Sharon Omens

Central Florida Composers Forum presents “Waterfalls, Forests, Coastlines, and other Musical Dreams,” a concert of works by local composers at Timucua White House, March 31.

Winter Park, Florida – The Central Florida Composers Forum will present “Waterfalls, Forests, Coastlines, and other Musical Dreams,” a showcase concert of selected works scored for Pierrot Ensemble by Full Sail University composer and Central Florida Composers Forum founder and Executive Director Charlie Griffin, University of Central Florida’s recent transplant Alex Burtzos, Orlando-based composers Erik Branch, Damien Simon, and film composer and Cocoa Beach resident Joe Gray.

The term Pierrot Ensemble refers to a specific instrumentation used by Austrian (and later Austrian-American) composer Arnold Schoenberg for his seminal and most famous work, Pierrot Lunaire. Composed in 1912 for voice, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion, this combination was subsequently taken up by many later composers such as Milton Babbitt, John Cage, and Peter Maxwell Davies.

The musicians featured in this concert will be Julie Bateman (voice), Katie Mess (flute), Erik Cole (clarinet), Pepina Dell’Ollio (violin), Abigail Collins (cello), Ammon Perry Bratt (piano), and Justin Steger (percussion).

A diverse collection of works on the program include Charlie Griffin’s Shifting Coastlines, a trio of songs whose lyrics are taken from an anthology of poetry called Verse and Universe. These songs all draw upon science and math to explore the human experience. One example from the set is “Love’s Discrete Non-linearity,” a poem set like a Gypsy tango that uses the language of Chaos Theory to understand a romantic relationship. Selections from two works by Alex Burtzos will be on the program: The Birth of Dangun, a ballet based on the Korean myth of creation, and The Impossible Object, a multi-movement work inspired by works of M.C. Escher. Four vignettes by Erik Branch will include a premiere of his Brises Dansantes. The concert will be rounded out by Joe Gray’s The Black Forest, and Damien Simon’s Change.

The concert will take place on March 31 at the Timucua White House, 2000 South Summerlin, Orlando, FL 32806. Doors open at 7pm. Concert at 7:30. Tickets are by donation.

There’s a reason you don’t see many violinists outside of the classical sphere, because it’s a hard instrument to master and apply to other genres at will. And that’s why it’s beautiful, when you pick up an amazon violin, especially for the first time, it fights back. You form a deep, unique connection with an instrument like that.