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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT APRIL 13, 2023
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Left to right: Some of the ensembleNewSRQ artists: Marcelina Suchocka, Louis Andriessen, Mike Truesdell, Missy Mazzoli, Natalie Helm, Bharat Chandra and Jennifer Best Takeda
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B
ack in the erstwhile romantic days, a suitor might say, “We could make beautiful music together” with a straight face. Well, that’s exactly what percussionist George Nickson and violinist Samantha Bennett are doing. The husband and wife, who met through friends at the New England Conservancy when they were both studying there, founded ensembleNewSRQ eight years ago. The rest, as they say, is history. On Monday, April 17, their “baby,” which has grown to encompass 40 musicians on stage, will perform at the Sarasota Opera House for the first time. The show is called “1976” because two of the pieces that will be played that night — HK Gruber’s “Frankenstein” and Louis Andriessen’s iconic “De Staat”— were both composed in that bicentennial year. “We’re excited about this occasion. We’ll be playing on a bigger stage both physically and metaphorically,” Bennett said in a joint telephone interview from the couple’s home in Dallas, where Nickson is principal percussionist in the Dal-
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Concert ‘1976’ kicks off new era for Samantha Bennett and George Nickson’s ‘baby.’
las Symphony Orchestra and a faculty member at Southern Methodist University. When many people hear the term “new music,” they often think of dissonant, atonal works by Philip Glass or other avant garde composers. Nickson doesn’t have a problem with that sound, but he stresses “1976” will be accessible to a wide variety of music fans. “The April program is going to be fun and crazy,” he says. “This program is inspired by minimalism, jazz and rock ’n’ roll. The first half is like a cabaret. The second half is like a rock concert.” Lest anyone think “new” music means works released in the past year, the standard definition for popular music — in the orchestra and chamber music world — is much broader. On its website, the group Zeitgeist Music defines the genre as “an extension of the classical music tradition.” According to Zeitgeist, new music “represents the cutting and creative edge of classical music. In addition, new music can incorporate elements of many different musical genres, including classical, jazz, SEE FUTURE PAGE 2