Violin virtuoso Mark Menzies introduces five pieces as part of Machine Project’s concert/discussion/presentation series “Everybody Loves Difficult Music”. The performance will be followed by an informal conversation with Mr Menzies on the role of difficulty in the music he performs.
The five contemporary pieces each explore a different way difficulty may manifest in a composition for solo violin/viola. The program ranges from the overload of Brian Ferneyhough’s “Intermedio alla ciacconia” (often touted as a prime example of new complexity), to the spacious (though by no means uncomplicated) psychological projections of Roger Reynolds’s “Kokoro”. In between is Lucky Mosko’s gorgeous Bow-Vine Song (complicated under the surface!), Chris Burns’s viola solo “Shuttle” and the cute side of new complexity, Michael Finnissy’s creative transcription of an American folk song “All the Trees, They Are So High.”
Minds will be blown.