Virtual concert offers performances that would’ve been impossible to achieve live
Melinda Bargreen July 30, 2020
A “virtual festival” also offers the chance to experience performances that would be impossible to achieve live — like Aaron Jay Kernis’ “Siren for Solo Flute, 7 Flutes and Piccolo.” The incredibly nimble flutist Marina Piccinini played all the parts, recorded and captured simultaneously on the screen as if in a Zoom meeting. The intricacy of the interweaving musical lines, the wonderfully dexterous and subtle playing, and the sheer virtuosity of Piccinini’s technique were all heightened by the clever manipulation of the images. This performance, premiered on Wednesday evening, must be seen and heard to be believed.
And you can get to know new and challenging repertoire in a way not possible with one hearing. Wednesday’s concert, recorded July 22, featured four works by Kernis (whose Violin Concerto — composed for and recorded by James Ehnes and the Seattle Symphony — won two 2019 Grammy Awards).
Hearing Kernis talk about his “Mini Kernis Festival” on Wednesday evening, with three world premieres among those four works on the program, was particularly illuminating and timely. His “Elegy (for those we lost),” composed two months ago in memory of the victims of COVID-19 and premiered by pianist Alessio Bax, could not have been more “in the moment” with its quiet lyricism rising to an anguished crescendo and subsiding again in resignation. Kernis’ “Un Bacio,” premiered with beautiful clarity by solo pianist Joyce Yang, proved an epic piece of substantial difficulty.