Free event
Ben Smith piano
Patricia Auchterlonie soprano
Anonymous / Evan Johnson (USA, 1980) Medée fu en amer (2022) 4’ (World Premiere)
Evan Johnson (USA, 1980) Del maravigliarsi (2022) 11’ (World Premiere)
Anonymous / Evan Johnson (USA, 1980) Ma dame n’a pas ainsy fait a moy (2022) 2′ (World Premiere)
This programme consists of three world premiere performances of new works by Evan Johnson for soprano and piano. The central piece, Del maravigliarsi (of astonishment) sets fragments of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook musings about the motion of the human eye, in a way that is typically intricate, intimate, and insecure. Both the pianist and the singer engage in private, internal rituals; finding the tiniest gradations of difference within a soundworld of extreme quietude, seated away from each other at some distance. Surrounding this work, are two transcriptions, (similarly fragile, faded, and distant) of the same song. From different viewpoints, they explore and trace the tragic theme of fading love in the anonymous medieval ballade Medee fu en amer veritable. A programme then, which – through radically different source materials and treatments – finds beauty in things that are imperceptibly lost.
‘Two small things: a predominantly faithful rendering of one pass through the repeating sectional structure of the famous but anonymous ars subtilior ballade Medée fu en amer veritable, ending with its immortally haunting refraine to the text Ma dame n’a pas ainsy fait a moy; and, later on, a spectral echo of that same refrain.
The intermittent ticking in the piano is a question of time in every sense.’
– Evan Johnson
Produced by hcmf//
Getting There
Venue: St Paul's Hall
Accessibility: Accessibility information is available here. Further information on campus accessibility is available on the University of Huddersfield website.
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Address: Queensgate, England, HD1 3DH, United Kingdom.