Ensemble for These Times – In Motion – Friday, November 8 at 8 pm
In Motion
Ensemble for These Times
Margaret Halbig, piano
with guests Laura Reynolds, English horn & oboe; Lylia Guion, violin; Megan Chartier, cello
please join us for a pre-concert talk with composers Mary Bianco, Vivian Fung, and Ursula Kwong-Brown, moderated by E4TT’s Brennan Stokes at 7:30
Mary Bianco Oboe Meets Piano World Premiere
Ursula Kwong-Brown And I Made My Own Way, Deciphering That Fire World Premiere
Darian Donovan Thomas ubi lux floret World Premiere
Benjamin Britten Moto Perpetuo from Cello Sonata, Op. 65 (1961)
York Bowen Moto Perpetuo from Suite Mignonne, Op. 39 (1957)
Lisa Bielawa Synopsis No. 10: I Know This Room So Well (2009) for solo English horn
Vivian Fung Ominous Machine (2020-21) for piano trio
Sage Shurman Composure (2020-21) for piano trio
Zhou Tian Majestic Bells (2022) for solo piano
Award-winning SF new music chamber group Ensemble for These Times (E4TT) opens its 17th season with In Motion, a musical conversation around motion, featuring three commissioned World Premieres by exciting emerging California composer Ursula Kwong-Brown, Darian Donovan Thomas, and Mary Bianco, plus Perpetuo mobile movements by 20th century British composers Benjamin Britten and York Bowen and music by Lisa Bielawa, Vivian Fung, emerging composer Sage Shurman, and Zhou Tian. There will be a pre-concert talk with composers Kwong-Brown and Bianco. Winners of The American Prize for Chamber Music Performance, Ensemble for These Times focuses on underrepresented and unheard musical voices, particularly women composers. The group has performed internationally at the Krakow Culture Festival (2016 and 2022), Conservatorio Teresa Berganza in Madrid (2017), was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Budapest (2014) and made its international debut in Berlin (2012). E4TT has released four award-winning albums, The Guernica Project, Surviving: Women’s Words, Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan, and The Hungarians: from Rozsa to Justus, with its fifth album, Emigres & Exiles in Hollywood, just out on Centaur Records in July 2024.