Image: Vasily Kandinsky, Several Circles (1926)

CIRCLES

December 8th, 2024 at 2pm

Click here for complete program notes.

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. Karim 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. Ruth Crawford Seeger’s striking string quartet plays with the circularity of palindrome. 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

Intermission

Ruth Crawford Seeger: String Quartet 1931 4. Allegro possibile

César Franck: Piano Quintet in F minor

Artists

Alexandre Tchaykov, piano

Zhaoyuan Qin, piano

Yekaterina Lynch, soprano

Carmen Edano, mezzo soprano

Maya Irizarry Lambright, violin

Duncan McDougall, violin

Julia Moss, viola

Mafalda Santos, cello

Benjamin T. Martin, composer

Location

2225 N Beverly Glen Pl

Los Angeles, CA 90077