Aventa presents Gerald Barrys

Feldmans Sixpenny Editions

Aventa Ensemble
Bill Linwood - conductor

Sunday, November 17, 2013 8pm

Phillip T. Young Recital Hall (UVic School of Music, MacLaurin Building)
Tickets at the door $20/18 (Pre-concert talk 7:15pm)
John Celona/John Burke This next space (premiere)
James Rolfe As If (premiere*)
Gerald Barry Feldmans Sixpenny Editions (Canadian premiere)

Grotesque, poignant and beautiful all at once

Gerald Barrys exuberant and brilliantly monstrous music sounds like nothing else.
Rachel Beaumont, The Royal Opera House
Irish composer Gerald Barry found his inspiration for
Feldmans Sixpenny Editions from an old piano primer for
children, which was amongst the first music the composer
encountered as a child. What particularly intrigued him were
the advertisements on the cover, which gave just a few bars
of each piece. In this suite, Barry takes fragments from these
innocent sounding originals and transforms them from the
comfortingly familiar into humorous, joyful and even alarming
compositions.

Gerald Barry Steffan Hill

The premiere of This next space marks an extraordinary collaboration between two Canadian composers - John Celona (BC) and John Burke (ON). Written for a spatialized ensemble
of 15 instrumentalists, This next space features a motoric rhythmic drive with plateaus of
harmonic development.
Intrigued by the idea of vocal music with no words or voices, As If explores complex extended structures, built from deceptively simple melodies. James Rolfe states that given that
our contemporary ears are more than ever attuned to songs with words, it is also an opportunity to explore and reconceive the relationship of song to abstract instrumental music.
*Aventa gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts in the commissioning of James Rolfes As If.

For further information contact Aventa at 250-592-9713 or click here

I can hardly give enough praise to the 13 players of Victorias Aventa Ensemble and
conductor Bill Linwood, who tackled all this difficult music with
skill, passion and dedication.
(Robert Everett-Green, The Globe and Mail)