Irreverence Group Music 2016 Gala Concert at Carnegie Hall
On Monday, March 28, 2016, 7:30 PM, at Carnegie Hall in New York City, Irreverence Group Music celebrated the album's release of alternative singer Radmila Lolly. The concert premiered works by New York based Colombian composer Julián De La Chica: String Quartet No. 1 Op. 7 performed by the cutting edge Scorchio Quartet and Four Short Stories at the Standard Hotel Op. 6 performed by Tenor José Heredia. De La Chica, a post minimalist, takes on the challenge of exploring different ways of listening to the world.
Tenor Jose Heredia, Scorchio Quartet, Special guests (from the Young New Yorkers' Chorus - YNYC)
Elisa Nikoloulias - Soprano & Anthony Majewski - Bass, Michael Kerschner - Conductor &
Julian De La Chica, during the “World Premiere” of Four Short Stories at the Standard Hotel Op. 6
Photo by Eugene Manning
Program Notes:
The modern age is all about saturation. The music of Julián De La Chica takes on the challenge of exploring different ways of listening to the world. Listening to this perspective can be daunting to the contemporary ear. The notion of complexity as synonymous with Quality, the saturation of the sound landscape and productions that represent the so-called post-post-symphonic great culture deafens us ... why? The reason lies in our need for saturation, rational self-complacency in excess, in the spectacle where nudity is not enough; where open flesh and blood, even death, do not sate us …
The works gathered in this concert tie a sole string. They are the anatomy of a knot, as in the Japanese art of shibari literally "bind" the saturated body, and this bond, releasing the possibility of sensuality and sophisticated listening. In the first half of the concert, a selection of Mr. De La Chica's works for piano: Prelude Op. 8 No. 1 (Premiere) and Nocturnal & Circular Images Op. 5, No.1 Illumination and No. 6, Retrospective (Included in his latest album: Nocturnal & Circular Images Op. 5 - IGM, 2015) accompany the premiere of his String Quartet No. 1 Op. 7 (V Cycles) performer by the Scorchio Quartet, known by its versatility and sound in music ranging from Philip Glass to David Bowie.
Mr. De La Chica composed a piece for a string quartet that communes with his Cycle Op. 5. This work does not speak of the Colombian composer living in New York City; it is a pilgrimage. The piano and the string quartet are traces of this journey of identity which is, in short, destruction. The inner sound, is the deepest for those who create from the musical abyss. Sound culture around us weaves nets like mermaid songs and Penelope mantles ... he who seeks his sound needs to choose; and home is not always Ithaca. Mr. De La Chica, as Samuel Beckett, knows that companionship is being "alone" and, as in the nighttime images of William Blake, speaks of the unfathomable path with the smallest gesture of a human hand.
Scorchio Quartet plays
De La Chica: String Quartet No. 1 Op. 7
Photo by Eugene Manning
The Four Short Stories at the Standard Hotel Op.6, written for string quartet, two singers and soprano/tenor soloist, are based on short stories written by the composer during his first months living in New York. The Scorchio Quartet and José Heredia explore the possibility of the stories as fractures where light eventually enters. Anthony Majewski and Elisa Nikoloulias from the Young New Yorkers’ Chorus perform voices making "noise", evoking the soundscape of everyday repetition. The set is a look at this meeting place where everyone is alone. The big city gives them a break when they simply sit and listen as ephemeral flowers on a table at the Standard Hotel.
Composer Julian De La Chica
opened the concert, performing works
of his piano cycle Op. 5
Photo by Eugene Manning
Präludium: (Aufruf) Gesegnete Dunkelheit and Ave Maria, as in Mr. De La Chica's Mandala cycle (Album Minimal Aggression - IGM, 2015) the ascetic exercise to which the composer is subjected, imposes the maximum restriction of means, looking for a minimum that is full of possibility, concludes as it initiates, taking the aegis of cycles Op. 5, 6 and 7. The image of a room in the middle of nowhere, and absolute self-awareness in that one room, are the essence of these works.
Radmila Lolly closed the concert
singing Gesegnete Dunkelheit
with composer De La Chica on piano
Photo by Eugene Manning
The concert is based on a single principle: think saturation from the possibility of a "Trans-minimal-aggression". Mr. De La Chica considers himself to be an "experimenter", not a "composer". However, he creates a micro-universe from atomic naked sound. The skin is a set of pores traversed by particles of world. The music of Mr. De La Chica explores the liminal atomic spaces between these pores and the world.
Susan Campos - Fonseca, PhD
Musicologist and composer