UK New Music Ensemble concert
This concert by the UK New Music Ensemble, under the batton of Juan Trigos, offers a vivid journey through contemporary musical expression. The program brings together four influential composers, each represented by a work that highlights their distinctive voice and the artistry of featured soloists.
Maurice Ohana’s Tiento opens the evening with its introspective, finely carved writing for solo guitar, performed by Daniel Monroy. The dialogue between timbre and lyricism continues in Leo Brouwer’s Elegía por Cintio Vitier, interpreted by Scarlet Haed on flute and Daniel Monroy on guitar. The exploration of instrumental color deepens with Claudio Scannavini’s Da una visione del “ramo d’oro”, brought to life by cellist Holden Bitner, whose performance reveals the work’s expressive and textural breadth. The ensemble then takes center stage in Witold Lutosławski’s Chain 1, a masterful study in controlled freedom and evolving musical form.
At the heart of the evening are two world premieres by Trigos’s composition students at the University of Kentucky. Jeffrey Jones’s Idea’legy, performed by Chris Kim with ensemble, explores resonance, fragility, and transformation through the voice of the cello. Ángel Gómez’s Preludio, Fuga y Saturnal—composed as the culminating project for his Master of Music degree—unfolds as an ambitious triptych for large ensemble, expanding the program’s dialogue between tradition, innovation, and emerging compositional voices.
Together, these works and performances illuminate a landscape where lineage, experimentation, and new creation converge, affirming the ensemble’s commitment to presenting music that is both artistically rigorous and boldly forward‑looking.
