College of Charleston 2nd Monday Series

Event Details

The 2nd Monday Series at the College of Charleston School of the Arts will present the music of David Gordon in a concert featuring faculty members Paul Sánchez, piano; Kayleen Sánchez, soprano and Eka Gogichashvili, violin. The trio has prepared a vast array of Gordon’s repertoire ranging from double piano to full trio works.

Gordon's cycle “Mysteria Incarnationis” was written and premiered in 2015. It is a haunting, riveting work that is meant to be performed in a dark room, with only red votive candles and some stand lights as light sources. The texts of the cycle are written by the 4th century poet Ephrem the Syrian, and are all texts dealing with Mary’s perception of the birth of Christ. The music calls for all musicians to double on multiple instruments. The composer uses quarter tonal scales to achieve a mysterious, otherworldy sound. The soprano doubles on toy piano, Thai button gongs, finger cymbals, a vibratone, and a glass globe; the violinist doubles on a prepared autoharp; the pianist plays a prepared piano, a neck brace harmonica, and a wine glass.

Pianist Paul Sánchez shares that “Composer David M. Gordon, after hearing Kayleen and I perform his song setting 'Fader, stilla våra andar,' which he praised as being 'deeply moving and extraordinarily precise,' composed the monumental song cycle 'Mysteria Incarnationis' for us. As its dedicatees, Kayleen and I were honored to perform the world premiere alongside violinist Eka Gogichashvili in 2015. The work is incredibly demanding and virtuosic for the performers, with its dense polymetric textures, quarter-tonal sound world, and intricate passagework, and creates an otherworldly, haunting, jarring, and ultimately moving experience for the listener. The piece is novel in the extreme, yet its visceral punch is primal in nature.”

David M. Gordon (b. 1976) earned B.M. and M.M. degrees in music composition from Northern Illinois University, where his principal teacher was Dr. Jan Bach. Currently, he is pursuing a Ph.D. in composition at the University of Chicago, studying primarily under Shulamit Ran and Marta Ptaszynska. Gordon has written works for a variety of performers and ensembles, including eighth blackbird, the Pacifica Quartet, the Chicago Sinfonietta, Aguavá New Music Ensemble, Contempo, the Motion Trio, and steelpan virtuoso Liam Teague. His music has also been featured at numerous distinguished venues and events, including the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, the Caramoor Music Festival, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Deer Valley Music Festival, Chicago's Symphony Center and Millenium Park, and Philadelphia's Kimmel Center, as well as at concerts in Russia, Poland, Ukraine and France.

The concert will take place on Monday, September 10, 2018 at 7:30 p.m., at the Recital Hall of the Simons Center for the Arts, 54 Saint Philip St.

General admission tickets are $15 and can be purchased online at go.cofc.edu/secondmondaymusic, at the door, or they can be reserved by emailing [email protected]. Students with school I.D. can attend for $10 at the door.