Musical Journeys

Carlos Simon Warmth from Other Suns
Robert Schumann Piano Quintet in Eb major, Op. 44
Dmitri Shostakovich Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57

with Victor Cayres, piano

Composers often use their works to take audiences on sonic expeditions.  In Warmth from Other Suns Carlos Simon provides us with powerful depictions of the Great Migration of six million Black Americans leaving the South to the Northeast, Midwest and West.  Robert Schumann pioneered the genre of the piano quintet - in the course of his Op. 44 he takes us full circle transforming material he introduces at the outset into a grand contrapuntal apotheosis at the end.  Dmitri Shostakovich takes us on a journey to the musical past, reflecting on the music of Bach in his Piano Quintet in G minor, while also providing us with a window into the uneasy calm before the storm felt by many in Russia in 1940 with World War II imminently encroaching into their lives.