Heavy: Music with Bite
*The event has already taken place on this date: Sun, 03/20/2022
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It's time to blow off some steam! Acknowledging the difficulty and challenges of the last two years, the innovative fivebyfive ensemble brings “Heavy: Music with Bite” to Rochester audiences in its first 2022 concert. This is a 21+ event with cash bar.
Marking the pandemic’s two year anniversary, we’re all more than ready to blow off some steam—in a casual, creative environment. The concert features some of fivebyfive artists and composer friends plus new pieces and some of their old favorites. The entire program connects with fivebyfive’s idea of exploring the wide reaches of what classical music is, or can be.
fivebyfive expands its personnel for parts of this program with Kristin Shiner McGuire (percussion), Tom Torrisi (electric guitar), Jöella Becker (cello), and its sound engineer member Marc Webster (bass synth, electric percussion). Composers Olivia Kieffer and Logan Rutledge lead a lively, participatory intermission.
COVID protocols will be updated on fivebyfive’s website and social media.
Opening the program is Marc Mellits’ Dreadlocked, with its edgy and mesmerizing rhythms. Blue Jewel by Edie Hill (featured on fivebyfive’s debut album “Of and Between”) musically describes different views by “zooming in” versus “zooming out.” Like the famous image of Earth from space, our planet is a perfect blue jewel. As an added bonus, fivebyfive sound engineer Marc Webster will “bring the studio onstage,” using the track effects from the actual recording as part of the concert.
Heavy, the program’s title piece by Evan Williams focuses on heavy gestures and timbres inspired by dark, “heavy” emotions. Logan Rutledge’s Bubbles, Olivia Kieffer’s Rock Those Blocks, Baby!, and Shannon Sea’s Let’s Make a Hit—all “miniatures” composed for fivebyfive’s Playful Music series—provide a lighter note. Nick Revel’s Flytrap was arranged for fivebyfive with a deep ensemble groove, a fast, sparkly line, and soaring melodies. Another arrangement, this time by fivebyfive bassist Eric Polenik, is Philip Glass’ Thin Blue Line, the title track from a 1988 Texas murder documentary.
“A piece on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” Magic With Everyday Objects by Grammy-nominated Missy Mazzoli is about finding beauty and rapture in the midst of chaos, and acknowledging the chaos that lies just beneath the surface of beauty. The show closes with the highly rhythmic Tamboreño (Like Drums) by Uruguayan-born Miguel del Águila. As the music becomes more intense and dramatic, it finally triggers a joyous, upbeat ending.
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