November 2, 2024, 8 p.m.
Along with Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire revolutionized music in the early 20th century. Igor Stravinsky called it “the solar plexus as well as the mind of early 20th-century music.” Schoenberg’s eerie, hyper-expressive Pierrot Lunaire (translated as Moonstruck Pierrot) is performed in the other-worldly Sprechstimme style that mixes speech and song. The performer sings precisely notated rhythms and pitches while also swooping and falling in exaggerated speech and whispers. Pierrot, the Renaissance theater ‘sad clown’ character, is at the center of the melodrama. The three sets of seven lush poems by Albert Giraud outline his emotional trajectory from love to crime to a return home.
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Jennifer Piazza-Pick, voice
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Angel Gil-Ordóñez, conductor
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Elizabeth Hill, piano
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Carrie Rose, flute / piccolo
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Cheryl Hill, clarinet / bass clarinet
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Sandy Choi, violin / viola
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Tobias Werner, cello