Machine Project

Mark Menzies
Episode One of Everybody Loves Difficult Music, a music and discussion series
Saturday Feb 4th 8:30pm
Machine Project
1200 D North Alvarado Street, Los Angeles, CA 90026
213 483 8761

Free

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 over-load 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’ Kokoro. In between is Lucky Mosko’s gorgeous Bow-vine song (complicated under the surface!), Chris Burns’ 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.

Residing in the United States since 1991, Mark Menzies has established an important, world-wide reputation as a new music violist and violinist. He has been described in a Los Angeles Times review, as an ‘extraordinary musician’ and a ‘riveting violinist.’ At 35 years, his career as a viola and violin virtuoso, chamber musician and advocate of contemporary music, has seen performances in Great Britain, Germany, France, Austria, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, New Zealand and across the United States, including a series of appearances at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

Mark Menzies is renowned for performing some of the most complex scores so far written and he has been personally recommended by composers such as Brian Ferneyhough, Roger Reynolds, Michael Finnissy, Vinko Globokar, Philippe Manoury, Elliott Carter, Liza Lim, Christian Wolff, Richard Barrett and Sofia Gubaidulina