2023-24

PROGRAM

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Bodyscape (2017)
Bethany Younge 
for voice, ensemble and electronics with video and audience participation

Bethany Younge, soprano

keepsakes / namesakes (2023-23)

WORLD PREMIERE
Miles Walter
six continuously-developing studies for solo piano

Miles Walter, piano

Reeling (1983)
Christopher Fox

for clarinet and percussion 

Carol McGonnell, clarinet

Josh Perry, percussion

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Mother and Child (1943)   
William Grant Still
violin and piano
Doori Na, violin
Michel Galante, piano

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Black Pierrot (1949)   
William Grant Still
voice and piano
Lindell Carter, Tenor
Miles Walter, piano

 

~intermission~

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Pierrot Lunaire (1912)

Arnold Schoenberg

for soprano and quintet

Ariadne Greif, soprano

Michel Galante, conductor
 

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Many listeners will already be familiar with the Commedia del’ Arte cast of famous characters such as Harlequin and Pulcinella, and Scaramouche, but in Pierrot Lunaire, Arnold Schoenberg’s uses only characters that can illuminate the rich, mercurial, and unfiltered mental illness of Pierrot. Two movements from book one, “Colombine” and “Der Dandy” focus, respectively, on Pierrot’s complex grief, and extreme narcissism. Whereas Book three’s “Gemeinheit” exposes his “Silence of the Lambs” level psychopathy. Here, Pierrot, as a homicidal agent of chaos, uses a custom-made skull driller to bore a hole into Cassander’s head before using it as a tobacco pipe. The Argento New Music project and soprano Ariadne Greif, whom the New York Times called "a beautiful and physically fearless young singer, " prepare to unleash the full, imbalanced mental landscape of Schoenberg’s masterpiece, at our concert at 8pm on March 28th at Benzequen Hall at the Dimenna Center for the Arts.  To publicize this performance. Argento will digitally re-release one video each day starting March 1st. Each video will correspond to one of the 21 musical movements of Pierrot Lunaire, present fantastical journey through storytelling and images, and present English translations of the German poetic text. 

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Christopher Fox’s relentlessly virtuosic work, aptly entitled Reeling, is contemporary companion piece to Pierrot Lunaire in that it embodies frantic irrationality. Scored for clarinet and percussion, this work starts and continues at the fastest possible speed and energy. This is one of Fox’s first microtonal works, written after his encounter with composers Tristan Murail and Gerard Grisey in Darmstadt. Clarinettist Carol McGonnell and percussionist Josh Perry perform. 

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Argento is excited to present two composers who perform their own works:

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Composer/vocalist Bethany Younge will sing the solo soprano part in her multi-media composition Bodyscape. In this work, the audience quietly mumbles descriptions of what they see in the 1920s film (projected in front of them). Music from the instrumental ensemble emerges while beautiful images, which were once scandalously pornographic, become recognizable. This is the first time Bethany Younge will be singing this work for an audience.

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Composer/pianist Miles Walter will premiere his new work for solo piano entitled keepsakes/namesakes. This a structurally rich work in which Walter constructs a continuously, organically changing work that morphs gradually from the beginning of the work to its conclusion, while at the same time employing many compositional procedures and techniques that listeners will hear in Pierrot Lunaire.

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Discussion with Miles Walter, Bethany Younge, Michel Galante, and members of Argento to follow the concert.

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The performance of Bodyscape has been funded in part with the support of the Jeffery Cotton Award, a program of the BMI Foundation. More information about composer Jeffery Cotton (1957-2013) is available at jefferycotton.com.