840: New Music for Two Violins and/or Two Pianos
20 September 2025 at St Cyprian's Clarence Gate
doors 7.00pm / music 7:30pm
After a five-year break, 840 returned with a vibrant programme of new music for two violins and/or two pianos. The evening spanned spectral harmonies, luminous resonance, and textile-inspired structures, interwoven with echoes of Renaissance counterpoint, performed by Amalia Young and Anne Yin Han (violins) and Jay Austin Keys and Fernando Yada (pianos).
Marc Sabat’s Three Chorales for Harry Partch, the earliest work in his catalogue, investigated just intonation through sonorities drawn from the subharmonic series, revealing subtle details in the play of noise, resonance, and pure tone.
Linda Catlin Smith’s Velvet explored the tactile and sensual world of two pianos. Its title reflects both the physical touch of keys and the aural textures produced, weaving a soundworld of colour, tone, and luminous resonance.
In Textile 1, Egidija Medekšaitė mapped the woven patterns of her visual textile work onto musical form. Ascending and descending sound structures flowed like warp and weft, with pianos shimmering in constant, crystalline interplay.
Alongside these works, four new pieces were written especially for the concert. Darius Paymai, an Iranian-American composer and performer, writes with clarity of approach and economy of material. London-based composer and guitarist James M. Creed, whose music often unfolds from simple materials and experimental notations, with a focus on repetition, togetherness, and uncertainty, also contributed a new work. 840’s curators Christian Drew and Alex Nikiporenko completed the line-up with their own distinctive voices.
The programme was tied together by arrangements of La Spagna variations by Diego Ortiz – 16th century composer, viol player and pioneering music theorist.