Explore how images and stories inspire composers and listeners, and what happens when they don’t. Through listening and movement activities, discover different ways of listening to music as we dive into two works by Lowell Liebermann, Gargoyles, Op. 29 for solo piano and Sonata for Flute and Piano, Op. 23.

Marvento Duo has partnered with Multiverse Concert Series for the multi-year Reef Music project. The plight of coral reefs around the world is often overlooked – these beautiful ecosystems exist far from our everyday environments, but are suffering nonetheless from our continued use of fossil fuels. In 2018, we collaborated with Dr. Sarah Davies of Boston University to produce a concert highlighting the secret life of corals, the destructive process of “coral bleaching” that occurs when ocean temperatures rise, and the complicated future that coral reefs face in the anthropocene climate.

Black Anemones by Joseph Schwantner evoked the movement of plants and animals in the ocean’s currents. 

What is it like to be in your twenties? What do you know and not know? Was it different to be a twenty-something in the 1770s and 1790s and 1990s and 2010s? What kind of music would you write? This is a concert of music by three 20-somethings plus one 31-year-old who survived his twenties and lends another perspective: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Martin Kennedy, Nadine Dyskant-Miller, and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Marvento Duo celebrates music by women composers both past and present, and considers their legacies through the music of composers they influenced. The program opens with Shulamit Ran’s dramatic East Wind. In Jhula Jhule, Reena Esmail honors her grandparents through the Indian folk songs they taught her, while Kaija Saariaho’s Tocar explores what happens when the sounds of two instruments touch. These three contemporary composers have already influenced our generation of listeners, performers, and composers, and we hope that the late 20th century and early 21st century will be remembered as the time when the works of women composers are equally represented in the classical music canon.

Nineteenth century pianist and composer Clara Schumann influenced many musicians throughout her life, including her husband Robert Schumann and their close friend Johannes Brahms. To honor Clara Schumann’s legacy, Marvento shares her Three Romances and Johannes Brahms’ Op. 76 Capriccio which he dedicated to her. The program ends with a trio of early 20th century composers: Lili Boulanger, the first female winner of the Prix de Rome prize in composition (1913), her older sister and brilliant composition teacher Nadia Boulanger, and American composer Aaron Copland, who planned on studying only one year with Nadia Boulanger but stayed for three.

Marvento Duo has partnered with Multiverse Concert Series for the multi-year Reef Music project. The plight of coral reefs around the world is often overlooked – these beautiful ecosystems exist far from our everyday environments, but are suffering nonetheless from our continued use of fossil fuels. In 2018, we collaborated with Dr. Sarah Davies of Boston University to produce a concert highlighting the secret life of corals, the destructive process of “coral bleaching” that occurs when ocean temperatures rise, and the complicated future that coral reefs face in the anthropocene climate.

Black Anemones by Joseph Schwantner evoked the movement of plants and animals in the ocean’s currents. 

This is one of the most difficult pieces we ever performed together. David Dzubay, the composer, creates unique sounds by combining the middle register of the flute with the high register of the piano. The piece was written in response to the September 11 attacks in New York City. For us, it captures the piercing tragedy and pain, a foggy hazy landscape in which we feel lost, and the dance-like energy of hope in the aftermath.