
PROGRAM NOTES
Thank you for joining Mercury Soul and ODC/Dance at Gray Area!
We were wowed by the gorgeous choreography, captivating classical performances, dazzling immersive projections and DJ sets that had everyone on the dancefloor. Legendary dance company ODC brought all 12 of their world-class dancers and their breathtaking choreography to live classical performances by the Eclecta Quartet with Carlos Ortega on clarinet and Carlos Alvarez on vibraphone.
Sets by DJ Masonic (Mason Bates) and DJ Justin Reed bloomed into unforgettable classical performances of music by Chopin, Mozart, Adams, J.S Bach, Mendelssohn, Piazzolla and Bates for an exquisite mixture of DJs, classical music and dance.
The cutting-edge Gray Area was the perfect canvas for massive visual projections by Mark Johns that surrounded the audience on all sides.
Hope to see you at our next show: Grace Cathedral on April 25th! Join our email list to be the first to know about future Mercury Soul events!
What did I hear?
All selections performed by: Eclecta Quartet; Clarinet: Carlos Ortega; and Vibraphone: Carlos Alvarez

Astor Piazzola (1921-1992)
Études Tanguistiques
Argentine composer and bandoneon player Astor Piazzolla moved to New York at an early age and created nuevo tango, a unique synthesis of jazz and classical music. Piazzolla’s six Études tanguistiques (“Tango Studies”) infuse classical étude (instrumental “study” focusing on a particular technique) with elements of tango, a perfect encapsulation of his mix of styles. Their universality invites transcriptions for a wide variety of instruments. not unlike Bach’s Cello Suites.

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Songs Without Words
Felix Mendelssohn blended Romantic fantasy with a Mozartean clarity and poise. By his teenage years, he was creating masterpieces in idioms largely of is own invention. Beyond his compositions, his impact can be felt in the role he played in reviving interest in the music of J.S. Bach. The Songs Without Words were composed during a period when the piano became standard in many middle-class households. The pieces are within the grasp of pianists of various abilities and this undoubtedly contributed to their popularity. This arrangement for string quartet demonstrates the universality of the music beyond its original instrumentation.

Johann Sebastien Bach (1685-1750)
Suite No 3 (Bourrees 1 & 2)
One of the most prolific and impactful composers in music history, J.S. Bach enriched the Baroque musical style through his ingenious skills in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organization. The importance of his music was not widely recognized until the early 19th Century, when composer Felix Mendelssohn led a revival in Europe and England. Bach’s six Cello Suites each suite follow a similar structure based around movements of Baroque dances, which were performed in courts throughout Europe to the unique dance steps of their courtiers. While conceived for a solo player, the rich counterpoint and harmony of the Suites are beautifully showcased by a wide variety of ensembles.

Astor Piazzola (1921-1992)
Libertango
While Piazzola’s life begin in Argentina, his life – and even his name – were highly informed by American culture. He spent much of his early life in New York City, and his first name – which did not exist at the time – was an homage to his father’s friend Astore Bolognini, motorcycle racer and first cellist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Piazzolla’s fusion of classical music and the vernacular has been considered as successful as that of Gershwin or Bernstein, and he remains a favorite of audiences in both spheres. Libertango marks a change in style from classical tango to nuevo tango.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)
Adagio from Clarinet Concerto
Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto was the last major instrumental composition he composed, premiered just two months before his untimely death. The clarinet was a relatively new instrument in Vienna, and Mozart wrote the piece for clarinet and basset horn virtuoso Anton Stadler. Reflecting Mozart’s skill as an opera composer, the slow movement is effectively a three-part aria for the clarinet, which assumes the role of a soprano singer.

John Adams (b. 1947)
Judah to Ocean from Alleged Dances
John Adams’s music travels from his Northern California studios to orchestras and opera houses around the world. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2006. The “Alleged Dances” is a collection of ten dances accompanied by an electronic track made of prepared piano samples. The prepared piano was the invention of John Cage, who first put erasers, nuts, and bolts between the piano strings to create a kind of pygmy gamelan. Adams notes: “The dances are ‘alleged’ because the steps for them have yet to be invented (although by now a number of choreographers, including Paul Taylor, have created pieces around them).” He continues: ”Judah to Ocean is a piece of vehicular music, following the streetcar tracks way out into the fog and ultimately to the beach where I used to rent a two-room cottage behind the Surf theater.”

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Nocturne in F Minor (recomposed by Chad Lawson)
Polish composer Frédéric Chopin maintained worldwide renown as a leading virtuoso of his era, one whose poetic genius was based on a technical mastery without equal in his generation. Chopin composed a number of nocturnes – rhapsodic piano fantasies in a subdued tone – to satiate the public appetite for piano music in 1830s Europe, where the piano had become a bourgeois status symbol. Chopin’s career played out in two decades that were a charmed moment for the piano and piano composers. He released small-scale works regularly; the more accessible of his pieces fueled demand for his more adventurous works.

Mason Bates (b. 1977)
Scrapyard Exotica
Mating Dance
Mercury Interludes
Artistic Director of Mercury Soul and composer of the Grammy-winning opera The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, Mason Bates is imaginatively transforming the way classical music is created and experienced as a composer, DJ, and curator. Mason Bates created “Scrapyard Exotica” by remixing percussive samples of the Del Sol String Quartet into a mix of lyricism and groove over a lopsided 7/4 meter.
Bates composes and arranges custom interludes for each Mercury Soul event that showcase a dynamic collaboration between electronic and classical. Mercury Interludes precede and follow each classical set.