Guest Artist: Conrad Tao, composition & piano
Conrad Tao: “Spoonfuls” (Iris Orchestra commissioned work celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the City of Memphis)Haydn: Symphony No. 101Brahms: Piano Concerto No.1
Iris looks to the past, present, and future in this can’t-miss program. Conrad Tao, a composer and pianist currently taking the classical world by storm, will exercise both talents on this program as the soloist in Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 and the composer of an Iris-commissioned piece exploring Memphis’ unique musical heritage in honor of our city’s bicentennial. In his Memphis-inspired composition, the chords of Charlie Patton’s “A Spoonful Blues” are refracted and fall through trapdoors. Regarding the piece, Tao states, “I love how, in the song’s 1929 recording, the meter seems stable at first but gets pulled apart as the song progresses, moving beyond a single time signature and into a more elusive, groovy rhythmic space. It is this space — both grounded and intuitively free — I aim to explore.” Balancing something old with something new, we’ll also present Haydn’s “Clock” Symphony, another year-one piece for Iris. Iris has a history of presenting the rising young stars of today. What better time to deliver on that legacy than in our 20th season!
7:30 PM
at GPAC