Aperture Duo – featuring violinist Adrianne Pope and violist Linnea Powell – showcases its signature blend of sonic intimacy and creative edge in a theatrical chamber music concert of contemporary works for violin and viola that includes performance art, improvision and virtuosic playing on Friday, May 29, 206, at Sierra Madre Playhouse.
The program, titled “as wave as stone,” features an array of innovative works, among them to be two by 2022 Pulitzer Prize-finalist Leilani Leilehua, a Kanaka Maoli composer, multimedia artist, curator, scholar, and educator whose work is characterized by expansive explorations of timbre. The piece takes its title from the book by philosopher/linguist Luce Irigaray from which Leilehua has woven excerpts into the score.
Also featured is the Aperture Duo-commissioned work Travelogue by Erin Rogers, which the composer wrote while touring Europe on a series of planes, trains, and buses. Pope and Powel speak, sing, recite, and even argue throughout the piece. Rogers explains, “The title is a tribute to Joni Mitchell‘s album of the same name, featuring an extensive collection of her orchestrated songs. Theatricality is built into the piece through staging, text, and actions, both players doubling as train commuters and practicing musicians, while encountering a variety of notational geography.”
The program continues with Aperture Duo preforming edge by Helmut Oehring, one of the most striking composers to emerge from East Berlin, whose experiences as a child of deaf-mute parents led to a highly original perspective on the nature of sound and communication.
Other works include 434.6 by Grammy-nominated artist Andrew McIntosh, which unfolds like a shimmering drone-like dream sequence, and Aure by Kaija Saariaho, an homage to composer Henri Dutilleux’s 95th birthday.
Aperture Duo curates fearless programs that explore new sounds, voices, and techniques through the lens of violin and viola chamber music. The Los Angeles-based ensemble, founded in 2015 by violinist Adrianne Pope and violist Linnea Powell, has been lauded for its “precision and interpretation” as well as its “distinct sense of unity and independence” (icareifyoulisten.com). Equally at home performing timeless and new music, Aperture Duo is also noted for commissioning diverse new works to expand the violin and viola duo repertoire.
For tickets ($12-$35) and information, please call 626.355.4318 or visit www.sierramadreplayhouse.org. Sierra Madre Playhouse is located at 87 West Sierra Madre Boulevard, Sierra Madre, CA 91024.