Billy Collins Suite by Vivian Fung/Text by Billy Collins (1941- )

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Vivian Fung’s Collins trilogy uses explicit tone painting to create miniature comedy-dramas. The distinctive timbre of the clarinet is featured to make points and create moods...Fung’s work is a three-act playlet in sound, akin to the words-and-music genre pioneered by Stravinsky in L’Histoire du Soldat. Narrator and instruments are closely integrated in “Insomnia” — not an obvious topic for humor, but Collins brings inevitable smiles with his image of the frenetic tricycle-rider. Repeated tremolo-like figures for the instruments represent the agitation and futility of the sleepless speaker; the soft dynamic is a touch of irony, since the insomniac’s brain is shouting. A short clarinet passage of quarter notes and staccato eighth notes evokes pacing the floor. With dramatic glissandos, clarinet and cello suddenly scream frustration. Then low piano octaves support the narrator again, while its chords underpin a virtuosic clarinet-cello dialogue. Fung suddenly changes gears, with very soft lightly-sketched patterns — the cellist playing in an unusually high register — as the speaker begins to hope he will at last find rest. And indeed, cello harmonics, a sustained clarinet tone, and a high keyboard postscript appear to bring repose.

Billy Collins, former U.S. poet laureate, has been hailed as the first American poet since Robert Frost to garner great critical acclaim and broad popular appeal in equal measure. "His poems generate surprise, inviting the reader to anticipate each new one as if it might be the best one yet" (World Literature Today). In Collins's poetry, "even the most commonplace things never turn out quite the way you think they will" (Newsweek).​

 

The Connection by James Rolfe/Text by Daniil Kharms (1905-1942)

The quirky and absurd short story “The Connection” is paired with solo marimba, a large keyboard instrument, performed with two mallets in each hand. The composer intends for the work to be narrated and performed simultaneously by one marimbist, and can be done “affectionately, ironically, deadpan, childlike, for example, or combinations of the above.”
Daniil Kharms was an early Soviet-era Russian avant-gardist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist. The Connection is one of many of his children’s stories that he created through the span of his life. His loyal friends hid and preserved his writings and ultimately survived his early death during the siege of Leningrad in 1942. His writings are widely known and set to music in opera, classical, and even paid homage through rap music.

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Power & Beauty by Victoria Malawey (Premiere)

This piece was written for video series "Songs about Buildings and Moods" produced by Access Contemporary Music and will be the music to be performed along with video of the Mill City Museum via drone footage, to be released in 2026. The piece is characterized by the historical phenomenon of a building that Minneapolis-St. Paul can still visit today. 

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Three-Dance by Robert Aldridge

The pioneering duo Marimolin (Sharan Leventhal, violin; Nancy Zeltsman, marimba) with tabla player __  feature this masterpiece in their self-titled album from 1988. The duo went on to commission more than 90 works for violin and marimba, and have created a style of contemporary chamber music that continues to influence how composers write for marimba today. The unique combination of the three instruments provide creative space for serene moods and explosive moments that Aldridge so skillfully crafts for a fulfilling experience for all.

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Improvisation

The concert will conclude with a artistic experience completely unique to the moment - an improvisation session that may give the audience the opportunity to participate. Led by Elwyn Fraser, this will be a brief moment to connect the space between each of us with a live interpretation of our moment together.

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