I may or may not have recently cursed the name of Marcos Balter in an elaborate and fiery pagan ritual.

You see, he's written these parallel minor sixths that leap up and down the fingerboard in his newly-revised final movement of Chambers.

Commissioned by Spektral, we featured an early draft of this piece on our final concert of last season, and Marcos has been re-working it since. Witnessing this progression of the score is one of the felicities of being a new music player. Concepts transition from interesting idea to captivating sonic endeavor. Corners are navigated more effortlessly and redundancies are trimmed.

Back to the aforementioned pyre, there is another transition that takes place in this process: that of technical frustrations dissolving. What seems improbable slowly comes into focus as solutions to particularly gnarly passagework emerge. Those dense sixths are still a bear, but as we rehearse, their potency (and deliberateness on the part of the composer) is unearthed.

What started as a fist shaken at the sky becomes a high five to a wickedly talented composer.

-Doyle

Come see us play Chambers this Saturday night at 8PM in Fulton Hall at the Unversity of Chicago: Concert Details