Earplay to Return to Concert Hall Performances

Earplayers Peter Josheff, Brenda Tom, and Thalia Moore (from the Earplay home page)

Regular readers may know that the Earplay new music ensemble managed to cope with pandemic conditions through a series of streamed offerings, which included a series of virtual galas. According to my records, the last of those galas took place this past June; and, by the first month of this year, Earplay was ready to return to physical, rather than virtual, performances. Unfortunately, the concert originally planned for January 31 had to be postponed to this autumn.

As a result, this month will mark the official return to a concert hall performance, preceding their Snapshot performance for West Edge Opera, which will take place next month. This month’s program, entitled Siren Glow, will consist of seven compositions, the earliest of which was composed in 2007. The final selection will be the winner of the 2021 Earplay Donald Aird Composers Competition, “Elusive Thoughts,” completed in 2016 by Tomasz Skweres and scored for string trio (violin, viola, cello).

There will also be two world premiere performances of works commissioned by Earplay. The earlier of these is a duo for flute and viola by Josiah Tayag Catalan entitled “Light, Smoke, and Siren Glow of Mist,” completed in 2020. The other is Emma Logan’s revision this year of her “A Certain Slant of Light,” originally composed for violin and viola in 2018.

There will also be a United States premiere of “Deriva, in margine a una lontananza, dimentica” (drift, on the edge of a distance, forget), composed by Simone Cardini in 2018 to explore the importance of avoiding stagnation in life. Instrumentation consists of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. The remaining works on the program will be “à vis,” composed by Marcos Balter for clarinet and violin in 2007, the flute solo “Homeland,” composed by Allison Loggins-Hull in 2018, and “Lickety Split,” a duo for cello and piano composed by Carlos Simon in 2015.

This program will be begin at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, March 21. As in the past, the performances will take place in the Diane and Tad Taube Atrium Theater, which is located on the fourth floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. Open seating tickets are being sold for $25. However, the first five rows in the center will be designated for preferred ticket holders. The price for those tickets will be $35. All tickets may be purchased in advance online from a Brown Paper Tickets event page. There will also be a preconcert talk beginning at 6:45 p.m.