Virtual and Live World Premieres of Alice Shields’ The Wind in the Pines - after the climate catastrophe

The Eurasia Consort and The Association for the Promotion of New Music (APNM) present the World Premiere performances of composer Alice Shields’ Chamber Music America commission The Wind in the Pines - after the climate catastrophe for soprano, alto recorder, flute, Renaissance bray harp, Turkish oud, theorbo and percussionist on Tuesday, October 26 @ 3:30 PM (Virtual – available at https://www.youtube.com/user/NatOperaCenterLIVE) and Wednesday, October 27 @ 7:30 PM (Live with livestream) at Scorca Hall of The National Opera Center, 330  7th Avenue at W. 29th St in Manhattan.

Performers will be David Bloom, conductor; Martha Cluver, soprano; Daphna Mor, alto recorder; Sarah Carrier, flute; Karen Lindquist, bray harp; Adem Birson, oud; August Denhard, theorbo, with Rex Benincasa, percussion, playing glockenspiel, vibraphone and crotales.

Tickets for the live concert on Oct.27 are $25 and will be available at the door. Proof of vaccination and masking is required.  Virtual performances are free.  For more information, email jamesarts@att.net or call 516-586-3433.

The Wind in the Pines - after the climate catastrophe was inspired by Japanese Noh Theater.

As the composer says, "I've studied some of the chants ("utai"), poetic texts and dramatic structure of traditional Japanese Noh Theater with Noh performer Mayo Miwa, including the play Matsukaze, which means “the wind in the pines.”  This inspiring and yet devastating play is about the frenzied, deluded passion of two peasant sisters ---who are ghosts --- for an aristocratic lover who will never return to them.  When Tomoko Sugawara and Gus Denhard of the Eurasia Consort approached me to write a piece for them and their unique instrumental possibilities, I knew what I wanted to do: I would write a piece inspired by Noh, and I would use lines from Matsukaze but re-focus the words on the impending climate catastrophe now facing the world."    

“With The Wind in the Pines I experiment with creating a female character in a dream-like state of slow motion frenzy in sound, which is close to one of the categories of Noh plays.  But I turn the orchestration and characteristics of the music of Noh upside-down. Instead of the male voices and drums and piercing wind instrument of Noh I created a work for a female voice and instruments with quite different timbres that resound and resonate with the pitch and power of the female voice.  I also reversed the strong metrical flow of Noh music to become its opposite, a non-metrical flow of cloud-like phrases.  This new work is dedicated to The Eurasia Consort for the rare opportunity to write for musicians and instruments who bridge both East and West, ancient and modern cultures.”

The commission for The Wind in the Pines has been made possible by the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Chamber Music America Endowment Fund.

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