Heidelberg University’s School of Music & Theatre will host the dynamic Ekmeles vocal ensemble as part of the school’s New Music Live Concert Series at 7 p.m. Friday (March 23) in Ohl Concert Hall.
Ekmeles is a six-person acapella vocal ensemble that performs new and rarely heard works and gems of historical avant garde. The group bridges musical past and present as they explore the creative and expressive potential of the human voice.
In Agata Zubel’s Alphabet of the Ars Brevis, two low male voice reimagine a medieval treatise which explores various vices and virtues of mankind. The Grammar of Dreams by Kaija Saariaho is a duet between soprano and mezzo soprano setting text from Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar and the poem Paralytic from Ariel. John Cage’s Four Solos for Voice continues the composer’s lifelong exploration of allowing sounds to “be themselves” as each vocalist explores their own solo selection and how they interweave as a quartet.
The concert also will include works by Rebecca Saunders, Erin Gee and Cat Lamb.
Ekmeles is comprised of Charlotte Mundy (soprano), Elisa Sutherland (mezzo soprano), Timothy Parsons (countertenor), Steven Bradshaw (tenor), Jeffrey Gavett (baritone and director) and Peter Stewart (bass).
The community is invited to the concert, free of charge. Sponsors are Berg Bravo!, National Machinery and a National Endowment for the Arts ARTworks grant to the School of Music & Theatre.