Serenata of Santa Fe to perform ‘Vanishing Wake’
“Vanishing Wake” describes the ebb and flow of time as it streams and ripples like water.
Serenata of Santa Fe will perform a concert of the same title with works by Alan Hovhaness, Maurice Ravel and contemporary British composer Thomas Adès at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 27, at First Presbyterian Church in Santa Fe. The musicians will debut the program at 10:30 a.m. the same day at Chatter at the Las Puertas Event Center.
The program will open with 20th century American composer Alan Hovhaness’ Bagatelle, op. 30.
“He began composing as soon as he could read music, at age 4,” said Serenata artistic director and oboist Pamela Epple.
Hovhaness was an organist, whose music highlights the harmonic feel of his instrument.
Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello (1922) is a tribute to Claude Debussy, who died in 1918.
“They were rivals,” Epple said. “His publisher asked him to dedicate a piece to Debussy.
“It’s very different. There are lots of elements of jazz; it’s really Impressionism. All the walls were being broken. It’s the Roaring ’20s.’ It’s the ‘Great Gatsby’ kind of sensibility. It has a lot of color.”
The London-born Thomas Adès penned his Four Quarters in 2010, echoing the movement of time.
The opening movement, “Nightfalls,” ticks like clockwork, Epple said.
“It’s hypnotic,” she said. “It highlights the darkness of night and the strange noises we might hear.”
The work ends with the elusive “The Twenty-fifth Hour.”
“It’s like the impossible hour,” Epple said. “It’s so fresh; it’s like the whimsical time of day.”
Epple chose the concert title to reflect the fluidity of the music.
“A lot of the music is natureinspired,” she said. “There’s a real ebb and flow.”