Duquesne Contemporary Ensemble, Invisible Patterns
| December 2, 2010 | ||
| 8:00 pm |
PNC Recital Hall
$10 Suggested Donation
Patrick Burke and David Cutler, directors.
The Duquesne Contemporary Ensemble will perform its fall concert, entitled Invisible Patterns, based in part on the novel Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino and Eight Patterns for Eight Instruments by Tom Johnson. This multimedia event will include brief readings from the novel, a lot of live music, and video by Duquesne grad student Ryan Leber. Besides the Tom Johnson work, we’ll be performing pattern-filled pieces by young composers Nico Muhly and Mason Bates, works by American icons Joan Tower and Ned Rorem, and a new version of a medieval rondeau by Guilluame de Machaut, arranged by Duquesne student Chris Jarvis.
Calvino’s novel consists of a fictional conversation between Kublai Kahn and Marco Polo, in which Marco describes the cities of the Kahn’s empire to him. Each chapter is a description of a different city— some are mundane, some are fantastical, but each description reveals something about human nature, as patterns begin to emerge. The book is hypnotic, like an incantation–like music– and each excerpt describes in some way the music that follows.