Within | Without Limit: Music for Cello

Within | Without Limit: Music for Cello is a series of two solo performances from internationally acclaimed musician Charles Curtis. The two programs feature delicate yet visceral works that challenge—and reward—the listener, opening up new musical landscapes both outside and within the work.

The second program takes full advantage of the generous acoustic properties of the Concert Hall while also showcasing repertoire that asks the listener to attend to subtle processes of transformation and speculation. Composer Carolyn Chen’s Rara Avis (2015) draws from the early-17th century piece Woodycock—anonymous in both authorial attribution and in its peculiar evocation of an elusive woodland bird. Éliane Radigue’s Occam V (2012) continues her series of solo and ensemble pieces Occam Ocean, written for individual instrumentalists; each performer’s technique and relationship to their instrument provide the foundation for the musical material. Curtis’s own Unfinished Song (1998), a work for multiple cellos and sine waves, is an immersive, swirling, and contrapuntal work influenced by the harmonic world of alternate tunings, renaissance music, South Asian raga-style improvisation, and the song structures of popular music.

Program

• Woodycock (17th c.)
• Anonymous
• Rara Avis (2015)
• Carolyn Chen
• Occam V (2012)
• Éliane Radigue
• Hélas! et comment (14th c.)
• Guillaume de Machaut
• C’est force, faire (14th c.)
• Machaut
• Unfinished Song (1998)
• Charles Curtis