Cultural Clippings: MOSA's 10th Season Opens Sunday 10/23

FREE EVENT
Open End: Modern Works and In-the-Now Improvisations
Sunday, October 23, 2011 / 5 PM DIRECTIONS

178 Bennett Avenue

at 189th Street

Washington Heights, NYC

1 Train to 191st St

A Train to 190th St

M100 & Bx 7 bus to 189th

The "unusually adept contemporary music specialists" (The New Yorker) of Open End return to MOSA to perform new works, brand-new works, and works as-yet uncomposed. The program features the world premiere of Four Bagatelles for Piano Quintet by Jesse Benjamin Jones, along with music by Elliott Carter, Olivier Messiaen, Charles Ives, and several free improvisations, made in the moment by the group itself.

​PROGRAM:
Olivier Messiaen -- Pièce pour piano et quatuor à cordes (1991)
Improvisation #1
Charles Ives -- “Thoreau” from Piano Sonata no. 2, Concord Mass. (1840-1860)
Elliott Carter -- Duettino, for violin and cello (2008)
Improvisation #2
Improvisation #3
Andrew Waggoner -- Catenary, for cello and piano (2007)
Shulamit Ran -- Perfect Storm, for viola solo (2010)
Improvisation #4
Jesse Benjamin Jones -- Four Bagatelles, for piano quintet (2011 - World Premiere / Open End commission)
About the ensemble:
Open End was formed in 2004, the brainchild of several interconnected musical friendships. Equally committed to new chamber music, particularly by composers with no easily-pegged stylistic affiliations, and to free improvisation, the ensemble is made up of players well-known in other group contexts whose collective experience spans the whole of Western instrumental literature, from the oldest to the newest. Essential to the Open End mission is the reclaiming of improvisation as the birthright of all musicians. Audiences at Open End concerts come to think of spontaneous creation as being part of a natural, ongoing dialogue between performers, composing in the moment, and a written body of work that continues to expand, to transform. At home in venues from galleries and living rooms to concert halls, Open End seeks nothing less than to engage audiences in an experience that is wonderful, intimate, challenging and beautiful. Open End gave its premiere concerts in New York City in 2005 and has since performed in New York, Syracuse, New Orleans, Florence and Strasbourg. More on Open End can be found at www.openendensemble.com.