Image: Vasily Kandinsky, Several Circles (1926)

CIRCLES

December 8th, 2024 at 2pm

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An exploration of cycles, loops, spins, revolutions. The handcrafted score of George Crumb’s “The Magic Circle of Infinity” is a perfect circle the performer must rotate to play. Two eerie songs by Franz Schubert impart the dramatic psychological torment of their circular images: a spinning wheel and a flying crow. Benjamin Martin’s Five Memory Songs sets poems by Alexandre Tchaykov focused on the complexity of “circling back” to the past and trying to make sense of the present. Karin Al-Zand pays tribute to “whirling dervishes,” members of the Sufi branch of Islam, who perform a spiritual, hypnotic dance that involves spinning the body in repetitive circles, while Joaquín Turina celebrates the earth turning 360 degrees in his Círculo piano trio. Striking string quartets by Ruth Crawford Seeger and Sky Macklay play with the circularity of palindrome and tonal harmonic progressions. Finally, César Franck’s explosive Piano Quintet takes a cyclic form, in which a yearning melodic theme in the first movement acts as a ghostly, recurring motto throughout the entire work.

Program

George Crumb: Makrokosmos Vol. 1 No. 8. The Magic Circle of Infinity

Franz Schubert: “Gretchen am spinnrade,” “Die Krähe”

Benjamin Martin/Alexandre Tchaykov: Five Memory Songs (2024)

Karin Al-Zand: Imaginary Scenes: 4. Whirling Dervish

Joaquín Turina: Círculo

Ruth Crawford Seeger: String Quartet 1931 4. Allegro possibile

Sky Macklay: Many, Many Cadences

Intermission

César Franck: Piano Quintet in F minor

Artists

Alexandre Tchaykov, piano

Zhaoyuan Qin, piano

Yekaterina Lynch, soprano

Carmen Edano, mezzo soprano

Laura Gamboa, violin

Maya Irizarry Lambright, violin

Julia Moss, viola

Mafalda Santos, cello

Benjamin T. Martin, composer

Location

2225 N Beverly Glen Pl

Los Angeles, CA 90077