Join Brightwork and friends to celebrate Crumb’s music and his influence on later generations of composers.

October 24 is the 90th birthday of American composer George Crumb. This concert, a celebration of his music and his legacy, kicks off the first of what will become a Crumb Birthday Festival, to be held annually every October in Los Angeles.

This concert explores Crumb’s legacy through two different lenses: composers who studied with Crumb during his 30+ teaching career, and composers who share Crumb’s interests and inspirations such as theatrical elements, graphic notation and themes from nature. The program also features two of Crumb’s compositions. Vox Balaenae, for electric flute, electric cello and electric piano, translates to Voice of the Whale. The performers are asked to play wearing masks, bathed in blue light, so as to distance themselves from their “human-ness” and help the audience feel as if they are part of the ocean. Dream Sequence (Images II) is written for violin, cello, piano, percussion and an offstage glass harmonica that requires two players. Crumb includes this note in the score, “Poised, timeless, breathing, as an afternoon in late summer.” Pieces of paper placed on top of the strings of the piano and the constant chord played by the glass harmonica create a hazy atmosphere for the ensemble to weave in and out. Jennifer Higdon studied with Crumb before joining the faculty at Curtis Institute of Music. Her Music Box of Light features a trio of contrapuntal flutes that shimmer against the backdrop of a rhythmic piano. Stephen Lias is an American composer who is also passionate about wilderness and outdoor adventures. Jeffrey Pine is part of his National Park Series, and takes inspiration from a photo by Ansel Adams of Yosemite National Park. How to be a Deep Thinker in Los Angeles by Jennifer Jolley is scored for speaking solo percussionist. The text is by Kendall A. and is a type of poem called a sestina. A sestina is a highly structured, cyclical poem comprised of six stanzas. Each stanza ends with the same six words, but each time they appear in a different order. Events in the poem (words and phrases) are matched to specific percussion instruments and the listener can track the cyclical nature of the piece.