This week we explore somber works inspired by Beckett and Dürer, contrasting Charles Dodge’s speech-synthesized realization of Beckett’s play Cascando with Trevor Bača's new rendition of Stirrings Still for narrator and string quartet. We follow the Irish connection to Donnacha Dennehy's new piano concerto, while a Harrison Birtwistle clarinet concerto revisits a Dürer allegorical engraving. The late Phill Niblock works with multitracked bass clarinets, while Geof Bradfield and Ben Goldberg lead a double-clarinet quartet, and Wadada Leo Smith and Angelika Niescier offer their own all-star trios. We celebrate Ned Rothenberg’s cross-cultural music for his 70th birthday, while revisiting Morton Feldman’s Orchestra for its 50th. A new solo cello work by Salvatore Sciarrino flirts with silence, while Ming Tsao adds a dissonant third line to Bach’s Two-Part Inventions. Cheer-Accident unveils their first live album ever, and the little-known Elsa Barraine gets an overdue premiere recording.
