San Francisco Contemporary. Music Players
Eric Dudley, Artistic Director
Kate Campbell, piano
BEN JOHNSTON – Somewhere I Have Never Traveled (1949)
Two new works from the SFCM Technology & Applied Composition Program (2022, *world premiere)
BEN JOHNSTON – Sonata for Microtonal Piano (1964)
UNSUK CHIN – Cosmigimmicks (2011-2012)
SKY MACKLAY – Microvariations (rev. 2017)
The parameter of fixed pitch becomes a fluid concept in a program that surveys different tuning systems and their juxtapositions with each other, and emerging composers from SF Conservatory’s Technology and Applied Composition Program respond with new works seeking innovative approaches to pitch. Pieces by American mavericks Ben Johnston and Sky Macklay inhabit the ‘notes between the notes’ and alter our perceptions of how certain instruments are supposed to sound, while Korean-born composer Unsuk Chin further disguises instrumental identities in a musical exploration of pantomime.