A Close Correspondence

Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and Volti together!

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Onur Türkmen 
but you alone for String Quartet and Chorus WORLD PREMIERE

Leoš Janáček
String Quartet #2 “Intimate Letters”

David Lang 
A Father’s Love for Chorus

Mark Winges 
Letters for String Quartet and Chorus WORLD PREMIERE

Itʼs a natural alliance: Volti (SFʼs premiere new music chorus) joins forces with Left Coast for a concert about correspondence. Weʼll hear Janáčekʼs "Intimate Letters" quartet and moving music by David Lang based on a soldierʼs goodbye letter. Together our ensembles present world premieres featuring letters of Janáček, Goethe, Virginia Woolf, and others.

About the Contemporary Composers

Onur Türkmen is a Turkish composer who is mostly known for innovative usage of Turkish music instruments and makams. His recent works also focus on interconnections between poetry, drama and ritual in order to create spiritual transformative environments for performers and audiences. His pieces have been performed at Schleswig Holstein Festival, Maerz Musik Festival, ISCM, German Historical Institute International Musicology Congress, MUSMA, Kreuztanbul, Istanbul Music Festival, Mediterraneus Project, China-Turkey Communication Concerts among others. He contributes to European Research Center’s five year project “Beyond East and West: Developing and Documenting and Evolving Transcultural Practice" with his compositions, lectures and articles. Türkmen is an assistant professor at Bilkent University’s Faculty of Music and Performing Arts in Ankara.

Mark Winges is Volti’s resident composer/advisor. He was also composer-in-residence with the San Francisco Choral Artists for the 2012 - 13 season. Recent performances of his works have occurred in New York, Washington, DC, Belfast and Dublin, Ireland, as well as the bay area. His The Moon Dreams of Jacqueline for string quartet and four singers will be premiered by the Friction Quartet this coming December, and his You Already Did was recently premiered by the Pomona College Band. His Pandora’s Gift, a 35 minute staged work for two choirs on a libretto of poet Denise Newman with choreography by Erika Chong-Shuch and lighting by Allen Willner, was premiered at Zspace in San Francisco in May, 2015.

About Volti San Francisco

Volti’s twenty professional singers, under the direction of founder and Artistic Director Robert Geary, are dedicated to the discovery, creation, and performance of new vocal music. The ensemble’s mission is to foster and showcase contemporary American music and composers, and to introduce contemporary vocal music from around the world to local audiences. The group has commissioned nearly 100 new works, by emerging as well as established composers.

Hailed by San Francisco Classical Voice as “undoubtedly the finest collection of new music singers we have,” Volti boasts a 36-year track record of some of the most sophisticated vocal performances in the nation. Composers seek opportunities to partner with these stellar musicians, who are known for their sheer technical brilliance as well as their vibrant, passionate sound. Nationally recognized as a pioneer in new vocal music, Volti has won the prestigious ASCAP/Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music six times, a testament to the fresh perspective and new voices the group brings to life.

Read the full press release
Download program notes

Review in SF Classical Voice by Rebecca Wishnia

Doors open an hour before concerts. Open seating. 

BERKELEY - note venue change!
First Presbyterian Church
2407 Dana St, Berkeley, CA 94704
(right across the street from First Congregational Church)
Saturday, October 15, 2016 7:30PM

SAN FRANCISCO
SF Conservatory of Music
50 Oak Street, San Francisco
Monday, October 24, 2016 7:30PM [directions]

photo credit (banner): love letter