Obsession and Transcendence

Sound Icon, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA

Sound Icon explores these aspects of obsession and transcendence in music with works by Pierre Boulez, Jonathan Harvey, Horatiu Radulescu, Hanspeter Kyburz, Georg Friedrich Haas, and Salvatore Sciarrino. By programming works from this diverse group of composers, Sound Icon, supported by the EvS Music Foundation, aims to catalyze Boston audiences through excellent live performances of these significant works of our time. Pierre Boulez's Sur Incises (1996/1998) kicks off the Sound Icon project. This masterpiece is a powerful, shatteringly beautiful work for 3 harps, 3 pianos, and 3 percussionists. 
In memory of the late Jonathan Harvey, Sound Icon will give a portrait concert of Harvey's most striking works. Sound Icon has chosen works that highlight a transcendence of materiality and worldliness. The concert will include the following works: Death of Light/Light of Death (1998); Advaya (1994); Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco (1980); Wheel of Emptiness (1997). Held on what would have been Harvey's 75th birthday the concert is dedicated to his memory and his music. 
Continuing their exploration of obsession within contemporary music, Sound Icon will then present a concert focusing on Hanspeter Kyburz's Cells and Georg Friedrich Haas' Re(mix). This program will also feature a work by Robin Hoffman, Locken, for an ensemble of birdcalls. Likewise, Sound Icon will perform a work by Romanian composer Horatiu Radulescu, Sensual Sky (1985) – a piece for ensemble and sound icon. This microtonally tuned instrument invented by Radulescu himself is a grand piano on its side and indeed it is after this that the ensemble Sound Icon is named. 
The final event in Sound Icon's project will be one of contemporary music's most intense mediations on obsession and transcendence: Sound Icon will perform Salvatore Sciarrino's Lohengrin (1984), with the composer in attendance. 

March 17 and October 9, 2014 
Boston University College of Fine Arts, Concert Hall, Boston, MA, USA 

May 3 and September 5, 2014 
Fenway Center, Boston, MA, USA 

October 24, 2014 
Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Boston, MA, USA 

Further Information: 
www.soundicon.org