Mark Hilliard Wilson, guitar – Totems & Reflections, pt. 2
$5-$20 donation at the door
- Mark Hilliard Wilson, guitar
- Maria Männistö, mezzo-soprano
- Sarah Bassingthwaighte, alto flute
- Rose Hashimoto, viola
- Evan Smith, tenor saxophone
Mark Hilliard Wilson will present Baker's Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Glacier (2023), a work that grew out of material from the commissioned guitar piece. It is scored for mezzo-soprano (Maria Mannisto), alto flute (Sarah Bassingthwaight), viola (Rose Hashimoto), tenor saxophone (Evan Walker), and guitar. The text for this 13-movement song-cycle is based on a poem by Craig Santos Perez. In this chamber work, the solo guitar piece inserts itself between each song, as a kind of Greek Chorus, reflecting on each song and poem.
The concert explores themes of permanence and decay, of love and loss.
The commission came from a desire to commemorate the life of Wilson's mother Celia Wilson, who passed away April 14th 2022. She was a ballet dancer, then choreographer, and Children's Theater director in San Francisco, as well as in Payette, Weiser, and Boise, Idaho. She was incandescent, living loud, large and with so much joy, though when alone with family, close friends or working with children in plays, she could be quite sober and intimate.
The theme of titanic and magnificent objects created between 60 million and 2.9 billion years ago disappearing entirely due to our present practices of living and working is a worthy subject in its own right. But it also beautifully serves as a metaphor for the incomprehensibility of losing a loved one. We know it's going to happen—to all of us—and yet it can still surprise us when the time comes. And scientists have given us so much evidence clearly indicating that we are changing the planet in ways that will make it harder, or impossible, to sustain the myriad of species and of life as we know it. Yet in the face of this imminent unfolding, we have to ask: will we be surprised when the time comes?
About Wayward Music Series
Each month, Nonsequitur and a community of like-minded organizations and artists present 10 concerts of adventurous and experimental music in the gorgeous Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center: contemporary/post-classical composition, free improvisation and the outer limits of jazz, electronic/electroacoustic music, new instruments, phonography, sound art, and other innovative musics.
https://www.waywardmusic.org/About Mark Hilliard Wilson, guitar
Mark Hilliard Wilson is an active performer, teacher, and director of the Seattle Guitar Orchestra, which he founded in 1999. As cathedral guitarist at Seattle's St. James Cathedral, he has performed there weekly since 2006. Wilson has written or arranged more than 200 works, and avidly explores new venues for the performance of classical music while addressing contemporary issues through concert programming. Music has always been everything to Wilson, from the barrel organs he heard in his childhood in Holland to the symphony orchestras in Washington, DC and country bands in Weiser, Idaho. He continues to study and embrace the wonder of new places and the creativity of the wonderful artists of every stripe in the world.
https://markhilliardwilson.com/About Maria Männistö, mezzo-soprano
https://www.seattlesymphony.org/about/meetthemusicians/theorchestra/artists/i-p/mannisto-maria
About Sarah Bassingthwaighte, alto flute
About Rose Hashimoto, viola
Violist Rose Hashimoto grew up in Seattle, lived and worked in New York City for 15 years, and recently returned to the Seattle area. Rose has performed with ensembles including A Far Cry, Shattered Glass Ensemble, the Thalia Quartet, the Aeolus Quartet, and the Argus Quartet; as a soloist with the Mannes Orchestra; and at music festivals including Icicle Creek, Birdfoot Chamber Music Festival, Manchester Summer Chamber Music, Yellow Barn, Taos, and Kneisel Hall. She played with the Experiential Orchestra on the Grammy-winning recording of Ethel Smyth’s The Prison and on A Far Cry’s Grammy-nominated album, Visions and Variations. Rose earned a B.M. from Juilliard and an M.M. and Professional Studies Diploma from Mannes College.
Rose is a dedicated educator who received Suzuki training from School for Strings in New York. She currently serves on the faculty at the Suzuki Institute of Seattle and Kaleidoscope School of Music in Issaquah. She previously taught at Lucy Moses School, the Preparatory Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College, and Harmony Program.