WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — On Saturday, Oct. 2, the Williams College Music Department will perform Eliza Brown's "Masque-Rondeau" under the direction of Matthew Gold as a part of the College's continuing program of new music. 

 

This free program will be presented on the Clark's Fernandez Terrace at 3 pm. Registration is not required. 

 

Guests should bring their own chairs or blankets for lawn seating. Visit clarkart.edu/events for more information.

 

According to a press release, "Masque-Rondeau" (2018) is a music-theater work for 10–26 musicians in which groups of performers gradually spread out across the performance space, shifting, reorganizing, and dispersing, while filling the space with long swells of sound. The pianist acts as a conductor through a series of musical cues that change the musical and spatial roles of the other players. The performers play slow, overlapping chords, at times in concord with other groups and at others creating piquant clashes deliberately reminiscent of seventeenth-century Restoration music.

 

Brown conceived of the piece as a stylized solstice festival—part ritual, part party—elapsing in slow motion. Social dynamics emerge from the score, which asks musicians to group and regroup and approach one another with musical propositions, which may be accepted or declined. The slowness with which moments of musical connection and parting emerge heightens their emotional impact in unexpected ways.