Avant Music News

Upcoming performances in Berkeley.

May 18 Monday 1pm
Knuth Hall Creative Arts Building
Admission: FREE

May 19 Tuesday 8pm
Berkeley Chamber Performances
Berkeley City Club
2315 Durant Avenue, Berkeley
Admission: $20 General

The relationship between numbers and music has long inspired many composers, from Bach to Wuorinen. ADORNO presents music imbued with the spirit of ratios, puzzles, fractal geometry, and other mathematic theory.

Nancarrow is best remembered for the pieces he wrote for the player piano. He was one of the first composers to use musical instruments as mechanical machines, making them play far beyond human performance ability. His music has a mathematical beauty and elegance that happily coexists with musical expressiveness and a puckish sense of humor. ADORNO features a transcription of one of his “player piano” works for ensemble. Charles Wuorinen’s work Eleven Short Pieces, uses exactly 101 notes and Tamar Diesendruck’s work is inspired by Sudoku puzzles. Iannis Xenakis’s algorithmic work, Morsima-Amorsima, was created with the use of a complex computer program for acoustical instruments.

PROGRAM:

Tamar Diesendruck Sudoku Variations for solo piano
Iannis Xenakis Morsima-Amorsima for violin, cello, bass and piano
Charles Wuorinen Eleven Short Pieces for Violin and Vibraphone
Charles Wuorinen Spinoff for violin, bass, and congas
Iannis Xenakis Rebonds for solo percussion
Conlon Nancarrow – Player Piano No. 34 arranged for String Trio

From the Hartford Courant, info on shows by people named Lovano, Pavone, and Brotzmann.