Kondo, Kurtág, Rzewski

[nec] shivaree, the NEC avant-garde ensemble directed by Stephen Drury, is the attack wing of NEC's new music program, performing both at NEC and at such venues as New York's The Stone.

For its first concert of the season, the group presents works by Gyorgy Kurtág and two composers, Jo Kondo and Frederic Rzewski, who have been resident at NEC's Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice. All three have left their mark on many previous new music concerts at NEC.

Kondo Falling
Kayleigh Miller, Marina Moore, viola; Christopher Lim, electric piano; Peter Ferretti, bass

Kurtág Scenes from a Novel
Adrienne Arditti, soprano; Nicholas Tolle, cimbalom; Amy Galluzzo, violin; Edward Kass, bass

Rzewski Attica and Coming Together
"Gradient Us," Kathleen LaFleur, director; Benjamin Vickers, conductor; with David Prum, speaker
Alicia Mielke, flute; John Diodati, clarinet; Jay Hutchinson, bass clarinet; Kathleen LaFleur, tenor saxophone; Jason Belcher, baritone horn; Kayleigh Miller, viola; Stefan Koim, guitar; David Goodchild, bass

In 1971, when Frederic Rzewski (in photo) returned to the United States after more than a decade of working in Europe, Attica State Prison in upstate New York was the site of a riot that became a touchstone for the era's political discourse. Rzewski's Coming Together is a setting of letters from Sam Melville, one of the Attica inmates who is believed to have been killed by a National Guard sharpshooter just after the riot ended. The text for Attica comes from former Attica inmate Richard X. Clark. Most discussion of these works centers on a long out-of-print recording, so don't miss this opportunity to hear them together in concert!

The Kurtág suite, coached by Stephen Drury and John Heiss for tonight's performance, is based on texts by Russian/Hungarian poet Rimma Dalos, and contains overt references to music of both Mahler and Schnittke—two composers who will be heard in juxtaposition on November 15. Here is one of Dalos's micro-poems:

Nakedness
I cover my soul
with a fig-leaf
and flee paradise.