Description:

Ben Bolter, conductor

The Contemporary Music Ensemble’s first program of the year features works by three of the world’s preeminent living composers: Timo Andres, Missy Mazzoli, and Felipe Lara. Andres and Mazzoli are known for their genre-bending styles, melding elements of postminimalism, indie music, and electronica; Lara has received acclaim for his brilliant and technically challenging works. Andres describes his Checkered Shade as “a gradual zoom outward” in which small, repeated
rhythmic figures develop into larger ideas. Mazzoli’s emotional In Spite of All This is a rhythmic, rock-infused rumination capturing “the vulnerability, anger, compassion, and optimism” of a world grappling with terrorism and war. Composed for large ensemble spread throughout a venue, Lara’s Fringes features waves of drones, buzzes, hums, and plinks passed among musicians across the performance space.