Sybaritic Faithful, I wish I had more time to write about this awesome weekend of music that the Lunar Ensemble has planned. They are an extremely talented group of musicians and scholars. Just look at the roster of composers whose compositions they will also be playing. Suffice to say, just go see and listen! If you need more information, check out their press release below.
Lunar Ensemble to Play Pierrot Lunaire, New Works at Shriver Hall, Dec. 7-8
Peabody Musicians Mark Centenary of Schoenberg Masterpiece
The Lunar Ensemble, a group of Peabody Conservatory students and alumni known for performing works by living composers, will present two December concerts at Shriver Hall on the Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood campus to mark the centenary of Arnold Schoenberg’s composition Pierrot Lunaire (Moonstruck Pierrot).
Admission is by donation or Kickstarter ticket.
On Friday, Dec. 7, at 7:30 pm, the Lunar Ensemble, conducted by Peabody alumna Gemma New, will perform the original 1912 work along with two Pierrot-inspired works by Peabody-affiliated composers: Douglas Buchanan and Faye Chiao. On Saturday, Dec. 8, at 3:30 pm, the Ensemble will perform six Pierrot-inspired works by Peabody-affiliated composers: Sean Doyle, Joshua Pangilinan, Natalie Draper, Evan Combs, Joshua Bornfield, and Lonnie Hevia.
The Saturday concert will be preceded at 2:40 pm by a talk by Dr. Paul Mathews, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Peabody Conservatory and co-author with Voice Department Chair Phyllis Bryn-Julson of Inside Pierrot Lunaire: Performing the Sprechstimme in Schoenberg’s Masterpiece.
The text of the 21 poems in Schoenberg’s work, performed by a soprano as “sprechstimme,” German for “speech-voice,” comes from the Belgian symbolist poet Albert Giraud’s 50-poem cycle Pierrot Lunaire. For the work’s centenary, the Lunar Ensemble commissioned eight composers to set the text of the remaining 29 poems.
Founded in 2010, the Lunar Ensemble is a Baltimore-based “Pierrot ensemble“— flute, clarinet, piano, violin, and cello, with and without voice and percussion— committed to promoting music by living composers through performance, outreach, and education. The ensemble’s New Zealand-born director, Gemma New, a graduate of the highly regarded master’s program in conducting at Peabody, a division of The Johns Hopkins University, is currently assistant conductor with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.
Shriver Hall is located on the Homewood Campus of The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 Charles Street, Baltimore.
For more information about the concerts, visit lunarensemble.com.
