Saturday – May 15th – spotlights Madeleine Shapiro‘s performance of Ge Gan-Ru‘s YI-FENG (Lost Style) for solo amplified cello scordatura (Shanghai, 1968). 10-year old twin Gayageum players Sarah and Stephanie Yoon present the traditional Korean standard known as SANJO on their 12-string instruments in its ancient microtonal tuning (think “whammy-bar” zithers). Also, 25-string Gayageum virtuoso Rami Seo introduces her NEXUS in confluence with bassoon (Johnny Reinhard), cello (Madeleine Shapiro), and Terpstra synthesizer (Joshua Pierce). The Terpstra synthesizer, a honeycomb keyboard design of 55 tones per octave over 5 octaves, is heard publicly in its debut this evening. It is played by Joshua Pierce in a 53-tone equal temperament rendition of Arnold Schoenberg’s DREI KLAVIERSTUCKE, as imagined by the composer. The software programming for the Terpstra is supported in part by Harvestworks Digital Media Art Center.

Sasha Bogdanowitsch premieres SILK for a multitude of instruments, many homemade, for a theatrical jaunt, joined by Sarah and Stephanie Yoon. There is a rare performance of Renaissance microtonalist Nicola Vicentino entitled MUSICA PRISCA CAPUT for a SATB vocal quartet (Svjetlana Bukvich-Nichols, Maya Galt, Brendan Glynn, and Johnny Reinhard); Vicentino actually placed dots above note heads to signify raising the pitch by an interval smaller than a quartertone. Johnny Reinhard concludes the evening with the premiere of CAMBIA for bassoon and 3 Gayageums based on the underwater archaeology in Gujarat, India reputed to be 9,500 years old. The tuning is intentionally polymicrotonal in that all intervallic relationships may be employed.

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