The Oberlin Conservatory has a reputation as an incubator for enthusiastic and innovative young contemporary ensembles that are defining the landscape of today’s and tomorrow’s music. The all-female string trio Chartreuse, formed in Oberlin in 2011, continues in this tradition with passion and flair. With commissions and premieres from New York City to Oslo, Norway, Myra Hinrichs (violin), Carrie Frey (viola), and Helen Newby (cello), are collaboratively creating and sharing an exciting new repertoire with the world. Returning this January to appear in Oberlin’s Winter Term Chamber Music Intensive, Chartreuse will also be performing concerts in Cleveland, Chicago, and New York City, joined by recent Oberlin alumni and current students.

The program centers around Irish composer Ann Cleare’s Dysmorphia. In this schizophrenic duo, the viola and cello adopt twisted versions of each other's sonic identities as if they are different sides of the same brain viewing a single object with disparate interpretations. The audience must decide which side portrays reality and which an exaggerated illusion, and whether the two perspectives can ultimately be reconciled.

Also featured on the program will be Waxen, a new duo for viola and cello by Oberlin alumnus Peter Kramer, which is a reimagination of the baroque minuet. Reorderings, elisions, and misquotations liquefy and intensify this usually strict and trite form. Percussionist Dan King will join Helen for Sam Pluta’s Switches, a 5-minute tour de force in which the cello is amplified and distorted to become a squealing, screeching siren of rock-’n’-roll. Finally, Olga Neuwirth’s In Nacht und Eis celebrates the dark timbres of the bassoon and cello, exploring the saturation of deep gritty sounds processed through a ring modulator.

With this concert, Chartreuse+ plans to explore the sonic and expressive capabilities of its ensemble through various duo configurations. The same program will also be performed on January 18th at the Taszo Espresso bar in Manhattan. Tickets are $10 at the door.

Performers: Carrie Frey (’14), viola; Helen Newby (’13), cello; Ben Roidl-Ward (’15), bassoon; Dan King (’15), percussion

Partial Program: Dysmorphia by Ann Cleare, Waxen by Peter Kramer, Switches by Sam Pluta, In Nacht und Eis by Olga Neuwirth.

http://www.ensemblechartreuse.com/chartreuse-january-2015/