The Once and Future Maiden at The Noguchi Museum

Sunday, February 5, 2017 - 3:00pm

In celebration of the exhibition of Noguchi’s two sculptures Birth (1934) and Death (1934) together in the same gallery for the first time, The Noguchi Museum presents The Rhythm Method String Quartet featuring Alice Teyssier in a program entitled The Once and Future Maiden. In the same way that Noguchi sought a lifelong balance between figuration and abstraction, the various compositional voices on this program deal with fragmented portraits of women in life and death.

Dai Fujikura’s silence seeking solace is at times whimsical and ecstatic and in the next instant desolate and cold, as the soprano weaves through the string quartet in whispers and virtuosic vocal leaps. Fujikura’s Deconstructing Franz is a response to the classic Schubert work, Death and the Maiden, bringing the idea of engaging in the history of art and curation to the concert. Leah Asher, known for her beautiful graphic scores, blends the alto flute and viola in delicate breaths and percussive edges in her work If We Should Meet, Here. Asher’s work was written specifically for the performers on this concert, and developed through close collaboration. Finally, Anne Lanzilotti writes a new work for the occasion using two of Noguchi’s obsidian sound sculptures. It is the personal relationships between composers and performers that allows for interpretations which are extreme in their delicacy and physicality, and expose the intimacy and suffering in these works.

This program is free with Museum admission.

Anne Lanzilotti, new work with Noguchi’s sound sculptures

Franz Schubert, String Quartet No. in D Minor, D. 810 "Death and the Maiden"

Dai Fujikura, Deconstructing Franz

Leah Asher, if we should meet, here.

Dai Fujikura, Silence Seeking Solace