SFCMP: 2nd Round of “Emerging Composers”

Last night in Herbst Theatre the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP) presented the second of two concerts based on the results of this year’s Emerging Composer Grant Program. Once again, the efforts of three of the Program’s composers were presented, all given world premiere performances. The composers and their selected works were, in “order of appearance,” as follows:

1. Gabriel Duarte DaSilva: Färgstark
2. Sofia Jen Ouyang: Burst
3. Angel Gómez Ramos: Synecdoche (Bulerías del Sentimiento Oceánico)

The selections were again performed by SFCMP musicians led by Artistic Director & Conductor Eric Dudley.

The program book identified Duarte as “one of the most prolific young Brazilian composers of his generation.” “Prolific” seemed to involve going beyond the geography of his youth, since “färgstark” is a Swedish adjective. A Google search turns up the following provided by AI Overview: “It can be used both literally to describe something with bright colors, and figuratively to describe something or someone as lively, interesting, or full of character.” That text is accompanied by an image suggesting Ingmar Bergman on a bad acid trip:

From a musical point of view, Duarte’s composition had less to do with Bergman and more in the spirit of Charles Ives. As in A Symphony: New England Holidays and much of the fourth symphony, the score is rich with an engaging diversity of sonorities. However, while Ives was often brooding, Duarte was more spirited, if not downright aggressive in some of his gestures. If “Färgstark” were to be given a title in English, then “A Young Rebel’s Guide to the Orchestra” might fit the bill.

The program note for “Burst” begins as follows: “A single being, angsty, existential, bursts into existence, and encounters the other–the collective that gradually awakens, reacts, and eventually, overpowers.” Ironically, the “single being” is a solo viola with relatively straightforward rhetoric. The “bursting” would come later as the many distinct individual voices in the ensemble encountered each other. I am not sure I would call the result “overpowering;” but it was a wildly energetic ride worth taking.

The definition of “synecdoche” was overlooked in the program book. To quote (rather than paraphrase) from its Wikipedia entry, “it is a figure of speech that uses a term for a part of something to refer to the whole.” Quite honestly, I am not quite sure how that definition was reflected by the music. What was particularly evident, however, was how, in the wake of the opening outbursts, there was a prevalent sense of reverberation across the ensemble that sustained for the duration of the performance. This is a device often encountered in electronic music, but in the setting of an instrumental ensemble it was downright spooky!

In summary, over the course of two evenings I have encountered six young composers on the rise, and I look forward to seeing where subsequent elevation will take them!