Concert Ludovico Ensemble: Younghi Pagh-Paan & Sara Glojnarić

Exploring the question of Contemporary Music in Germany as a global nation

Sara Glojnarić (b. 1991) – Sugarcoating #2 (2017)*, Artefacts #2 (2019)*

Younghi Pagh-Paan (b. 1945) – Silbersaiten II (2010), Flammenzeichen (1983)
 
*US premieres

Rane Moore, clarinet; David Russell, cello; Yoko Hagino, piano; Nicholas Tolle, percussion; Rose Hegele, soprano

The Ludovico Ensemble performs a concert of works by South Korean composer Younghi Pagh-Paan and Croatian composer Sara Glojnarić, both born outside Germany but now making their living as composers and composition teachers within the county. The concert explores the question of art in Germany as a global nation (second only to the US as a destination for immigrants) and asks the question of who or what represents Germany today.

This event is presented in partnership with the Goethe Institut-Boston and inspired by the Harvard Art Museums’ s exhibition “Made in Germany? Art and Identity in a Global Nation," opening September 13 and running through January 2025. The music performed dates from 1983 to 2019 and comes from Glojnarić, a young composer based in Leipzig and Pagh-Paan, who moved to Germany in 1974 and has been Professor of Composition at the Hochschule der Künste in Bremen since 1994.

The Ludovico Ensemble is a Boston-based chamber ensemble specializing in modern music. Founded in 2002 by percussionist Nicholas Tolle, the group is known for its carefully curated programs focusing on specific and often unusual instrumentations. From 2007-2014, the group held the position of Ensemble-In-Residence at the Boston Conservatory. In 2010, the group released its first album featuring chamber music by the late Dana Brayton, former composition teacher at the Boston Conservatory. The Boston Globe hailed Ludovico’s recording of Marti Epstein’sHypnagogiaas one of the best classical albums of 2015, and Alex Ross ofThe New Yorker called it a new release of interest. In 2016 the group released its third album featuring the music of Composer–In–Residence Mischa Salkind-Pearl.

The group consists of many of the best freelancers and new music specialists in Boston, and its instrumentation varies wildly from concert to concert as the repertoire demands. The group's name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fictional medical treatment featured in the Anthony Burgess novel and Stanley Kubrick movie "A Clockwork Orange," in which the protagonist is subjected to a classical conditioning regimen that induces nausea at the sight of violent or exploitative acts, but also, inadvertently, to the music of Beethoven.
 

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