Longy’s performance are free and open to the public, but please register in advance.
Andrius Zlabys’ (b. 1977) Echoes of Light (Homage to W.A. Mozart), dedicated to Sergei Babayan.
Program includes:
Bach Partita No 6
Franck Prelude, Chorale and Fugue
Commissioned by the Irving S. Gilmore International Piano Festival, the core of Echoes of Light is a texture I stumbled upon during an improvisation. Two fragments from Mozart’s Requiem are at the center of the piece. The following paragraph, influenced by astronomer Carl Sagan’s writings, conveys the image Echoes of Light evokes.
In the space surrounding Earth, an invisible sphere expands. Since our first radio transmissions, it has been growing at the speed of light, containing everything we broadcast. Long after Earth is gone and human civilization is a blink in the eyes of the universe, the sphere, however faint and undetectable, will continue forever. It may contain emissions of the most beautiful of which humanity was capable of.
I imagine fragments of Mozart’s Requiem echoing through space and time–perhaps never again detected, yet always present.
-Andrius Zlabys
