Old First Concerts: November, 2021

As of this writing, Old First Concerts (O1C) has planned for four concerts this coming November, all of which will be live-streamed. As is currently the case, the concerts themselves will continue to be “hybrid,” allowing seating in Old First Presbyterian Church limited to 100 tickets, all being sold for $25 (no reduced rate for seniors or students). Two of these concerts will take place on a Sunday afternoon with the other two on Friday evenings. Hyperlinks to the event pages (which include hyperlinks for streaming) will be attached to the date and time of the performances as follows:

Sunday, November 7, 4 p.m.: This will be the second New Arts Collaboration program, the first of which will be taking place one week from tonight at the Center for New Music (C4NM). The title of the second program is Poetic Move, presented by pianist Ting Luo. It will consist entirely of premiere performances of works for solo piano and immersive visuals provided by artists including Charles Woodman, Jo Ho, and Nicki Davis. The contributing composers will be (in order of appearance) Christopher Cerrone, Julie Barwick, Danny Clay, Brett Austin Eastman, Belinda Reynolds, Valerio Sannicandro, Chatori Shimizu, Luo herself, and Jean Ahn.

Friday, November 12, 8 p.m.: Like Luo, soprano Winnie Nieh has a “C4NM connection.” In my records my last account of her was as the only vocalist in Stranded: A Solo Space Opera by Colin Martin, which was given its premiere at C4NM in September of 2019. My records also show that Nieh last gave an O1C recital a year earlier (September of 2018), accompanied at the piano by Paul Dab and giving premiere performances of music by Richard Festinger and Richard Aldag. Her next O1C recital will be entitled Yearning and Innocence, and she will again be accompanied by Dab. She will begin with three songs by Franz Schubert: the first version of “Willkommen und Abschied” (D. 767) and the two settings of “Suleika,” D. 720 and D. 717. This will be followed by the world premiere performance of “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Michael Robert Smith. The other composers on her program will be, in chronological order, Johannes Brahms, Nadia Boulanger, and Aaron Copland.

Sunday, November 14, 4 p.m.: This recital will mark the return of Cornelius Boots to O1C, having last having streamed a performance in June of 2020. That program was streamed from his own studio, so this concert will also mark his return to Old First Presbyterian Church. He will perform with Kevin Chen, and both of them will alternate between shakuhachi and taimu (bass) shakuhachi. There will be premiere performances of works composed last year and earlier this year. The program will also feature Boots’ own transcription of the “Psalm” movement from John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme.

Friday, November 19, 8 p.m.: The final recital of the month will also be a return performance. Pianist Utsav Lal last gave an O1C concert in November of 2019. He prepared his own material, which involves synthesizing influences from the Western classical tradition, jazz, and North Indian music. While his last appearance was a solo recital, on this occasion he will be joined by instrumentalists on sarod and tabla. As was the case with his last O1C offering, the performance will be improvised.