Arts Alive San Antonio

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor

San Antonio music lovers probably know Daniel Anastasio as the pianist and artistic director of the chamber music quartet Agarita, which recently turned the galleries of the San Antonio Museum of art San into temporary concert halls, playing music of different periods and styles.

But he is involved in other musical pursuits, including an upcoming festival of new music right here in San Antonio. As a member of the New York-based Unheard-Of Ensemble, Anastasio is super busy these days making this project a reality.

“The Unheard-Of Ensemble is a contemporary chamber ensemble dedicated to connecting new music to communities across the United States through the development and performance of adventurous programs, often using electronics and interactive multimedia,” he explained. 

Formed in 2014 by Anastasio and clarinetist Ford Fourqurean while they were still graduate students at Stony Brook University, the group also includes violinist Matheus Souza and cellist Iva Casian-Lakos. The ensemble was created “out of a belief that performing the compositions of our peers is vital work that’s too often neglected,” noted Anastasio. In other words, they seldom play masters of the past. In fact, the oldest composition they play was composed in 1941 – Olivier Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time.”  That “glorious” composition will be part of the opening concert of the San Antonio Concert Series.

Officially, the press release refers to the event as “the summer composer workshop, the Collaborative Composition Initiative (CCI). Ten living composers from across the U.S. have been selected for this summer’s workshop and concert series. The “workshop” part refers to the interaction of the ten with experienced composition faculty who advise and help polish the new compositions. These guest “composition faculty” are Ethan Wickman from UTSA, Januibe Tejera, from UT Austin and Liliya Ugay from Florida State University. Concert audiences will hear the already workshopped music.

The ten composers are chosen from a pool of applicants from around the world, said Anastasio.
“We keep the group of selected composers small to make sure each person gets enough time and attention to really develop his or her work.”

The entire CCI project is supported with grants from organizations like Chamber Music America, the Johnstone Fund for New Music, the Foundation for the Contemporary Art, the Aaron Copland Fund, and others. Each participating composer gets both a professional recording and a public performance of their work.

The ten chosen composers are: Jessica Ackerley, Nicholas Batina, Zachary Bell, Evan Blache, KiMani Bridges, Blake Buehler, Daniel de Togni, Coral Douglas, Geli Li, and Alyssa Wixson.

Unheard Of is certainly not the only chamber ensemble playing new music, and symphonic orchestras are also including contemporary composers into their programming, but the public seems slow to embrace new music. Why? We asked Anastasio.

“There is a long answer to this and a short answer,” he said, explaining that in the past composers were often performers as well, like Mozart, Bach and Beethoven, for instance. But at some point, that started to change. This rift led to a lack of communication and understanding between composer and performer.  The performer can become a hired tool, and the composer can seem like an isolated thinker, removed from the practicalities of performance.

A different, shorter answer, is that these days there is no central musical aesthetic that’s understood and accepted. “Things are rather fractured and free,” he noted. “One composer might be interested in writing highly abstract, atonal music, while another could be writing something more minimal and tonal.  Without restriction or aesthetic pressures, the new music field can feel scattered, and neither performers nor audiences know what to expect from a new piece.”

So, get ready for surprises!

The upcoming concerts will take places at a number of different locations across the city. List below:

After the End of Time; July 1 at 7:30 p.m.; Mission Conception, 807 Mission Rd., 78210; free; on the program: Messiaen – “Quartet for the End of Time” and Liliya Ugay – “After the End of Time.” Free.

Fire Ecologies at Echo Bridge, July 2 at 8 p.m.; 310-Riverside Drive, 78214; Program: “Fire Ecologies” by Christopher Stark and video by Zlatko Cosic. Tickets are $10.

CCI// Pop-up; featuring Convergence (Cameron Beauchamp and Brent Baldwin); July 3 at 7:30 p.m.; Tandem San Antonio;

CCI /Premieres I; July 4 at 5:30 p.m.; San Antonio College, 1300 San Pedro Ave., 78212; featuring compositions by several composers

A Field Guide to San Antonio Plants, July 6 at 7 p.m.; Evergreen Garden Center, 922 W. Hildebrand Ave., 78201; Program: A sound installation featuring music by Unheard-Of Ensemble, Pamela Martinez and the CCI participants; free but

CCI Premieres II, July 7 at 7:30 p.m.; San Antonio College, 1300 San Pedro Avenue; Program world premieres featuring the compositions of several composers; free but registration required.
——————————————————————————————————————–To see how to register when registration is required, go to https://www.unheard-ofensemble.com  or call 678-739-7988.