May Issue

Hello ADORNO friends,

Thanks for joining us for our Bang on a Door (no) concert in April. On May 18th and 19th, we will wrap up our season with a number-crunching concert curated by our bassist, Bill Everett, in “101″. The program will feature works by composers that have been inspired by math and numbers with pieces by Charles Wuorinen, Iannis Xenakis, Conlon Nancarrow, and Tamar Diesendruck. To hear some of what this concert will be like, be sure to check out our youtube video here of Nancarrow’s Player Piano studies in his wacky, discombobulated “boogie woogie”. Recommend other related videos about our program to us, and we’ll add them onto our site! Read on further about our featured composers in this month’s issue.

Also coming up, the group will present selected works by students at SF State University on May 8th. As part of ADORNO’s residency at SF State, students had the opportunity to work with ADORNO members in their studies. We are excited to be working with these hard-working aspiring musicians. Please join us in support!

Warm regards,

Cynthia Mei
Artistic Director

101

May 18 Monday 1pm
Knuth Hall Creative Arts Building
Admission: FREE

May 19 Tuesday 8pm
Berkeley Chamber Performances
Berkeley City Club
2315 Durant Avenue, Berkeley
Admission: $20 General

The relationship between numbers and music has long inspired many composers, from Bach to Wuorinen. ADORNO presents music imbued with the spirit of ratios, puzzles, fractal geometry, and other mathematic theory.

Nancarrow is best remembered for the pieces he wrote for the player piano. He was one of the first composers to use musical instruments as mechanical machines, making them play far beyond human performance ability. His music has a mathematical beauty and elegance that happily coexists with musical expressiveness and a puckish sense of humor. ADORNO features a transcription of one of his “player piano” works for ensemble. Charles Wuorinen’s work Eleven Short Pieces, uses exactly 101 notes and Tamar Diesendruck’s work is inspired by Sudoku puzzles. Iannis Xenakis’s algorithmic work, Morsima-Amorsima, was created with the use of a complex computer program for acoustical instruments.

PROGRAM:

Tamar Diesendruck Sudoku Variations for solo piano
Iannis Xenakis Morsima-Amorsima for violin, cello, bass and piano
Charles Wuorinen Eleven Short Pieces for Violin and Vibraphone
Charles Wuorinen Spinoff for violin, bass, and congas
Iannis Xenakis Rebonds for solo percussion
Conlon Nancarrow - Player Piano No. 34 arranged for String Trio

Program curated by Bill Everett
Note: May 18th concert is an abbreviated concert of the above program.