Concert Series: Chatter at the Museum

When

All dates

Where

Description

Chatter presents four free concerts responding to the exhibitions, Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776-1976 and Vivarium: Exploring Intersections of Art, Storytelling, and the Resilience of the Living World.

August 8

A performance of two famous string quartets—and two trombone quartets! Dvorak’s “American” quartet captures Dvorak's love for the American landscape with its folk and nature-influenced writing. Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Quartet from 1931 influenced the imagination of mid-century American composers and audiences alike. The rest of this program traces a 2009 journey down the Mississippi River by contemporary composer Eve Beglarian. Beglarian found several unexpected inspirations, including the haunting sound of a water pump near the river’s headwaters, and on the other end of the trip, a page from an old, rain-soaked bible found in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. 

August 15, part of the 3^rd Thursday event, (5 to 8 p.m., performed continuously)

Musicians take a note from the Vivarium exhibition and offer themselves and their playing for a sort of scientific observation via enclosure, as they perform in different spaces throughout the museum. Carola Bauckholt’s Doppelbelichtung (“Double Exposure”) pits birdsong recordings against a live violinist’s imitation and reflection. Andy Akiho’s Stop Speaking pairs live snare drum with a computer-generated voice that speaks directly to the audience. And Dennis Johnson’s November is a three-hour solo piano work that takes meditative stillness to an extreme.  Shorter pieces will be performed several times during the 6 p.m. hour. November will begin at 5 p.m. to end around 8 p.m.; listeners will be welcome to move around the space and come and go throughout.

August 22

Chatter assembles a group of 14 musicians to perform Steve Reich’s Eight Lines. In many ways this piece represents the opposite pole of classical minimalism from Johnson’s November: the music is highly focused, rigorous, geometric, and groovy! Pianists Judith Gordon and Luke Gullickson will also perform a sampling of 20^th-century American music for two pianos, including Meredith Monk’s Ellis Island, Paul Bowles’ Sonata for Two Pianos, and Aaron Copland’s Billy the Kid.

Price