Saturday May 11 * 4pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

Listening From Darkness is a program of two 30 minute works: From Darkness We Awaken by Michael Malis, and Listening for Bells by Harriet Steinke. Both pieces rely heavily on improvisation, empathy, and deep listening, striking different but complementary tones. Steinke’s Listening for Bells explores recursive textures through improvisation, leaving much up to the performers. This program features the cellist taking several solo improvised moments while being supported by the ensemble.

Listening For Bells Program Note:
Harriet Steinke’s Listening for Bells explores recursive textures through improvisation, leaving much up to the performers through the choice of minimalist cells. It’s a 40-minute continuous work that has been described as a “musical sandbox” — communal, playful, bright, searching, gritty, and open-ended. Its playful, childlike joy has a payoff — both the performers and the audience find themselves buzzing as they listen for, and eventually hear, “bells.”

From Darkness We Awaken Program Note:
Malis’s From Darkness We Awaken strikes a moodier and more introspective tone. This 30-minute continuous work was written as Malis was preparing to become a father, and features prepared piano alongside the core ensemble. It finds its expressive language through a dense thicket of otherworldly sounds, cascading horizons of resonance, and knotty spiraling rhythms. It blurs the lines between improvisation and composition, asking the players to bring their emotional cores to bear in this introspective work.

Virago is a new voice in classical music. Marked by intense chemistry and resistance to creative norms, Virago melds free improvisation and contemporary chamber music into a contagious headspace of out-of-the box expression. This unusually instrumented quartet improvises through collaborations with composers, audience members, visual artists, and musicians across genres, marking the path for the future of chamber music.