I. à Viaro Kapodistrias/Lazaro Koundouriotis
II. à Petrompeis Mavromichalis
III. au contre-amiral Lalande
IV. au Prince Soutzos
V. à N.N.

Commissioned by the Greek National Opera, for the project "A Greek Song Book", based on texts by Ioannis Kapodistrias

Anthony Rivera, Baritone
Kornilios Selamsis, Conductor

Dedicated to Kornilios Selamsis and Marcin Habela

Greek National Opera, SNFCC, November 21st 2021

Vents  Contraires (2021), for baritone and ensemble

Comp Project 3c

for soprano, 4 amplified dictaphones, and mixed ensemble

Performed by Nina Guo and Ensemble Modern
text by Alexandra Kleeman
Conducted by Sara Caneva
Recorded by Felix Dreher, mixed by Katherine Balch

waste knot

Monteverdi Responsories (2008/rev.2014) for saxophone quartet and choir
Performed by The Crossing Choir; directed by Donald Nally and PRISM Quartet

Program Notes
The idea for creating Monteverdi Responsories was conceived in response to Claudio Monteverdi’s Piagn’e Sospira from the Fourth Book of Madrigals. Monteverdi’s text comes from an excerpt of Torquato Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, and describes a lover who ‘cries and sighs’ (piagn’e sospira) as she carves on the bark of a tree a beloved name ‘in a thousand fashions’ (segno l’amato nome in mille guise). Monteverdi’s setting of piagn’e sospira is one of the most captivating moments in madrigal literature. It consists of two gestures, forming a metaphorical musical sigh: an ascending chromatic line on ‘cried’ (piagn’e), balanced by a descending leap on ‘sighed’ (sospira). The outer tones of the second gesture engulf the tones of the first gesture, while the latter fill in every chromatic step in-between the outer tones of the second gesture. This extraordinarily powerful yet disarmingly simple musical material is recast ‘in a thousand fashions’ in Monteverdi Responsories, which is to be performed immediately after ‘Piagn’e Sospira’ without pause. Monteverdi’s original material is decontextualized and its pertinent qualities become malleable: the distorted sospiro gesture that initiates the piece is a characteristic example of such recasting.. The text of Monteverdi Responsories is a poem by 20th century Greek poet Yiannis Ritsos from the collection Mikre Suita se Kokkino Meizon (Little Suite in Red Major).

Monteverdi Responsories

Stratis Minakakis is a composer and conductor whose creative work engages issues of memory, cultural identity, and art as social testimony; it also explores the rich possibilities engendered by the interaction between arts and sciences. He teaches at New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts. For more information, please visit https://www.stratisminakakis.info.

Monteverdi Responsories

stratis.minakakis

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