Photo: Kauppo Kikkas
Today is not a day in which one considers celebrations, but we are pleased to send Arvo Pärt greetings and congratulations on his ninetieth birthday.
Photo: Kauppo Kikkas
Photo: Kauppo Kikkas
It’s rare for a new work to have even a second performance, but Kati Agócs’ Rapprochement received nine plays in a single day. Agócs was commissioned by the Banff International String Quartet Competition to write a composition that each quartet would be required to play in the 2025 competition.
The title of her nine-minute piece means “to bring together.” Agócs, in a pre-performance conversation with BISQC director Barry Shiffman, explained that it is in variation form, in which the harmonic underpinning is important to the melodic line. It’s a lyrical piece, and the instructions call for a lot of fluidity with beautiful solos for each member of the quartet. In an introductory video, she said, “The score leaves room for players to shape nuances of dynamics, articulation, balances, and color.” Agócs worked individually with the competing quartets as they learned the piece.
There were nine quartets participating in 2025 BISQC: Viatores Quartet (from Berlin), Arete Quartet (Seoul), Cong Quartet (Hong Kong), Quatour Magenta (Paris), Quatour Elmire (Paris), Quartett HANA (Munich), Nerida Quartet (Bremen), Quartet KAIRI (Salzburg), and Poiesis Quartet (Cincinnati). Naturally, each gave its own spin on the work. This was a great opportunity for the audience to hear the ensembles back-to-back-to-back. Over the previous four days, the quartets performed one round of works from the romantic era and one round of a quartet by Franz Josef Haydn paired with a 21st century work. You can watch all of the performances on demand on the BISQC website.
I asked Shiffman why he chose to program all of the premiere performances of Agócs’ piece in a single concert. He said, “Look at the audience. It is the most popular concert of the competition.” He said that most of the audience are not avid new music listeners, and it’s helpful to them to hear many interpretations at the same time.
The Arete Quartet pulsated the rhythms as if inhaling and exhaling. Cong gave special attention to a steady eighth note all through the piece, which was one of the instructions in the score. Magenta leaned into the dissonances at the opening, and gave the rhythms a jaunty swing. Elmire made the most of the hemiola rhythms near the beginning and gave the jolly rhythms a sensual twist, ending with panache.
HANA did a great job of “singing” lyrically (another instruction in the score). Nerida gave the ethereal opening an especially mystical feel and their upward glissandos were especially gossamer. KAIRI seemed to have an especially good handle on the transitions between sections, and Poiesis showed a confidence above the others. They were especially birdlike in the chirps that came just before upward glissandos, and did a great job of varying the sound of each iteration of the theme.
Agócs, who is Canadian-American-Hungarian, teaches at New England Conservatory in Boston. She has written two other quartets, Tantric Variations for Cecilia Quartet and Imprimatur for Jupiter Quartet, both previous BISQC winners.
The first Banff International String Quartet Competition was in 1983 and it’s been held every three years since then. It takes place at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity which is in Banff National Park, a breathtakingly beautiful location in the Canadian Rockies. The winner of the 2025 competition will be announced on August 31.
Photo: Hilary Scott (courtesy of BSO).
2025 Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music
Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra
July 28, 2025
LENOX – This year’s Festival of Contemporary Music was curated by composer Gabriela Ortiz. Born in Mexico City, Ortiz is one of the most prominent Latinx figures in twenty-first century classical music. Among other honors, she is composer-in-residence at Carnegie Hall and the Curtis Institute. Revolucióndiamantina, a recording of her music by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, won three GRAMMY Awards in 2025. This year, FCM has spotlighted music from Mexico, as well as that of women composers. After four chamber ensemble programs, including one consisting entirely of music for percussion, the festival concluded with a concert performed by the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Wilkins and two fellows, Yiran Zhao and Leonard Weiss (Zhao is a former student of mine, so I will limit my remarks to saying that her teacher was proud). TMC is a student orchestra, but their talent and hard work abetted a high level of playing throughout. All of the concert’s music was written in the twenty-first century by living composers.
Bioluminescence Chaconne (2019), by Gabriella Smith (b. 1991), is built around overlapping ostinatos. String tremolandos are prominent in the beginning, and glissandos take on an increasingly important role. The piece has a gradual buildup to a powerful central section with brash tutti and stretches of syncopated percussion, followed by a return to its opening demeanor to conclude. Smith is a violinist, and it shows in the deft deployment of strings here. She has cited Bach’s D minor Chaconne as a touchstone, but its form repeats in a more symmetrical fashion than the shape of Bioluminescence Chaconne. The first word of the title may be more telling, as Smith has suggested that her experiences scuba diving, accompanying a team of researchers, was an inspiration for the piece. The piece works well, so well that next year the Boston Symphony Orchestra is playing it too.
Ellen Reid (b. 1983) won the Pulitzer Prize in 2019, and her piece When the World as You’ve Known It Doesn’t Exist (2019) was commissioned and premiered by the New York Philharmonic. In addition to a large orchestra, it features three sopranos in wide ranging wordless parts encompassing animated and sustained passages. Zoe McCormick, Kerrigan Bigelow, and Sarah Davis sang skilfully, blending well together and with the orchestra. Like Smith, Reid uses ostinatos, and these are contrasted with aching pitch slides and clusters. When the World… is likely her most dissonant piece, with both major and minor seconds featuring prominently in the motivic and harmonic material. Weiss brought out dynamic contrasts and imbued the legato sections with a strong sense of line.
Reid wrote When the World… for the NY Phil’s Project 19, which celebrated a centenary of women’s suffrage in the United States. Her program note suggests that it doesn’t directly reflect this issue, and is instead focused on an emotional artistic journey, delineated in stages not dissimilar to those frequently found in grieving, moving from questioning to anger to acceptance.
Ortiz had two pieces on the program, one concluding the first half and the other played after intermission. Guest flutist Alejandro Escuer was the soloist on Altar de Viento (“Altar of the Wind,” 2015), a concerto specifically written for him. Escuer’s proficiency with extended techniques is comprehensive, and Ortiz makes good use of them in the piece. Escuer’s approach is also attuned to rhythm, and he even moves a bit during interludes where he isn’t playing, underlining the dance rhythms so often present in Altar de Viento. Indeed, the percussion section once again got a workout, playing traditional dances and new music gestures with equal aplomb. The rest of the orchestra was game to groove as well, and Wilkins led them through myriad metric shifts with suavity and clarity.
Hominum, Concerto for Orchestra (2017), is an imposing half-hour long piece. One of Ortiz’s finest, it was premiered in 2017 by another exemplary student ensemble, the Juilliard Orchestra. There’s nothing about the concerto that suggests it was sculpted with emerging artists in mind, as it is quite challenging. Composers who write a concerto for orchestra usually provide each cohort of the ensemble with music that spotlights their capacities and instruments’ essential characteristics. Ortiz revels in exploring the many textures that an orchestra can achieve in the twenty-first century. The virtuosity that talented musicians possess is explored as well. Hominum is at turns vivacious, brash, reflective, and powerful, and served as a rousing closer for FCM.
-Christian Carey
The audience greeted John Williams like he was a rock star.
Indeed, this composer’s music for blockbuster films like Star Wars, Jaws and Jurassic Park is well known and loved by billions around the world. People, including those in attendance at Tanglewood on Saturday night, July 26, love him for his concert music as well. Williams appeared on stage after the crowd-pleasing premiere performance of his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with soloist Emanuel Ax and the Boston Symphony Orchestra led by Andris Nelsons.
Williams has been a mainstay at the BSO for decades, having been music director of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980 to 1993; and composed numerous scores especially for the venerable ensemble and some of its principal players. He began writing the newest work in his immense catalogue of concert music in 2022, at age 90, this one specifically for Ax and the BSO.
For this three-movement work, Williams drew his inspiration from jazz greats Art Tatum, Bill Evans, and Oscar Peterson. From the very start in the “Introduction – Colloquy (Art Tatum)”, the composition launched into bold jazz chords from the soloist. The rhythms went beyond ragtime, instantly recalling Tatum’s trademark stride piano style. The textures, timbres and sonorities of the jazz-infused score were as vividly colorful as Williams’ film scores. The rich viola solo of the second movement “Listening (Bill Evans)” was straight and somber, infused with angular and dissonant sonorities. The clamorous timpani opening the work’s third movement (“Finale. Presto (Oscar Peterson)”) echoed the beginning of Gershwin’s majestic Piano Concerto in F. This movement was the most virtuosic of the already technically demanding piece, using the entire range of the keyboard. Thunderous ovations followed the final chord.
Concert-goers who departed the grounds after the triumphant world premiere missed a powerful reading of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. Any flaws early in the performance were brushed aside as the second movement unfolded with crisp execution, the rocksteady timpanist emphasized the foundations of the tonality for most of the third movement, and the confident swagger in the secondary theme. Nelsons brought it all to an exciting conclusion full of contrast in both dynamics and tempi.
The BSO brass deserve a medal. They were knockouts in both works on the program. From the colorful character of John William’s concerto to their mighty display in the Mahler, they shone in every which way. The entire horn section standing for the final section of the Mahler was emblematic of the section’s performance throughout.
Terry Riley turns ninety years old today! Happy birthday from us all at Sequenza 21!
Today, our friends at Red Hot Org are sharing a raga performance by Terry Riley and Sara Miyamoto. A teaser track, it will serve as the b-side for a July release by Kronos Quartet. Both Riley’s raga and the pieces on the a-side are written as anti-nuclear war messages.
Riley is entitled to rest on his laurels, but he is instead remaining an advocate for peace. Thank you for this present, Terry, on your birthday no less!
The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Music Director and Conductor
Angel Blue, Soprano
Carnegie Hall, April 18, 2025
Published on Sequenza 21
By Christian Carey
NEW YORK – Virtually since its inception, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Met Orchestra for short, has given concerts alongside its main role accompanying operas. For over a hundred years, this has allowed the ensemble to stretch itself, performing vocal works, unstaged or semi-staged operas, repertoire staples, and several premieres. Yannick Nézet-Séguin has relished the opportunity to work with the musicians in this capacity. On Wednesday night, the Met Orchestra premiered a suite from Fire Up in My Bones, an opera staged at the Met by Terence Blanchard. They also performed pieces by Carnegie Hall’s current Debs Composer Chair Gabriela Ortiz, Leonard Bernstein, and Antonin Dvořák.
Ortiz’s piece, Antrópolis (2018, revised 2019), was an ebullient opener, recalling the various nightclubs the composer had frequented during her youthful years in Mexico City. The piece is a showcase for percussion, with varied dance rhythms, ranging from mambo and rumba to incipient techno, articulated by timpani soloist Parker Lee and the rest of the percussion cohort.
Symphony No. 1, “Jeremiah,” (1942), was written when Bernstein was twenty-three. Its directness of expression betrays a bit of naivete that makes it somewhat less compelling than his musical theater pieces of the forties. Still, the orchestration demonstrates an impressive grasp of mid-twentieth century music, both the Americana style of Aaron Copland and Roy Harris, and the neoclassical music of Stravinsky, who seems to loom large over the piece. Mahler, a composer for whom Bernstein, throughout his career, advocated strongly, serves as another touchstone, particularly in the inclusion of a soprano soloist in the final movement of Jeremiah. The texts are taken from the Hebrew Bible book “The Lamentations of Jeremiah,” selected to analogize the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem with the plight of Jewish people in Europe under the Nazi regime.
Soprano Angel Blue, standing on a platform in the midst of the orchestra, declaimed the music with an authoritative demeanor that underscored its mournful message, singing with flawless legato and rich tone. Here and elsewhere, Nézet-Séguin was a commanding presence, underscoring the rhythmic vitality of the piece’s earlier mixed meter sections only to build it to a stirring climax by the symphony’s conclusion.
Terence Blanchard’s opera Fire Up in My Bones was staged with jazz musicians, including Blanchard, participating. He created a suite of music from the opera with the Met Orchestra’s forces, sans additional musicians, in mind. Apart from an interlude depicting the sounds of a chicken processing plant, which includes syncopated percussion in playful fashion, Blanchard instead presents the opera’s powerful thematic material depicting human struggle. Charles M. Blow’s memoir, in which, among other experiences, he discusses being abused as a child and coming to terms with his homosexuality, is a compelling story, and the arias from Fire Up in My Bones provide it with the gravitas it deserves. The suite presents selections from these set pieces in sweeping melodies that are romantic in scope. The harmony sits astride Mahlerian late tonality and a fluid use of jazz vocabulary, ending on a charged chord rife with dissonant extensions. Blanchard’s scoring is fluent in a variety of idioms, and even if the suite only tells part of Fire Up in My Bones’s musical story, it is replete with well-paced dramatic contrasts.
The concert concluded with one of the most beloved pieces by Dvořák, his Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.” It was written in 1893, during his extended visit to the United States. Dvořák advocated for composers from the United States to explore their own nation’s folk music, mining it for material, just as he did with vernacular Czech music. Viewing the music of native Americans and spirituals as the most consummately authentic folk music in the US, he recommended that their works be collected and employed by the predominantly white male students who were his composition pupils in New York. One can argue about the authenticity of this practice through a contemporary lens, but it certainly made an impression on US composers of that generation and successive ones.
Musicologists love debating the derivation of the materials Dvořák used in the New World Symphony. He insisted that there were no direct quotations in the piece. Apart from the rhythm of a tom-tom drum, that is likely the case, although its most famous tune, the achingly beautiful theme from its second movement, was later used to create a spiritual-styled song. Much of the music sounds like it could just as easily have been written while Dvořák was in Europe. Whatever the pedigree of its sources, the Ninth Symphony is a fantastic piece and the Met Orchestra performed it gloriously.
Nézet-Séguin approached the piece in energetic fashion, allowing it to speak for itself mostly in tempo rather than using too much rubato. This returned a sense of balance to the phrasal and rhythmic construction of a piece that can, upon occasion, seem schmaltzy in its presentation. The sections of the aforementioned second movement that called for pliable moments seemed all the more noteworthy as a result. This was abetted by superlative playing from the winds and brass, particularly Pedro R. Díaz, who performed the English horn solo in eloquently beautiful fashion. The strings had many moments to shine as well, playing the theme of the scherzo, marked molto vivace, with rhythmically incisive élan. The blend in tutti sections was impressive as well.
While there were no pains to overstate it, the program was nicely tied together by the Symphony “From the New World.” Each composer in their own way explored the cultural and musical traditions that resonated with them. Ortiz’s Latin dance, Bernstein’s Jewish liturgical references and tropes on folk music, and Blanchard’s jazz chords, however different they sounded, came from a place of deep cultural resonance for each respective composer. Thus, the Met Orchestra’s concert was both diverse in its offerings and well curated. A memorable evening of music.
-Christian Carey
The Canadian pianist/composer Adam Sherkin shares music from his home country on an extensive program at Merkin Hall in New York on March 15, 2025. “Composers in Play XV” is presented by Piano Lunaire, an organization launched by Sherkin and his colleagues in 2018. On this occasion he joins forces with the American pianist Anthony de Mare.
Together the two perform music by (mostly) living Canadian composers for one and two pianos.
Each of the performers has connections with some of the creators. In Sherkin’s case it is himself as the composer of Ink from the Shield for two pianos, which has its world premiere performance this program. De Mare has a 30+ year friendship with Rodney Sharman, and was one of the people who encouraged the composer to write a series of “Opera Transcriptions,” three of which are on this program.
The composers represent a geographical cross section of Canada: Vivian Fung hails from Edmonton; Ann Southam (the sole non-living composer on this program) was from Winnipeg; Kelly Marie-Murphy from Calgary, and Linda Catlin Smith and Sherkin from Toronto.
Satie
Alain Planès, Pleyel piano (1928)
François Pinel, piano duets, Marc Mauillon, baritone
Harmonia Mundi
In 2025, substantial attention is being paid to the 150th anniversary of Maurice Ravel’s birth. Pianist Alain Planès has instead decided to celebrate the centenary of Erik Satie’s passing with a recording of music from the various stylistic periods of the eclectic composer’s oeuvre. Most of the music are works originally for piano and transcriptions, but there is a set of four-hands pieces and another of songs.
At age seventy-seven, Planès has maintained his technique and interpretive skill, accommodating the varying demeanors – lyrical, enigmatic, bumptious, and virtuosic – of Satie’s music. Historically informed performance has extended into the twentieth century, and the pianist observes this by using a 1928 Pleyel, a piano similar to those Satie would have played upon.
There are pieces that recall Satie’s work in cafes and theaters, such as the Valse-ballet, which opens the recording. Even in idiomatic genre pieces, there is a quirkiness to the dynamics and phrasing. Two song transcriptions, La Diva de L’Empire, and Satie’s “hit tune” Je te Veux, close the recording in a similarly light-hearted vein. The Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes, some of the composer’s well known and best-loved works, figure prominently in the program. Planès plays them with delicacy and small touches of rubato and dynamic inflections, exactly where the score indicates these fluctuations in phrasing.
Avant-dernières pensées (“Penultimate Thoughts”), Chapitres tournés en tous sens (“Chapters Turned Every Which Way”), and Embryons desséchés (“Dessicated embryos”) are three humorous piano suites from the 1910s. The earlier Pièces froides (“Cold pieces”) exhibit similar jocularity. Even when going for musical jokes – quotations, weird juxtapositions, and sudden dynamic shifts – Satie always creates music that is well wrought for the instrument and its player. Planès presents the humor wryly, never overdoing it to go for a cheap laugh.
Trois morceaux en forme de poire (“Three pieces in the shape of a pear”) is for piano four-hands. The first resembles a Gymnopedie with a jaunty flourish at the end, the second has digressive flurries of runs punctuated with staccato chords and an emphatic bass line, and the third juxtaposes a lilting duple time dance with stentorian cadences. François Pinel is an amicable duet partner. Baritone Marc Mauillon joins Planès for Trois Mélodies, his voice easily navigating the high tessitura of the music with expressive nuance. The first, “La Statue de Bronze” (“The Bronze Statue”) recalls the oom-pah ostinato of popular Parisian fare. “Daphénéo” is more impressionist in tone but still peculiar, with some of its text not easily translatable. “Le chapelier” (“The hatter”) is in a lilting compound time until its forte climax, which is followed by a delicate coda.
Satie is worth yet more anniversary commemorations, but if the only one were to be this excellent recording, it would still provide a significant homage for his influential music.
-Christian Carey
Kalevi Aho
String Quartets 1-3
Stenhammar Quartet
BIS
Kalevi Aho (1949-) is a prominent Finnish composer whose oeuvre includes a number of orchestral and chamber works and a smaller body of vocal music. His string quartets are from relatively early in his career, the first from quite early, written when he was only eighteen. All three are included on a BIS recording made by the Stenhammar Quartet, a group from Sweden.
The pieces are presented out of order, beginning with the second quartet, which was written in 1970, during his studies with Einojuhani Rautavaara at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. It was created just a couple years after his conservatively tonal first quartet (discussed below), but it’s clear that Rautavaara had given Aho a grounding in twentieth century music. After a sinuous opening Adagio movement is a Presto that begins with a chromatic fugue soon surrounded by flurries of dissonance, a welter of sound. The fugue speeds up alongside ascending glissandos, ending on slashing verticals and prestissimo lines moving in contrary motion. The last movement returns to an Adagio tempo, with yearning counterpoint and a diaphanous texture, closing with an open-spaced quartal harmony.
Best known of Aho’s quartets is his Third (1971), which is programmed frequently and considered one of the pieces that first garnered him significant attention. With most of the movements continuing attacca, it begins Vivace with a mischievous Bartôkian tune that is eventually offset by long legato phrases. The movement ends with a cello ostinato and altissimo register violin surrounding bustling inner parts. The second movement, marked Andante, builds up from the lower register in a fugue with a long legato subject. This condenses into tightly constructed vertical presentations of the subject, and concludes with held chords and pizzicato bass notes. The aphoristic Presto third movement features clarion violin lines against repeated notes in the viola and cello. It is succeeded by a fourth movement with shades of Shostakovich. It has a somewhat wayward theme that Aho once again treats fugally against acerbic harmonies. Swooping crescendos are succeeded by a Presto with quick filigrees in the violin countered by a duet texture in the lower strings and fragmented accompaniment from the second violin. In the sixth movement, clusters in the violins and lower strings, first in pairs then combined, take over, while the seventh is a relatively brief Adagio that returns to minor-inflected imitative writing. The finale begins with a triplet-filled melody in the violin while seconds in the other instruments provide a bitter underpinning. A countermelody in the second violin and repeated notes in the cello elaborate the proceedings, while secundal violin lines descend from the uppermost register. A midrange duet imitates the previous passage to conclude enigmatically.
While it is juvenalia, the inclusion of the First Quartet demonstrates that even early on Aho possessed a fine musical ear and sense of formal design. At the time, the composer was playing the violin and he used the standard repertoire he had been assigned as models for the quartet. It is a mix of Baroque sequences and Romantic harmony. The first movement, marked moderato, is a set of variations built on a circle-of-fifths progression. The second, marked Andante-Vivace, is considerably charming, with a wending mixed meter folk dance at its beginning that is replaced by a brusque scherzo section. The dance returns, more emphatic this time. The Presto third movement is a moto perpetuo in 6/8, and the finale returns to an Andante tempo, with a Brahmsian principal theme that is, appropriately, supplied with a series of developing variations, including a minor key variant that is interesting both harmonically and in its rhythmic patterning. The return to major is given a stately rendition by the Stenhammar players, concluding the piece with a foreshadowing of Aho’s future talent.
-Christian Carey
Persist
Ethel and Allison Loggins-Hull
Sono Luminus
The string quartet Ethel presents a characteristically diverse program of contemporary music on Persist, their first recording for Sono Luminus. They are joined by composer/flutist Allison Loggins-Hull and the resulting quintet are strong advocates for the emerging composers featured here.
The title work is by Loggins-Hull, currently a composer fellow with the Cleveland Orchestra. Her work is gracefully written and appealing. Persist begins with an ambling section with an angular flute melody, pizzicato strings and percussion instruments. This is varied throughout, juxtaposed with presto passages featuring quickfire flute lines accompanied by circling countermelodies in the strings and pulsating drumming. In 2024, the title’s meaning is self-explanatory and timely, and Loggins-Hull’s piece aptly depicts both the current exhaustion and perennial indomitability of the progressive movement.
PillowTalk by Xavier Muzik opens slowly, with oscillating thirds in the flute and impressionist harmonies in the strings. Languorous in demeanor and gradual in its unfolding, the color chords are eventually augmented by a pentatonic tune in octaves and a more elaborate flute solo that dovetails with pizzicato cello. The violin then takes a turn duetting with the flute. A fast passage with sliding tones and birdsong affords some much-belated energy, indeed making up for lost time in its latter half. A return to slow music reminiscent of the opening brings the piece full circle.
Migiwa Miyajima presents a stylistically varied four-movement piece with her Reconciliation Suite. The first movement, “The Unknowns” is rhythmically vibrant and hews close to the cinematic. The second, “Never Be the Same,” features a flute solo that explores the low register of the instrument with gradual accelerations and slowdowns. Partway through, the cello adds a drone to accompany it. The flute moves higher, and the rest of the strings join with lush harmonies. “Mr. Rubber Sole from the Digital World” has fun with ostinatos á la rock ‘n roll. The suite concludes with “The Blooming Season,” a lushly attired pastorale.
Sam Wu’s Terraria features the flute imitating shakuhachi and the strings using sliding tone and other traditional gestures from Chinese music. It also has passages of neo-romantic arpeggiations. Particularly affecting are the central passages in which high flute and midrange strings double a folk-like melody above a low drone. The second appearance of the arpeggiations is accompanied by energetic flute runs. Harmonics and brief melodies in the flute create an evocative denouement, after which the flute returns to the shakuhachi manner of the opening to close.
Leilehua Lanzilotti is likely the best known of the programmed composers; she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music. The final work on Persist is her We Began This Quilt There. It is about Lili‘uokalani, the first and only Hawaiian queen and last sovereign of the islands before their annexation by the US. She made artworks, including the Queen’s Quilt, while she was imprisoned. Kaona, hidden meanings, is a concept Lanzilotti feels is suggestive of the queen’s artwork. The three movements include quotations of prison songs and folk music. Lanzilotti allows these materials space to breathe, with the flute playing melodies over gentle strumming from the strings in the first movement. The second is brief but haunting with flute harmonics and pitch bends over a sustained midrange piece. The final movement, “Ku‘u pua i Paoakalani” is based on a musical composition by Lili‘uokalani, an ode for her supporters. Lanzilotti veils the ode with its musical surroundings. A buildup of triadic repeated notes in the strings is joined by the flute playing the song with the addition of repeated notes: a musical Kaona that concludes a beautiful and meaningful work.
With Persist, Ethel and Loggins-Hull demonstrate their continuing commitment to compositional voices from a variety of geographies and backgrounds. The programmed works are diverse in terms of their impetuses and styles, but uniformly of high quality. Recommended.
-Christian Carey