Santa Fe concert explores old, new
Serenata of Santa Fe will explore the “Old, New, Borrowed and Blue” of chamber music at 7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 19.
The concert for woodwinds and piano at Santa Fe’s First Presbyterian Church includes works by composers Jennifer Higdon (the 2015 Santa Fe Opera premiered her opera “Cold Mountain”) and Beethoven.
Serenata artistic director Pamela Epple got the idea for the title from a piece by composer John Steinmetz. The musicians will perform his “What’s Going On, for Woodwind Quintet” (2018), a piece they co-commissioned for its regional premiere.
“He’s a living composer who has a lot of thoughts about what he’s doing here,” Epple said with a laugh. “Ever since he’s arrived on the planet he’s tried to figure out what’s going on. One of the ways he does this is through composing.”
“It kind of emerges in a bluesy way,” she continued. “The title of that introduction is ‘Loss.’ It’s how to handle the ongoing damage to the natural world. I felt he had pulled a lot of techniques from other traditions. It sounds very Native American to me.”
The Higdon piece is “Legacy for flute & piano” (1999).
“You hear her name everywhere now,” Epple said. “She taught herself to play the flute at age 15. She didn’t get into composing until she was in college. It’s a beautiful flute and piano solo work. She poses the question where does mourning begin and end.”
The concert will open with 1950s composer Wallingford Riegger’s
Concerto for Piano and Woodwind Quintet, op. 53.
“He’s well thought of as a well-organized composer,” Epple said. “It’s really more on the cusp of being 12-tone. It’s very aggressive and rhythmic and clear.”
Serenata has played the work twice before, Epple added.
“It’s really evocative to me of the ’50s.”
The concert will close with Beethoven’s Piano Quintet, op. 16 in E-flat major.
The composer penned the piece in 1796, when he was just 26.
“Every wind player in the world knows this piece,” Epple said. “He modeled it after a wonderful masterpiece by Mozart.”