Cool Music - Clear Water

Venue: San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Date: Mon February 4, 2013 8:00pm
City: San Francisco
Price Range: $15 to $30
Tickets: 415/617-LCCE (5223)

Left Coast Chamber Ensemble

The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (LCCE) continues its 20th anniversary season with Cool Music – Clear Water, a program of music inspired by water, featuring George Crumb’s evocative masterpiece Voice of the Whale, Toru Takemitsu’s Toward the Sea, and water-themed selections from Debussy’s Images, along with world premieres by emerging composers Eun Young Lee, Jen Wang, and Ramteen Sazegari.

George Crumb’s evocative 20th-century masterpiece Voice of the Whale for Three Masked Players was inspired by the singing of the humpback whale and composed for electric flute, electric cello and amplified piano suggesting “a larger rhythm of nature and a sense of suspension in time.” To further explore the expansive themes of water and nature, Left Coast has commissioned Eun Young Lee and Jen Wang to write companion pieces to the Crumb. Both new works, composed for flute, cello, and piano, will receive their world premieres at the concert.

Cool Music – Clear Water also includes Toru Takemitsu’s Toward the Sea, an overtly political and philosophical piece composed as a contribution to Greenpeace, protesting the hunting of endangered whales. The composer viewed the sea as a "spiritual domain" and cited Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick: "Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries...and he will infallibly lead you to water...Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are wedded together." Left Coast commissioned composer Ramteen Sazegari to create a companion piece to the Takemitsu. Sazegari’s new work Lattice for guitar and flute will be premiered. Water-themed selections from Debussy’s Images complete the program.

These concerts are made possible with special grants from the Zellerbach Family Foundation and the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation