Livewire 13: Duo della Luna

In this third of six concerts on UMBC’s annual Livewire new music festival, the ensemble Duo della Luna presents a program that explores transformation within music. For this performance, the Duo, comprised of soprano Susan Botti, and violinist Airi Yoshioka, will be joined by harpist Jacqueline Pollauf and percussionist Dustin Donahue as guest artists. The program features works by Rahilia Hasanova, Kathryn Blake, Ashkan Behzadi, Susan Botti, Kaija Saariaho, Béla Bartók, and Wes York.

On Thin Air by Rahilia Hasanova, a world premiere, plays with a sense of time and suspension, exploring how they interplay to bring joy to new heights. Kathryn Blake’s empty hollow thud for violin and fixed media, also a world premiere, brings to the foreground issues related to mental illnesses and calls us to modify the ways in which involuntary admissions to hospitals are still conducted. Songs from the Levertov Scores by Wes York probes into the power of memory as it sheds light onto a sense of identity and perspective. Botti’s arrangement of Bartók’s duos transforms the iconic duos for two violins into a special and unique timbre for voice and violin that still captures the spirit of folk songs. Behzadi’s “Az hoosh mi…” takes an Iranian contemporary poem by Reza Baraheni and investigates the threshold of ecstacy and consciousness. Il pleut by Kaija Saariaho for voice and harp is a delicate narrative of two lines coming together with reflective sensitivity. Her Vision for voice and harp is Botti’s ethereal setting of a whimsical Denise Levertov poem.

The program:

Duo della Luna, comprised of soprano Susan Botti, and violinist Airi Yoshioka, celebrates the natural world, myth, story-telling and folk songs for their universal timeless messages. Their debut recording Mangetsu has won critical accolades from publication such as Opera News and BBC Radio and was selected “What a performance! 2021 Winner” by The Art Music Lounge.

$15 general admission, $10 seniors, $5 students.