On October 11, 2007, Other Minds presented a concert of music for two pianos, featuring works by Philip Glass, Balduin Sulzer, Chen Yi, Adam Fong, and Johann Sebastian Bach. Prior to the start of the concert, Charles Amirkhanian, moderated a panel discussion in which three of the featured composers, (Glass, Fong, and Chen), discussed their works. Adam Fong explains why the score for his piece “Sunlight”, has no written notes on the page. Instead the piece, which is meant to portray the “motion” of the sun in a single day, as felt through the heat and light it gives to the earth, has a score which provides guidelines for pitch, dynamics, and tempi but leaves the details up to the performer’s discretion. Chen Yi then describes how her “China West Suite” a work in four movements, was inspired by traditional Chinese, Mongolian, and Tibetan folk songs that she had researched extensively. Finally Philip Glass talks about his “Six Scenes from Les Enfants Terribles”. This work, which was originally scored for three pianos and was part of an opera based on a Jean Cocteau film, has since been arranged for two pianos by Dennis Russell Davies. Other topics covered include the future of musical publishing in the age of the Internet. |
