Joy Partain, Joy Partain Communications
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For immediate release: September 20, 2022
Storms, Rainforests, and New Music:
Houston’s Most Exciting Young Orchestra Performs Two World Premieres Confronting Environmental and Climate Issues
October 9 Concert to Showcase Award-Winning Composers Nicky Sohn and Patrick Harlin
Houston, TX — Houston’s artist-led, artist-curated Kinetic Ensemble opens its eighth concert season on Sunday, October 9, at 6pm at MATCH with The Wilderness Anthology, featuring premieres by two award-winning composers, Nicky Sohn and Patrick Harlin, which both call attention to the critical climate issues of our time.
Ms. Sohn’s What Happens If Pipes Burst? (2022) for string orchestra is a personal reflection on 2021’s catastrophic Winter Storm Uri, and how the global climate change crisis suddenly assaulted Houstonians who used to fear only hurricanes. “This piece is a question of the many freezes that are to come if we continue to abuse the environment we live in,” states Ms. Sohn, a Houston-based composer who moved from South Korea to the U.S. to pursue a career in music. Ms. Sohn, Kinetic’s 2022-2023 Composer-in-Residence, is writing two additional works for the ensemble to premiere later this season.
Harlin’s The Wilderness Anthology (2022), composed for string orchestra and soundscapes, will combine Kinetic’s live performance with pre-recorded sounds captured in imperiled ecosystems around the world, including the Amazon rainforest. Harlin’s music has been described as “a floating, free-falling effusion of joy and loss, with a transparent, modern sensibility” (City Pulse), and his doctoral research in soundscape ecology has deeply steered his musical mission. “My goal… is to promote awareness and sensitivity to our sonic environments by establishing a connection between soundscapes of the natural world and the soundscape that inhabits the concert hall,” says Mr. Harlin. “With The Wilderness Anthology, I seek to revisit our innate connection to natural soundscapes, and promote awareness and sensitivity for our sonic environments.”
The Wilderness Anthology concert marks the beginning of Kinetic’s 2022-2023 season, which features collaborations with an array of acclaimed guest artists, including choreographer Kayla Collymore, bassist Charles Paul, and soprano Alexandra Smither. Kinetic’s programs this season combine cutting-edge new music with celebrated classics for strings, including by Tchaikovsky and Ravel, showcasing the ensemble’s stylistic versatility and commitment to diversifying classical music programming. Upcoming concerts include Her Story on March 3, 2023, and Beyond the Sanctuary Walls on May 26, 2023, also at MATCH.
Who: Kinetic Ensemble
What: The Wilderness Anthology concert
When: Sunday, October 9, 2022, at 6pm
Where: MATCH (Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston), 3400 Main Street, 77002
Cost: $30 general admission; $70 for 3-concert season subscription
Program:
Nicky Sohn: What Happens When Pipes Burst? (2022–premiere)
Patrick Harlin: The Wilderness Anthology (2022–premiere)
Paul Novak: a string quartet is like a flock of birds (2020)
Leó Weiner: Pastorale, Fantasy and Fugue (1938)
More info: KineticEnsemble.org/events-20222023-wilderness
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About Kinetic
An artist-led, artist-curated ensemble of 16 string players who perform collaboratively without a conductor, Kinetic is committed to amplifying diverse, under-represented, and newly composed classical music to communities in and beyond Houston, through flexible chamber and orchestra ensemble performances. Since forming in 2015, Kinetic has gained momentum as an innovative and dynamic force in classical music and has emerged as an influential advocate for diversifying the genre’s repertoire.
Praised by Arts+Culture Texas magazine for its “thoughtful, incisive programming” and “visually arresting... brilliantly executed” performances, Kinetic has been described by Houston Public Media as “Houston’s Indie, Conductorless Orchestra” that has “found its niche in Houston’s music scene.” Kinetic has commissioned and premiered over a dozen new works by composers, held residencies at six educational institutions, presented 70+ live and virtual classical music experiences, and reached over 12,000 Houston visitors and residents with its transformative, collaboratively driven performances. More info at kineticensemble.org.