What is an instrumental ensemble to do when there isn’t enough repertoire to play? Commission more, of course! This is the strategy of the piano and percussion quartet Yarn/Wire. Founded in 2005 at SUNY Stony Brook, the group has commissioned hundreds of new works, including Japanese composer Misato Mochizuki’s Le Monde des ronds et des carrés (“The World of Circles and Squares”), which features on the group’s Duke Performances debut. This 2015 composition, in the composer’s own words, “attempts to install, in space and in music, geometric relationships possible among the musicians, whether opposed to one another (square) or united (circle).”
The evening begins with Linda Catlin Smith’s Morandi, a musical study of still life paintings, and closes with George Crumb’s seminal Music for a Summer Evening. Yarn/Wire is committed to expanding the representation of composers from diverse backgrounds and their aesthetic perhaps best boils down to a quote from pianist and member Laura Barger: “As the pianist in the room… really, everything’s a drum.”
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Current Duke Performances COVID-19 regulations
Linda Catlin Smith: Morandi (1991)
Misato Mochizuki: Le monde des ronds et des carrés (2015)
Intermission
George Crumb: Music for a Summer Evening (1974)
I. Nocturnal Sounds (The Awakening)
II. Wanderer-Fantasy
III. The Advent
IV. Myth
V. Music of the Starry Night
1336 Campus Drive
Durham, NC 27705