PS21’s House Blend series returns on August 18–21, 2024.
House Blend is PS21’s annual chamber music series, featuring programs conceived for our theater, with an eye toward bringing virtuosic and thoughtful musicians together in genre-defying combinations. The series opens a creative space unique to our venue, surroundings, and audiences that yields programs that can only be heard at PS21.
2024 PROGRAMS:
AUGUST 18, 5 pm – PS21 HOUSE BLEND I
Conor Hanick plays Galina Ustvolskaya‘s Piano Sonatas 1-6.
AUGUST 19, 7 pm – PS21 HOUSE BLEND II. A double bill:
Skylighght, Gelsey Bell (voice) & Erin Rogers (saxophone). Plus, composer/multi-instrumentalist Patrick Higgins (guitar, drums, electronics), improvisations on five tracks from Versus, his latest record
AUGUST 20, 7 pm – PS21 HOUSE BLEND III
Miranda Cuckson (violin) & Conor Hanick (piano)
Iannis Xenakis: Mikka S.; J.S. Bach: Sonata in D minor (BWV 1004); Charles Ives: selections from Songs (Opus 114); Aaron Copland: Sonata for Violin and Piano
AUGUST 21, 7 pm – PS21 HOUSE BLEND IV. A double bill:
Bonnie Whiting performs Wang Lu‘s Stages for solo speaking/singing percussionist, with stage design by Polly Apfelbaum, and Frederic Rzewski‘s To the Earth for speaking percussionist and four flower pots. Plus bass-baritone Davóne Tines singing Eastman Evensong, a ceremony with a capella works of Julius Eastman.
PS21’s HOUSE BLEND CONCERTS, our popular perennial brew of classic and contemporary, returns with four adventurous programs in four days, celebrated soloists, duos, and ensembles delivering daring new musical directions with arresting renderings of classic works and cutting-edge compositions and arrangements. Highlights include Skylighght and Stages, but every moment of the four evenings is replete with delights and discoveries. House Blend programs are developed with our venue and audiences in mind, brews of collaboration and genre-defying virtuosity that music lovers will encounter only at PS21.
House Blend offers audiences the chance to get more intimately involved in the music and creative process, through open rehearsals, workshops, artist talks, and informal post-concert discussions where the artists share their thoughts and insights about their interpretive approaches.
The series opens on Sunday, August 18, with the spellbinding pianist Conor Hanick playing works by Galina Ustvolskaya and Johannes Brahms. The following evening, Gelsey Bell and Erin Rogers perform Skylighght, their duet for voice and saxophone, in a double bill with virtuoso composer and multi-instrumentalist Patrick Higgins, “one of the prime movers of the avant-garde” (The New Yorker). On August 20, the fearless, visionary violinist Miranda Cuckson joins Conor Hanick for a concert that spans Bach and Xenakis. House Blend IV, on Wednesday, August 21, features Bonnie Whiting performing Wang Lu’s Stages (2023) for solo speaking/singing percussionist, with a stage design by Polly Apfelbaum, and Frederic Rzewski‘s To the Earth for speaking percussionist and four flower pots (text from the Homeric Hymn to Gaia, Mother of All),” in a double bill with charismatic bass-baritone Davóne Tines, creator of The Black Clown and other compelling music theater works.
