Talea Ensemble Performs EXPLORING HOME at Church of St. Luke & St. Matthew

 Talea Ensemble will kick off its 2024-2025 season with a program titled Exploring Home on Saturday, September 20, 2024 at 7:30 p.m. at theChurch of St. Luke & St. Matthew.

Exploring Home celebrates the centennial of Italian avant-garde composer Luigi Nono with a spotlight on his work, Guai ai gelidi mostri. The program examines the concept of home within our universe, our surroundings, and our bodies as Nono’s work is performed alongside music by Chaya Czernowin, Claudia Jane Scroccaro, and Marcos Balter. 

Talea Executive Director and bassoonist, Adrian Morejon, said, “In Talea's continued search for a new home, we have considered what a "home" means to any of us. This program acknowledges the different facets of "home," exploring the ways in which sound deepens our awareness within ourselves and our own bodies (Scroccaro and Balter), our awareness of sound within the space around us (Nono), and our awareness of the universe (Czernowin).”

Chaya Czernowin’s Fast Darkness iii (moonwords) (2022), for flute, clarinet, piano, and string trio, is part of a trilogy of pieces that capture the sense of bewilderment and imagination of the worlds that exist between sleeping and waking. The composer calls it a “virtuosic, wild, and overgrown exploration,” capturing the energy of constant exploration of the universe around us. 

Claudia Jane Scroccaro’s I sing the body electric (2020) for double bass and electronics takes its title from a Walt Whitman poem and grew from the composer’s research with double bassist Florentin Ginot on the sensory interactions between the musician’s body, the instrument, and electronics. 

We carry our homes within us which enables us to fly (2015) by Marcos Balter for flute, clarinet, trumpet, violin, viola, cello acknowledges the practice of vocalizing as a spiritual, communal, and personally reflective practice. It incorporates Yorubá chant used in Umbanda and Candomblé ceremonies in Brazil, passed around the musicians of the ensemble. 

Finally, in celebration of Luigi Nono’s centennial, Talea performs Guai Ai Gelidi Mostri for two contraltos, flute, clarinet, tuba, viola, cello, double bass and live electronics. The piece experiments with the relationship between sound and space by using speakers to redistribute each musician’s sound around the room, giving rise to new combinations and ways of perceiving sound. 

The concert comes just days before Talea makes its debut as part of its Talea Ambassadors initiative at the International Pharos Contemporary Music Festival in Nicosia, Cyprus in a program that includes world premieres by Cypriot composers George Christofi and Andreas Tsiartas. Throughout the season, Talea will continue its new Talea Ambassadors initiative, a hybrid residency spotlighting composers from a different country or region each season through performance, podcast interviews, discussion, and other content highlighting the work and creative processes of partner composers. The Talea Ambassadors program debuted in June 2024 with a concert at New York’s West End Theatre titled Aux Étoiles, featuring works by France-based composers. 

Talea returns to St. Paul & St. Andrew United Methodist Church on Saturday, December 7, 2024 at 7:30 p.m. for a holiday presentation of Jon Deak’s Passion of Scrooge. 

Talea is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. The Talea Ensemble's 2024-25 season projects are supported in part by the Alice M. Ditson Fund, Amphion Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, and generous donors like you. Talea’s season is also made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

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