Two interesting shows at the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center this weekend. The first, on Friday night, is by Gamelan Pacifica, an experimental and traditional gamelan ensemble:
The first part of the program features the music of Jessika Kenney, including Bahar Amad (based on a poem of Mowlana Rumi) and Her Sword (based on a poem of Attar), which also feature the mercurial viola stylings of soloist Eyvind Kang. … Her music combines aspects of Persian and Indonesian traditions, particularly in the sense of tonality, and are often based on intensive, almost exegetical readings of classic Sufi poetry in Persian, Arabic, and Javanese.
The second part of the concert features Lou Harrison’s A Soedjatmoko Set (1989) for gamelan, soloist, and mixed chorus. The piece was commissioned … as an offering to the Soedjatmoko family of Indonesia. Soedjatmoko was a journalist, activist and intellectual who played an important role in the formation of Indonesian independence.
On Saturday, they will be celebrating the 50th birthday of Nonsequitor co-founder Steve Peters with a retrospective of his work, including one piece involving half a dozen trumpets and Webster’s Dictionary. We are assured that he will not play the accordion.
Full details on the Wayward Music Series blog.