2019/20 Concert Series

Blotterberry Bursst

Sunday, March 1st, 2020 8pm

Phillip T. Young Recital Hall
(UVic School of Music, MacLaurin Building)
Tickets at the door $20
Pre-concert talk 7:15PM

Aventa Ensemble
Vincent Ranallo, baritone
Bill Linwood, conductor

Jordan Nobles, Einstein’s Dreams – May 14, 1905 *

Marcus Goddard, Imaginary Colour (premiere)

Gabriel Dharmoo, Wanmansho

Nicole Lizée, Kool-Aid Acid Test #17: Blotterberry Bursst 

Describe as a “brilliant musical scientist,” in Kool-Aid Acid Test #17: Blotterberry Bursst, Nicole Lizée pays homage to the hub of the counterculture in the tumultuous ‘60s and ‘70s – San Francisco.  With references to such artists as Jefferson Airplane, We Five, Wes Wilson and Stanley Mouse along with the films Hallucination Generation, The Graduate, Vertigo, Psych-Outand more, Lizée deftly combines instrumental music, film, video and audio samples into an exquisite, ever-morphing, nostalgic trip.

Violent, Violent Sea

Sunday, January 19th, 2020 8pm

Phillip T. Young Recital Hall
(UVic School of Music, MacLaurin Building)
Tickets at the door $20
Pre-concert talk 7:15pm

Aventa Ensemble
Bill Linwood, conductor

Farangis Nurulla-Khoja, Ni d’ici ni d’ailleurs

Ana Sokolović, Jeu des portraits

 Simon Martin, Musique d’art pour Orchestre de Chambre

 Missy Mazzoli, In Spite of All This *

 Missy Mazzoli, Violent, Violent Sea 

Farangis Nurulla-KhojaNi d’ici ni d’ailleurs is dedicated to displaced individuals all over the world, many of whom have left their homes in the hope of finding equilibrium elsewhere. Inspired by her own experience as a displaced person, Nurulla-Khoja’s work has an evolutionary quality as sounds gradually change and transform during the course of the piece.

Described by Time Out as “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart”, Missy Mazzoli is one of the more consistently inventive and surprising composers on the scene today.  Completed in 2005, Mazzoli’s In Spite of All This describes the vulnerability, anger, compassion and optimism of a time in history that left many people feeling powerless and overwhelmed. With Violent, Violent Sea, she changes direction with a work of undeniable optimism that literally bursts at its seams – loud and intense, yet still filled with soaring melodies and lush harmony.

Vortex Temporum

Sunday, October 27th, 2019 8pm

Phillip T. Young Recital Hall
(UVic School of Music, MacLaurin Building)
Tickets at the door $20
Pre-concert talk 7:15pm

Aventa Ensemble
Bill Linwood, conductor

Per Nørgård, Scintillation

Bekah Simms, Everything is… distorted

Gérard Grisey, Vortex Temporum

Gérard Grisey’s stunning masterpieceVortex Temporumis widely considered to be one of the most influential works of the late twentieth century.  Grisey leads the listener through a thrilling three-movement journey, building from the opening quotation of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, through to a piano cadenza of mind-boggling complexity.  Tom Service of The Guardian writes “To hear Grisey’s music is to have adventures in the stuff of sound that will change your ears forever”.