Echoes and Embers
Clarinetist Jose Franch-Ballester and pianist David Fung present a program tittled “Echoes and Embers” exploring the intimate relationship between clarinet and piano. A concert conceived to be performed in its entirety without interruptions or applause between the works, thus creating a common thread between them that allows us to delve into the relationship of these works with each other.
The concert will open with Dorothy Chang’s Afterlight, a piece written in response to a multitude of tragedies that occurred in early 2018. The title refers not only to the word’s definition (of retrospect) but also to her own interpretation of the word afterlight: that of the “light” that remains when someone passes, in the form of memories, shared experiencies, a sense of presence even when someone is gone.
It will be followed by Jörg Widman’s Five Fragments for clarinet and piano. This work is composed in a virtuosic fashion with each movement exploring different contemporary techniques. After several pieces that dealt with the flow and mastering of a large form, Widmann (a clarinet player as well) was fascinated in 1997 by the idea of fractional pieces: reduction, scarcity and concentration.
The concert will end with a piece written by another clarinet player/composer. Mark Simpson’s Echoes and Embers explores how the quiet, delicate textures are heard in both instruments, interspersed with silences that serve both to puncture and connect material. Resonance, echoes and blurring of elements are a primary feature of this work. The material can be both an echo of something heard, a dying ember, and something that serves to have the potential to awaken and become more important.
Watch below
- Jose Franch-Ballester & David Fung perform Phantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces) Opus 73 for Clarinet and Piano by Robert Schumann.
- Jose Franch-Ballester performs music by Chatman, Faure and more.
- David Fung performs Prelude in B minor, Op. 32, No. 10 by Rachmaninoff
