“The San José Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Music Director Barbara Day Turner, gave a concert … on Sunday, March 25, that would warm the heart of anyone concerned with showing that contemporary classical music is alive, vigorous, and addressing today’s concerns,” writes David Bratman in Tuesday’s (3/29) San Francisco Classical Voice. “The bill of fare consisted of five short pieces: two first performances, one other new co-commission, another fairly recent work, and a fairly new arrangement of an older work. Three of the four newer works were by women…. Judith Shatin’s Ice Becomes Water … depicts glaciers melting through climatic warming, taking the listener through a variety of styles.… The final work and other first performance, In a State of Patterns by William Susman … was inspired by the mathematical art of Santa Clara University professor Frank Farris, who took photographs of nature scenes in California and transformed them into animations of slowly shifting, symmetrical geometric patterns…. The concert formed a good sampling of worthy music being written today, and the San José Chamber Orchestra performed it with assurance and directness.” Also on the program were Thea Musgrave’s Green, Vivian Fung’s Humanoid, and Kerry Lewis’s arrangement of Dvořák’s Silent Woods.
Posted March 30, 2018
