This Saturday, cellist Aleks Tengesdal will present Korvat Auki, a concert of commissioned new music for the cello by Vox Novus composers Whitney George, Ryan Keebaugh, and Peter Amsel, as well as compositions by Aleks Tengesdal and a work by UM-Duluth orchestra director, Jean R. Perrault, a U.S. premiere by Finnish composer Sauli Zinovjev, and a work by local (Minneapolis/St.Paul) Vox Novus composer Timothy C. Takach. Aleks is our guest blogger with a preview of the concert.
Vox Novus has become an important ongoing project for me since last spring. I posted a performer's profile on the website, stating that I was very interested in finding new scores for cello, partly to expand my repertoire, but also to find out what's being written, what new ways music is being expressed. I was hoping to get a few scores from some composers and to learn them and give a recital somewhere. My expectations were exceeded: I received around 200 scores of music. 200! I have five large binders full of this music, and I didn't get a response to the call for scores, I got a response for a call for a total library! Of course, I read through all of it and (at this time in my life), have one binder full of new music that I wish to learn and share in performance. Naturally, I expect to always be able to dig into this deep well of a repertoire and be able to find proper works for various themes and times in my live. I regret not being able to meet any of these composers, but it is a joy for me to learn the works, find their voice, and bring the music to life with my voice.
On Saturday (the 4th of April), I will be presenting some of these works - namely Poeme pour Violoncelle by Peter Amsel, The Extinction Series by Whitney George, The Ground Blurs by Minneapolis composer Timothy C. Takach, and Kontakia by Ryan Keebaugh. These are works that were specifically written for me by these composers. There are more that were written for me in particular, (as can be viewed on my Youtube channel), but the rest are works simply written with others in mind, or written with no premieres in their lifetimes! That's where I can come in!
As for the other works I will be performing, Still Around was written by my current orchestra director, Rudy Perrault (from UMD), with me in mind as well. The only premiere tonight will be a work by Finnish composer Sauli Zinovjev called Arco. I will be the first to perform this work ever! He belonged to a student's composition organization called Korvat Auki and that is where I got the inspiration for the title of this concert. It means "ears open" in Finnish. Fitting, for I have needed to have open ears, mind and heart to dig into all this wealth of music that I have received.
It is also my deep excitement to share some of my own compositions on the concert. I most likely will pull out a work I wrote in 2009 when I was studying early music at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland called Kralizec for Solo Cello. I will also share a few miniature works that I have written and called Ricercare, namely Ricercare III: Sihaya, IV: The Exulting Ones, VI. Al-tashcheth, and VII. Coirelindale. I will explain everything live with a (hopefully) interesting monologue concerning this work and others on the program!
If you can make it, I hope I can show you a very small slice of what is happening for the cello these days (from Vox Novus) and other sources! Just come with your Korvat Auki.
--Aleks Tengesdal
RSS Feed
