DownEast New Music, an organization dedicated to bringing dynamic performances of chamber music by living composers to DownEast Maine, is thrilled to announce Community Center. With three performances in Hancock and Washington Counties, DownEast New Music celebrates the exciting and diverse body of music by young American composers.

Featuring: Conrad Winslow, Made from Stony Ground (2024) for clarinet, piano, cimbalom, violin, cello, and double bass WORLD PREMIERE inti figgis-vista, new cosmologies (2020) for mixed ensemble

Gabriella Smith, Anthozoa (2018) for violin, cello, piano, and percussion

Carlos Simon, where Two or three are gathered… (2017) for violin and cello

Co-artistic directors Clare Monfredo (cello) and Edward Kass (double bass) will be joined by Conrad Winslow(composer/pianist), John Diodati (clarinet), MuChen Hsieh (violin), and Nicholas Tolle (cimbalom). 

Community Center is built around the WORLD PREMIERE of Waldoboro-based composer/pianist Conrad Winslow’s (Homer, AK, b. 1985) new work Made from Stony Ground (2024), written for sextet of clarinet, cimbalom, piano, violin, cello, and double bass. Winslow uses monophonic textures and brings disparate voices together into near unison, reflecting new civic possibilities and the ways communities come together. As we listen to the various lines converging, we are inspired to think about what it means for diverging ideas and voices to join and become a singular whole.

With similar inspiration, Carlos Simon (Atlanta, GA, b. 1986) composed where two or three are gathered… drawing from his childhood attending a small church where coming together and holding space for community meant finding a larger purpose, even when numbers are small, like the intimate violin and cello duo the piece is scored for. Starting with a meditative character, the mood gradually transforms into one of jovial energy.

In Anthozoa (2018), Gabriella Smith (Berkeley, CA, b. 1991) finds community in the ocean, taking inspiration from the vibrant ecosystem that forms around coral reefs. Using clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, Smith recreates the soundscape present underwater, giving us an entrancing visit to another world – an imagined version of a far-off reality.

We visit another imagined reality in new cosmologies by Andean-Irish composer inti figgis-vizueta (Washington, D.C., b. 1993). Relying on the improvisatory and interpretive processes in her music, figgis-vizueta asks us to imagine a new history for indigenous people, one free from violence and colonialism. By imagining a new history for her community, figgis-vizueta gives us a chance to think of a new future as well.

By bringing together music written by young American composers from across the country, we look for common ground, shared experiences, and hope as we move forward into the unknown.