Even in the Oddest Times (2018)
Technical Information:
2 violins, viola, cello, double bass
Duration: 18'
Premiered March 23, 2018
Statsorchesters Stuttgart
Evgeny Popov and Christian Frey, violins
Thomas Gehring, viola
Philipp Körner, cello
Manuel Schattel, double bass
Recording:
Program Note:
Commissioned by the Stuttgart Ballet, and scheduled for seven performances throughout the 2017-2018 season, Even in the Oddest Times is a piece dedicated to the choreographer, Fabio Adorisio. Through moments of clarity and calm in a persistently entropic, calamitous turbulence, this work illustrates the sense of direction and purpose one seeks in a personal odyssey. Elements such as extreme dynamism, irregular pulse changes, and varied texture are manipulated to capture the arbitrary, unforeseeable flow of emotions and events, whether it is absolute tranquility or utter chaos. Inevitably and repeatedly being plunged into states of disorienting confusion, then unmistakable lucidity, the listener must dance with a continual realism as the piece reaches a provocative, perhaps metaphorically temporary denouement.
– Nicky Sohn