The ZOFO-MOMA Live Concert Experience unfolds as an aurally
and visually stunning walking tour through a virtual museum
of modern art. Against an ever-changing backdrop of contemporary
paintings, 15 new ZOFO-commissioned duet compositions are
revealed throughout the 72-minute continuous performance. And in
a nod to Mussorgsky, this twenty-first-century Pictures at an
Exhibition leads viewers from one gallery to the next
accompanied by a new “Promenade” Theme arranged by ZOFO’s Keisuke
Nakagoshi.
For this cutting-edge project, ZOFO solicited new works from
top composers around the globe—including UC Davis’s own
professor of music Pablo Ortiz—and requested
each to select a painting representative of his or her culture
as a springboard to the creative process. The result is a
rich tapestry of sights and sounds reflecting the cultural,
musical, and artistic diversity of our world community.
* The program runs 75 minutes and is presented without an
intermission. *
Barnabé Janin, tenor and director
Lise Viricel, soprano
Josquin Gest, countertenor
Benjamin Ingrao, tenor
Eric Chopin, bass-baritone
L’ensemble Coclico, founded in 2014, brings
together professional singers who specialize in
Renaissance and medieval music and improvisation. In concert, the
ensemble revives the improvised polyphonies of the
Middle Ages and the Renaissance, restoring to life the
organa, hymns, French chansons from the court of
Burgundy, motets, psalms, songs of the Renaissance, Italian
lauds, English carols, and more.
In a spirit musical and playful, as well as pedagogical,
the members of the ensemble share their enjoyment of
improvisation through concerts, spectacles and lectures with
musical illustrations.
At the boundary between any two ecosystems there exists an
abundance and variety of life. This holds true in art, where
the zone between two mediums contains great potential for
invention and expression.
