for three decades, has a discography of more than 100 recordings embracing both classical and contemporary repertoire. A distinguished professor at the State University of New York Stony Brook, Kalish has been an artist of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2006.
Artistic Viewpoints will not be offered before this performance. Shaw and some of the performers are scheduled to engage with the audience after the concert.
sponsors
Chick King and Betty Scott
support provided by
Pieter and Lida Ouwehand Endowment
media sponsor
WPSU