Ken Ueno: Four Contemplations

March 26, 2015 / 5:30-8:30 pm

About

Community MusicWorks has commissioned composer Ken Ueno to create a site-specific work for the Community MusicWorks Players at the RISD Museum inspired by the Museum's Dainichi Buddha. Encompassing live performances by Ueno and Community MusicWorks Players, the project will engage diverse urban communities in contemporary music and ancient Asian art.

Entitled Four Contemplations, the work takes as its subject the RISD Museum's ancient Dainichi Buddha, and is intended for listeners to gain a new and personal relationship to concert music through their experience with the Buddha and Ueno's ethereal music. Ueno's compositional approach frequently involves extra-musical modeling, including using images, cultural phenomena, or architecture as the basis for structural decisions, somewhat analogous to the use of architectural proportions in Renaissance music. For this project, Ueno has drawn upon the foundations of mindfulness in Buddhist theology. The evening-length work for 12 CMW musicians will unfold in multiple movements--solos, duos, trios, and quartets--some accompanied by a throat singer (Ueno).

Tonight, Community Music Works musicians and Ueno will perform portions of the composition in the Museum's Asian Art Galleries.

Space is limited and registration for a specific time slot is recommended.
Free with Museum Admission.