Aug. 3 concert highlights North American composers

The Cleveland Chamber Collective will present a free concert on Saturday, Aug. 3, 7 p.m., at Disciples Christian Church (3663 Mayfield Road). The concert will feature award-winning composers Caroline Shaw, Missy Mazzoli and Jessie Montgomery, Canadian composer Michael Oesterle, and local favorites Trevor Kazarian and Eric Charnofsky. This summer’s evening of intimate works will have on display various styles and harmonic languages, from pop and jazz influenced, to the Baroque and Renaissance Ayres, not to mention sine waves and flower pots.

The concert features two works by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Shaw, who has composed for performers from Yo Yo Ma to Beyonce. She creates strange but familiar worlds in both Boris S. Kerner, and Limestone and Felt. The first features Kazarian on cello, and Dylan Moffitt on an arrangement of flower pots. It begins by anchoring the listener in something familiar, a solo line in a Baroque style for cello. The flower pots enter with a kind of hovering, and as the piece evolves, the pots become a voice of their own, while the two become more interactive, leading to a dancing energy.

Shaw’s second duo to be presented, Limestone and Felt, features Kazarian again, this time joined by violist Brian Slawta. Limestone makes for an interesting counterpoint to Boris. Whereas the first had the distinct color contrasts with the cello and pots, here Shaw makes great use of the similarities between the strings.

Orizzonte, Italian for “horizons,” is a solo for piano and sine waves, by Mazzoli. While at a residency in Amsterdam, Mazzoli composed this piece on a piano that was an outdoor art installation. It had seen a year of weather, leading to a certain brokenness and missing keys. The piece was written without bar lines, and pianist Charnofsky has great control over phrasing and movement, which allows each performance a special uniqueness.

In Oesterle’s 2019 work Ayre, inspired by 16th-century English lute music, violinist Emily Cornelius and percussionist Moffitt perform a joyful duet. The unusual blend of fiddle-style violin and shimmering vibraphone opens an enchanted sound world in which the two players perform a mesmerizing dance.

Montgomery, Musical America’s 2023 Composer of the year, composed Peace just one month after what she refers to as “the Great Sadness of the first quarantine orders due to COVID-19.” Peace will be played by Slawta on viola and Charnofsky on piano. This piece leans on lush harmonic construction and beautiful lyric writing.

The concert will also feature works by member composers Charnofsky and Kazarian, whose work, Hope, for cello and loop pedal, takes delicate phrases played on the cello and layers them using live technology in the performance.

Four Characters by Charnofsky features flutist Linda White with the composer at the piano. This work was composed as a result of Charnofsky being named OMTA’s composer of the year in 2012. Following the premiere, it was included on a CD released by flutist George Pope. This demanding work sets the two performers as equals through four distinct movements. From the atmospheric “Reverie” to the playful “Popcorn Music,” Charnofsky’s wide palette is on full display. White and Charnofsky bring a great synergy to the performance, having been frequent collaborators.