RAM Presents: "Perceptions of Beauty"

RAM Players

In this program of music for clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and piano, RAM composers explore the elusive concept of beauty. With "Talkback V" for cello and computer, Guy Barash explores new playing techniques, enhanced timbre and other sonic features that are characteristic of the cello by magnifying subtle nuances of the instrument and bringing them to the foreground. "Talkback", Barash says, "just like in online media, is a response to something more substantial: western tradition, the canon. It is smaller but often as significant as it is a sincere manifestation of the zeitgeist." Wang Jie's "Nose On Fire" for clarinet and piano explores both instruments' beauty in virtuosity and companionability. David Fetherolf's "TRIO" for bass clarinet, violin, and viola deals with motivic development somewhat influenced by analytical cubism. Gilbert Galindo's "Echoes of the Divine" for violin, viola, cello, and piano pits expressive yearnings amidst a seemingly static sonic background, utilizing the basic textures of melody, accompaniment, and chorale. Another piano quartet on the program, "That of which I speak has all, all passed away" this time by Frances White hints at a mysterious, unknowable narrative. The title of White's work is a line taken from a poem by the tragic Roma poet Papusza.