Even in the Oddest Times (2018)
Staatsorchesters Stuttgart
Evgeny Popov, violin I; Christian Frey, violin II; Thomas Gehring, viola; Philipp Körner, cello; Manuel Schattel, contrabass
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.