Season Four
Portraits Series: Amy Williams
NAT 28’s Portraits Series presents milestone works by an established composer living in Pittsburgh. This season we will feature the work of composer, performer, and educator Amy Williams. Amy's music has been presented by major institutions around the world including Pittsburgh's most-well known organizations: The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Music on the Edge series, the Pittsburgh Festival of New Music, and many other music ensembles in the Steel City. NAT 28 is proud to shine the spotlight on Amy's work as her commitment to the contemporary music scene in Pittsburgh and abroad so closely reflects our mission.
The program includes five of Amy’s chamber works interspersed with interludes from her well-known Cineshapes, a series of pieces inspired by structural and thematic elements from different films. The works on this concert highlight NAT 28’s flexible and broad instrumentation: Dream Landscape for percussion quartet, Quodlibet for flute, oboe, violin, viola, cello, and piano, and Switch for piano four-hands. The arc of the concert is designed to give the audience a deep look into Amy’s work highlighting the past 15 years of her career.
Read our NAT Chat Interview with Amy
October 20, 2018
Third Presbyterian Church
5701 Fifth Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15232
7:30PM
$15 general admission / $5 students
RE:Quenza
During the 2018 Pittsburgh Festival of New Music, NAT 28 presented A Scattering of Sequenze - a dozen pop-up performances throughout the city of Pittsburgh of works from Luciano Berio’s Sequenze. NAT 28 returns to this iconic series of virtuosic, modern works for solo instrumentalists/voice with RE:Quenza - a fully-staged, seamless performance of four Sequenze in collaboration with four Pittsburgh artists, each producing a visual illumination of the music.
NAT 28 is thrilled to shine the spotlight on its brilliant musicians by featuring them as soloists in this concert.
Sequenza I for flute | Zoe Sorrell with Jess Medenbach, video/media designer
Sequenza III for voice | Anna Elder with Joshua Brown & D. T. Burns, multi-media artists
Sequenza IX for clarinet | Allyson Huneycutt with her own video work
Sequenza XIV for cello | Nadine Sherman with David Bernabo, video artist
December 8, 2018
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
1066 Washington Rd.
Pittsburgh, PA 15228
7:30PM
$15 general admission / $5 students
Third Annual Pittsburgh Composers' Project
The annual Pittsburgh Composers' Project features the work of established and emerging composers based in Pittsburgh. This year's concert includes the winners of NAT 28's third annual Call for Scores by emerging composers. Additionally, we will feature Leonardo Balada's Caprichos No. 1 for guitar and string quartet, a magnificent multi-movement, concerto-style work based on Federico Garcia Lorca's arrangements of Andalusian folk songs. Fans of Rodrigo's famous Concierto de Aranjuez will certainly fall in love with this work. A Piano Concerto by Jean-Patrick Besingrand (NAT 28 Composer-in-Residence) will receive its Pittsburgh premiere with our special guest Yumi Suehiro at the piano.
This year’s Call-for-Scores winners:
Devon Osamu Tipp’s Blood on the Pavement 1984 (bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and piano)
Xinyang Wang’s San-Guei (flute, clarinet, violin, viola, and cello)
Cullyn D. Murphy’s Come to/Hypnic Jerk (piccolo, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion)
The Pittsburgh Composers' Project is a great opportunity for audiences to experience the creative and innovative music written by composers who call Pittsburgh home.
This series is generously underwritten by Samuel & Diana Harbison.
February 9, 2019
Kelly-Strayhorn Theater
5941 Penn Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15206
7:30PM
Tickets are "pay-what-makes-you-happy" online/at the door
Creation/Preservation
In celebration of multiculturalism and diversity in American history, NAT 28 presents Creation/Preservation. The concert is presented in collaboration with The Homewood Cemetery Historical Fund as part of a series of performances which take inspiration from the Cemetery's history. NAT 28 recognizes that a cemetery is a cultural expression which provides a vivid look into the history of its surrounding city. The Homewood Cemetery's history reflects the multicultural history of Pittsburgh, and preserves the stories of those who inhabit it.
The concert will feature the momentous work Apartment House 1776 by John Cage, commissioned to celebrate the United States' Bicentennial in 1976. The concert-length work is centered on four songs sung by four singers who represent one of four religious traditions in practice at the founding of the United States in 1776: Native American, African American, Sephardic, and Protestant. Each singer performs their song independently while the accompanying ensemble performs American Revolution era anthems and hymns which Cage recomposed through his iconic chance operations. The performance celebrates and honors the opportunity for people of many backgrounds to create and preserve their traditions in a shared space, and reflects our hope to preserve and protect the multicultural fabric of our city and world. This performance will also include Frederic Rzewski’s Coming Together featuring Pittsburgh-based Slam Poet Sherrika Mitchell, and Jean-Patrick Besingrand’s Au delà des nuages, l’endroit promis for flute, clarinet, and violin.
April 27, 2019
The Homewood Cemetery
1599 S. Dallas Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15217
7:30PM
$15 general admission / $5 students
In Spite of All This
Since its inception, NAT 28 has been committed to highlighting the many narratives of those who our society has historically ignored and silenced. NAT 28's final concert of the season In Spite of All This features works unearthing untold narratives.
The concert includes Miya Masaoka's string quartet Survival from the multi-disciplinary work Triangle of Resistance which references the 1942 US executive order that authorized the internment of Japanese Americans, the Russian Revolution, and symbols of feminist activism.* Tan Dun's Elegy - Snow in June for cello and four percussionists, meant to be "a lament to victims everywhere," is based on a 13th-century Chinese story of a woman who was executed for a crime she didn't commit. A work for Pierrot ensemble will follow: Kati Agócs' Immutable Dreams, titled after part of the final conversation Agócs shared with one of her oldest friends. Missy Mazzoli's work In Spite of All This, after which the program is titled, reflects the hope that we have for people to continue to thrive and create a better future for all despite current forces which seek to undermine that opportunity.
This concert is presented by the St. Paul's Episcopal Church Friends of Music Concert Series.
* description taken from Miya Masaoka's website
June 8, 2019
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
1066 Washington Rd.
Pittsburgh, PA 15228
8:00PM
$15 general admission / $5 students