Smokey tunes

Cello Octet Amsterdam, Claron McFadden
Great Cellists
Thu 27 Nov 20:15
Main Hall
Thu 27 Nov
20:15
Tickets by Muziekgebouw

A new song cycle by David Lang about love

Program

David Lang Smoky tunes (world premier)

 

Musicians

Cello Octet Amsterdam: Rares Mihailescu, Claire Bleumer, Geneviève Verhage, Esther Torrenga, René van Munster, Sanne van der Horst, Sanne Bijker, Alistair Sung cello 
Claron McFadden sopraan 

David Lang writes ‘smoky tunes’ from vanished nightclubs for Cello Octet Amsterdam and the fantastic soprano Claron McFadden. A world premiere by this top composer, inspired by old recordings of Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan who sang about the sorrows of love. David Lang’s texts draw upon the passionate love songs of Guillaume de Machaut, the 14th-century poet and composer who captured the same intensity of longing that centuries later would later be expressed in jazz standards.

The way old love songs keep touching us is similar to how standards work in jazz. Every singer makes their own version and thus brings out a slightly different meaning of the song. ‘All versions are in dialogue with each other and deepen the meaning of all the others’, says David Lang. Claron McFadden is one of the few singers who masters both early and contemporary music and jazz. Her unique ability to bridge diverse musical traditions shines through in David Lang’s new incarnations of these old smoky tunes.