WASHINGTON -- In the next installment of the 2022 Chamber Music Series, small ensembles from “The President’s Own” will perform Sunday, March 6 at 2 p.m. ET. Those who want to experience the music in person are invited to John Philip Sousa Band Hall at 1053 7th Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003. The concert will also be livestreamed on YouTube and Facebook.
Program & Notes
The music selections this Sunday come from contemporary, living composers, offering a variety unique and non-traditional styles, as well as two world premières.
Things open up with Corker, a piece by composer Libby Larsen for clarinet and percussion instruments like marimba, toms, snare drum, hi-hat, and suspended cymbal. The work is inspired by 1940’s popular music language which Larsen loves because “it speaks the rhythms and harmonic language of contemporary American English.”
Michael Gilbertson’s Low Hanging Fruit follows, using clarinet, violin, cello, and piano to capture the essence of temptation as it is portrayed in the book of Genesis.
The first half of the concert is then completed with two pieces written within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: Jessie Montgomery’s “Peace” and Marine Band Percussionist Staff Sgt. Michael Hopkins’ 20/20, which will receive its première.
“Peace” was originally written for violin and piano, commissioned by Victoria Robey OBE for Elena Urioste and Tom Poster who later used the piece in a series of recordings in March 2020 as “a way to keep their minds sharp, fingers busy, and community smiling during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.” Montgomery drew her inspiration for this piece from her own experience during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when she coped with feelings of shock, personal crisis, and struggling to define what actually brings joy.
20/20 was composed in the early months of 2021 as Hopkins grappled with the unprecedented events of the previous year. The three movements follow the progression of emotions many of us have experienced in recent times, and are named “Before,” “Isolation,” and “After.”
“Before” depicts colorful and carefree times through grooving samba and swing rhythms. “Isolation” begins with a dramatic “recitative” with each player taking a brief solo out of time. Then a slow, ominous march begins, punctuated by a clock rhythm in the bongos. “After” drives ahead as the “tick-tock” of the bongos speeds up and launches into a fast passage full of Afro-Cuban rhythms. The music then resets into a mechanical groove that slowly intensifies. More and more interjections from the low tom and bass drum lead to a chaotic and frenzied ending.
Threats | Threads by Will Healy opens up the second half. In this work certain musical ideas develop naturally, pulling the listener forward, while others threaten to drag the piece wildly off course. Just like the choices the composer had to deliberate on while constructing the piece, it expresses the ways in which our decisions big and small affect the course of our lives.
For Marine Band Saxophonist Staff Sgt. Connor Mikula, it was an easy decision to program this piece while coordinating this concert. Healy is a close, personal friend of Mikula - the two met at the Cortona Sessions for New Music in Italy and became friends through a “shared vision for music that is accessible and easy to listen to, yet still substantial in complexity.” This will be the fourth Healy première that Mikula has performed on.
Mikula is also excited to play on the last piece of the concert – Marc Mellits’ Smoke.
“It features electric guitar, drum set, mixed percussion, and multiple saxophones,” he said. “Quite a fearsome set up that is very far removed from something like a Mozart string quartet. It also makes me feel like an actual rock musician as opposed to a classical saxophonist - which is still cool, but not as cool as rock star, obviously.”