Événement

Explorations Vol. 7: A Little Night Music

NTQ is kicking off our 2024-2025 Season with Explorations Vol. 7: A Little Night Music. This collection of pieces grips, soothes, and marvels after dark.

While Irish composer Emma OHalloran was living in Miami, she listened to the ocean waves at night for comfort and reflection. Her Night Music ripples and whirls like the sea with a nod to Latin music and Miami Sound Machine, the mixtape that kept OHalloran company during that year abroad. LA-based Kay Rhie composed Night Blooms for mixed trio following her fathers death in 2019. Adapted for saxophone quartet, the piece tells the story of his final days in the hospital. As she watched his breathing machine expand and contract, Rhie was reminded of flowers that bloom at night and how many first-generation immigrants probably dreamed of beautiful blooms during the quiet hours when not too many people took notice. Wong Foo Jengs light/erasure draws inspiration from several art pieces and literary works that address the idea of confronting an object that was defaced, abstracted, or erased from its previous form. Wongs distortion of musical material symbolizes the disappearance of stars from the nights sky due to artificial light pollution. Öö, Estonian for night, sets an unsettled atmosphere of impending doom. Helena Tulve provides the perfect closer, in which the night is darkest before the dawn.

Reception to follow.

Program
Emma OHalloran Night Music (2014)
Kay Rhie Night Blooms (2019, rev. 2023)
Wong Foo Jeng light / erasure (2024)*#
Helena Tulve Öo (1997)

* world premiere
# commissioned by New Thread Quartet

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council On The Arts (NYSCA).