Back to the Future

Resonance Works returns to live performance with music by some of today’s most important living composers: Missy Mazzoli, Gabriela Lena Frank, Jessie Montgomery, and Chen Yi. Guest soloist Jeffrey Turner, former principal double bassist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, joins the Resonance Chamber Orchestra and conductor Maria Sensi Sellner for the company’s debut at the Greer Cabaret at Theater Square.

Resonance Works presents "Back to the Future,” featuring the Pittsburgh premieres of four musical selections inspired by past traditions from around the world. Double bass soloist Jeffrey Turner headlines the program in Missy Mazzoli’s Dark with Excessive Bright (2018), a work that synthesizes musical traditions from the Renaissance and Baroque eras with modern techniques. The piece’s title is borrowed from a phrase in Milton’s Paradise Lost and is a surreal and evocative description of God, written by a blind man. Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout (2003) is an evocative musical soundscape that juxtaposes western classical and Andean folk music traditions. Chen Yi’s Shuo (1995) opens the program with a “shimmering, sparkling amalgam of folk singing from [the composer’s] native China.” Finally, Jessie Montgomery’s Source Code (2013) is based on syntax derived from black spirituals and reflects the gestures, movements, and speech patterns of Civil Rights arts leaders in America.

Resonance Works is an artist-driven, multi-modal performing arts company in Pittsburgh presenting performances that empower musicians and engage audiences since 2013. From fully staged opera to chamber music and commissioned works to classics, we create an alloy of unique and inclusive musical experiences for audiences in a variety of spaces. In order that our art reflects our community, Resonance Works has committed to programming at least half of the works in a season by women and a third by BIPOC creators, with the goal of normalizing equity, diversity and inclusion in our work and in the industry.