Chapel Series Concert I – The Invisible
- YIGIT KOLAT, Kav Yankıları/Echoes of Tinder for ensemble and electronics
- GEORGE CRUMB, Eleven Echoes of Autumn for violin, alto flute, cello and piano
- CHINARY UNG, Still Life after Death for amplified soprano and instruments
- REBECCA SAUNDERS, A Visible Trace for eleven soloists and conductor
“Invisible threads are the strongest ties,” Friedrich Nietzsche said. Our season opens remembering, commemorating, and empathizing with the invisible. The evening includes Yiğit Kolat’s Kav Yankıları/Echoes of Tinder, written in memory of the victims of the 1993 massacre in Sivas, Turkey of prominent intellectuals and artists by a mob of Islamic fundamentalists. The night continues with George Crumb’s Eleven Echoes of Autumn that contemplates the significance of poet Federico Garcia Lorca’s motto-quote “… and the broken arches where time suffers.” Chinary Ung’s Still Life After Death dramatically evokes a Cambodian Buddhist ritual where a monk assists a dying person to leave life behind. A Visible Trace, a piece by Rebecca Saunders, is introduced by Italian writer Italo Calvino’s statement, “The word connects the visible with the invisible thing, the absent thing, the thing that is desired or feared, like a frail emergency bridge over an abyss.” Our first concert will try to bridge that abyss through music.
ABOUT OUR GUEST COMPOSER
Read EMPATHY AND ECHOES: A Brief Conversation with Composer Yiğit Kolat on the SMO Blog.
Yiğit Kolat’s music explores the liminal frontiers of musical activity and potentialities in processing extra-musical data as musical information. The complicated political and social environment of his native Turkey is a recurring theme in his diverse output, which includes acoustic, electro-acoustic, and electronic works written for orchestra, chamber ensembles, voice, and solo instruments.
His works, described as “touching and convincing…a multi-sensory universe,” (K. Saariaho) have been recognized by a prestigious array of international organizations, including the Bogliasco Foundation (2016 Edward T. Cone Bogliasco Fellow in Music), the Tōru Takemitsu Composition Award (1st Prize, 2015), the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium (Finalist, 2013), and the Concours International de Composition Henri Dutilleux (2nd Prize, 2012).
His music has been featured throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia by leading ensembles and soloists, among them the Tokyo Philharmonic and Ryoko Aoki (Japan); Solistes de L’Orchestre de Tours, Donatienne Michel-Dansac, and Pascal Gallois (France); The Nieuw Ensemble, The Black Pencil Ensemble, and the Duo Mares (The Netherlands); Eric Wubbels, Jonathan Shames, the Talea Ensemble, and the Argento New Music Project (USA); the Presidential Symphony Orchestra of Turkey; Peter Sheppard-Skaerved and Aaron Shorr (Great Britain). His music has been broadcast by the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) and Turkish Radio Television (TRT).
Kolat earned his Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Washington, studying with Joël-François Durand.