Hub New Music (from left): Meg Rohrer, Michael Avitabile, Gleb Kanasevich, Jesse Christeson. Clay Larsen photograph
Hub New Music: Requiem for the Enslaved, Gardner Museum, Oct. 9
Carlos Simon’s music keeps finding its way to Boston. The BSO performed Simon’s Motherboxx Connection at Tanglewood this summer, and repeated it for this season’s gala. Another BSO commission comes in February.
Simon also has a close relationship with the intrepid chamber ensemble Hub New Music. As part of the ongoing Sunday concert series at the Gardner Museum, HNM and an expanded cast of musicians will give the live premiere of Simon’s Requiem for the Enslaved this weekend.
The work, composed after Simon took a teaching post at Georgetown University, recalls a hideous moment in that school’s history: the 1838 sale of 272 humans into slavery, in order to raise money for the university. Simon, who had previously composed for HMN, immediately thought of the unusual ensemble for the project.
“We met Carlos in 2017, when he wrote When Two or Three Are Gathered for us,” says HNM executive director Michael Avitabile. “That was our first project with him, and then we toured it to Japan. Carlos came with us. We bonded there, and we’ve been scheming on how to work together since.”
Simon supports HMN—Avitabile (flute), Jesse Christeson (cello), Gleb Kanasevich (clarinets), and Meg Rohrer (violin/viola)—with trumpeter Jared Bailey (aka MK Zuu). Spoken word text was written and is performed by Marco Pavé, with the composer on piano.
“It definitely has elements of a traditional Requiem,” Avitabile says. “It’s not an orchestra, but it still has this orchestral resonance, and quality. Some movements are traditional, but it’s peppered through with jazz, spoken word, and spirituals, amalgamated into a new form.
“It is heavy and reflective, but so much is also about the afterlife, a higher plane,” Avitabile says. “It’s as optimistic as it is mourning.”
Hub New Music, with Marco Pavé, trumpeter MK Zuu and composer/pianist Carlos Simon, performs Simon’s Requiem for the Enslaved on Oct. 9 at the Gardner Museum.
Chamber Music Events, Oct. 7–11
Pianist Wayman Chin, dean emeritus at Longy, gives a solo recital—Songs of Lament, Songs of Hope—in Pickman Hall on 10.6. Music of Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann. Castle of Our Skins continues a hectic fall calendar, concluding its BU residency at the College of Fine Arts on Oct. 7 with a free program of sonatas written by George Walker, part of BU CFA’s Walker at 100 series.
The Cherry Street Players—Allison-Yoshie Eldredge (cello), Emil Altschuler (violin) and Thomas Pandolfi (piano)—perform Schoenfield, Piazzolla and Felix Mendelssohn at Newton’s Allen Center in Newton Oct. 7. Joshua Peckins continues an active solo season Oct. 9 at First Church in Cambridge (music of Bach, Shirish Korda, others). The long-running Piano Masters series continues 10.11 in Seully Hall at BoCo with Ching-Yun Hu (all-Liszt, no B minor).
Sarah Bob, founding artistic director of New Gallery Concert Series. “I love the idea of confronting problems, and creating a better balance.” Ling Wen Tsai photograph
New Gallery Concert Series, Longy’s Pickman Hall, Oct. 14
“It’s the most traditional thing we’ve done in three years,” says Sarah Bob about Begin Here, the upcoming New Gallery Concert Series program Oct. 14 at Longy. “We’ve done things virtually, or where people were walking around looking at the artwork. In a weird way, making videos in the pandemic was more obvious. We became partners with Longy in 2019, but this is us still figuring out the space.”
NewGal programs are always collaborative, polymath. This performance centers around songstress Singer Mali, who composed two of the works on the program, and mixed media artist April Clay. Bob will perform on piano, including a solo work by Michael Fiday. The Sheffield Chamber Players join in, and the concert also features multiple works by Ukrainian composers.
“I love the idea of confronting problems, and creating a better balance,” Bob says. “Each one of us has this connection we can tap into. Our audience never knows what it’s going to get, but there’s a trust. They know it will be filled with high quality and compassionate people—voices that matter.”
The New Gallery Concert Series performs Begin Here on Oct. 14 at Longy’s Pickman Hall.
Chamber Music Events, Oct. 13–16
Guitarist Aaron Larget-Caplan continues with part 4 the New Lullaby commissioning series (including work by Stefanie Lubkowski this time) in the Uphams Corner BPL branch (10.13, 5:30 p.m.). Blue Heron continues its broad survey Ockeghem@600 Oct. 15 at First Church Cambridge. Gardner Sundays continue 10.16 with pianist Christopher Taylor, part 3 of a Beethoven/Liszt transcription cycle (symphonies 6 and 7). Terezin Music Foundation Gala on the 16th includes pianist Jonathan Biss, Arneis Quartet and Coro Allegro.
Additionally, Collage New Music opens its 50th anniversary season at Killian Hall Oct. 16 with multiple commissions, including Harbison and Read Thomas.
NOTED: The Boston Chamber Music Society premiered Scott Wheeler’s piano sextet at Jordan Hall on Oct. 2, opening its 40th season. Wheeler cites numerous origins for the piece, but creates a five-movement work entirely in his own language. Each movement sounded like a miniature fable. The lyrical second wouldn’t leave the brain for hours.
I wasn’t reviewing, so I didn’t study, but the entire program had real energy, and was performed with purpose. The two other pieces—Beethoven string quintet (with 2nd viola, Op. 29) and the Franck F minor piano quintet—were similarly curious.
I couldn’t hear much reason for the double violas in the Beethoven; just make it the Op. 18, no. 7 string quartet. And I could not make consistent sense of the piano part in Franck’s quintet. Another possible string quartet, and a beauty. But the piano part sounded like it belonged to a different piece.
Wheeler’s sextet—oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, bass and piano—used every one of these players to great advantage. Unusual instrumentation? Sure, but we still want to hear it again.