SOLI Chamber Ensemble: Nebula
$25 patio, $15 lawn
- Stephanie Key, clarinet
- Ertan Torgul, violin
- David Mollenauer, cello
- Carolyn True, piano
Steven Mackey — Prelude to the End
Robert Xavier Rodriguez — Piñata para los amantes
Alexandra Gardner — Crows
Maxim Shalygin — Angel
SOLI Chamber Enesemble's first concert of the season is "Nebula," on October 16, 2023, at the San Antonio Botanical Garden, featuring works by Ethan Wickman, Robert Xavier Rodríguez, Alexandra Gardner, and Steve Mackey, as well as a recent work by Maxim Shalygin.
Nebula are clouds of gas and heat occupying space between stars and acting as a nursery for new stars. SOLI presents four past commissions to open the season, honoring its lengthy history of giving life to new works for 30 years. Ethan Wickman's Ballads of the Borderland Suite weaves the sweeping texts of John Phillip Santos and Carmen Tafolla with personal accounts from those migrating across south Texas into a narrative of "cultural history that is at once panoramic and intimate." Robert Xavier Rodriguez's Piñata para los amantes – based on the overture to the composer's opera Frida – blends samba rhythms and Mexican folk songs, as well as American Jazz techniques. Alexandra Gardner explores life in the deserts of the Southwest in Crows, an illumination of Muscogee (Creek) Nation poet Joy Harjo's beautiful texts. Steve Mackey's Prelude to the End is influenced by Messiaen's iconic Quartet for the End of Time in its themes of mortality, restless textures, and dense harmonic paths. "Nebula" invites the listener into SOLI's musical "living room" to reflect on the themes of love, commitment, and reflection, and on how past relationships have formed who we are today.
About SOLI Chamber Ensemble
SOLI Chamber Ensemble has been giving voice to 20th- and 21st-century contemporary chamber music since 1994, mesmerizing audiences for nearly three decades with their engaging performances, ensuring the future of new music through educational initiatives, and continually renewing their commitment to the music of living composers through performances and commissions. Winner of the 2013 Chamber Music America and ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award and a 2020 Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant, SOLI continues to champion new works, new contexts, and new audiences for the music of our time.
https://solichamberensemble.com