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Beat Furrer Composer Portrait at New York's Miller Theatre

Jan. 04, 2017

Beat Furrer Composer Portrait at New York's Miller Theatre

The music of Beat Furrer is celebrated in an upcoming Composer Portrait concert at Columbia University’s Miller Theater, with Richard Carrick leading the Either/Or ensemble on February 2. The program, focusing on a selection of Furrer’s chamber works spanning the last 20 years, includes the US premiere of his recent intorno al bianco for clarinet and string quartet, as well as performances of linea dell’orizzonte for mixed ensemble, Ira-Arca for bass flute and double bass, and spur for piano and string quartet.

Furrer’s intorno al bianco was premiered in Florence in 2016 with clarinetist Bernhard Zachhuber and members of Klangforum Wien. The title derives from a villanella by 16th-century Renaissance composer Pietro Antonio Bianchi. In an interview with Daniela Fantechi for the Musica Elettronica blog, Furrer briefly describes his work:

In the first 15 minutes there is a slow constant transformation, the sound of the clarinet is like the spectrum of the clarinet’s changes, and the quartet is the spectrum of the clarinet … As the sound of the quartet is more and more in the foreground, the clarinet and the quartet start communicating in a pointillistic way. In the last two minutes there is actually a unison, which is not heard as a unison, [but] as if all the lines of the clarinet are followed by the string quartet.

For more information on Beat Furrer, please visit baerenreiter.com.

Beat Furrer
intorno al bianco (2016)
for clarinet and string quartet
30’

linea dell’orizzonte (2012)
for clarinet in B, trumpet in C, trombone, violin, cello, piano, electric guitar, and percussion
15’

Ira-Arca (2012)
for bass flute and double bass
15’

spur (1998)
for piano and string quartet
17’

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