This weekend Symphony Number One will present the world premiere of a new work by Carolyn Chen. The concert, titled “Coming Home”, will take place at the Baltimore War Memorial – the site of the inaugural concert by the ensemble in 2015.
The events this weekend, with concerts on October 21 and 22, will include Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7, Chen’s Animalcules, and a new arrangement of the Star-Spangled Banner dedicated to The War Memorial Commission by Mark Maarder, a local veteran and composer.
Carolyn Chen is an internationally acclaimed American composer based in California. She says this about her music:
I make music to look into the inner lives of things. This can involve the exploration of social spaces (covert operations in a supermarket or blindfolded navigation of a demolished house), or the physical mechanics of everyday objects in motion (spinning tops on a timpani, or rustling heaps of everyday detritus worn as wind-chime-armor on L.A. streets). My work brings music and sound in conversation with space, text, light, and action. Whether translating Orpheus into silent tableaux vivant in rhythms of light and dark, or a Bruckner Adagio into slow-motion facial gymnastics, I mine listening habits for less-traveled paths, working with sound as a physical as well as a social experience.
Learn more about the ensemble on their website – and be sure to listen in to their recordings. Their third album, More, was recently released and includes Natalie Draper’s Timelapse Variations which was written for the ensemble.