Earplay Launches 2024 Season at Old First

Last night Earplay returned to Old First Presbyterian Church to launch this year’s season under the auspices of Old First Concerts. Unfortunately, the West Coast premiere of Yotam Haber’s “Estro Poetico—Armonico II,” the major work on the program, had to be cancelled due to the illness of conductor Mary Chun. The remainder of the program consisted of one piano solo, one duo, and two trios.

The solo pianist was Guest Artist Keisuke Nakagoshi, who began the evening with Inés Thiebaut’s “panta rhei.” His performance involved engaging with electronics. Thiebaut conceived that engagement as symbiotic, describing in her program note how piano and electronics “both need each other throughout, starting and finishing each other’s gestures and colors.” Rhei is the Ancient Greek word for “flow;” and that sense of flow was articulated clearly by Nakagoshi, making for an engaging account of contrasting sonorities.

The duo performance also featured a Guest Artist, clarinetist Matt Ingalls (known to many of us for his leadership of sfSound). He was joined by violist Ellen Ruth Rose in the world premiere performance of Miguel Chuaqui’s “Ad Hoc,” composed on an Earplay commission. The title reflected the composer’s impressions of his composition teacher Andrew Imbrie; and, to at least some extent, the music captured the spontaneous interplay of contrasting sonorities.

Both of the trios involved performances by violinist Terrie Baune and cellist Thalia Moore. For the West Coast premiere of Suzanne Sorkin’s “String Trio in Two Movements,” they were joined by Rose. Like “Ad Hoc,” this trio seemed to be driven by the interplay of contrasting sonorities and, to some extent, rhythms. It also seemed as if the composer had a conceived a structure in which lyricism would serve as the punch line.

The other trio was Kaija Saariaho’s “Light and Matter,” which inspired the title of the entire program, The Poetry of Physics. This was a piano trio, rather than a string trio, and Nakagoshi returned as pianist. The motivation behind the title was captured in a brief paragraph that the composer wrote by way of introduction:

I wrote this piece in New York, while watching from my window the changing light and colors of Morningside Park. Besides providing me with the name for the piece, perhaps that continuous transformation of light on the glinting leaves and the immobile trunks of the solid trees became the inspiration for the musical materials in this piece.

I must confess that it has been a while since my last encounter with Saariaho’s music, but this performance made for a welcome “return visit.”

In spite of last night’s obligatory “change in plans,” Earplay definitely brought its new season off to a good start.