Contempo: Contemporary Chamber Players

Celebrating UChicago Composers

Cliff Colnot

Cliff Colnot, conductor
eighth blackbird
Pacifica Quartet
Mary Stolper, flute
Daniel Won, clarinet
Alison Attar, harp
Anthony Cheung, piano
Douglas Perkins, percussion
Jeremy Ruthrauff, soprano saxophone

Marta Ptaszynska: Spider Walk for solo percussion
Augusta Read Thomas: Passion Prayers
Anthony Cheung: Roundabouts for piano
Augusta Read Thomas: Scat
Marta Ptaszynska: Four Portraits for string quartet
Shulamit Ran: Under the Sun’s Gaze (Concerto da Camera III)

6:30 pm pre-concert discussion with the composers, moderated by Martha Feldman, Mabel Greene Myers Professor of Music and the Humanities

Contempo’s season is dedicated to music by University of Chicago composers present and past.  Their inaugural program in the Logan Center highlights the current gifted composition faculty.

One of the most widely performed pieces for solo percussion today, Spider Walk, by Marta Ptaszynska, uses visual and aural elements to depict the “logarithmic spiral” ratio by which spiders make their webs and pine cones grow. Augusta Read Thomas’ Scat explores the exchange between vocals and instruments through reverse imitation. While jazz singers often imitate instruments through nonsense words and syllables, the instruments turn around to imitate scat singers in this chamber work for flute, violin, viola, cello, and piano. Shulamit Ran writes about her work, Under the Sun’s Gaze, “The music of this work, in three interlocking parts, takes turns being exuberant, caressing, scorching, receding, hazy, lazy, blazing, dissolving into darkness, blinding in its intensity.” Scored for nine instruments, Under the Sun’s Gaze also features the unlikely timbre of the soprano saxophone.

This program is a part of Contempo's 48th Season.

Featured Artist(s): Cliff Colnot, eighth blackbird, Pacifica Quartet