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Programme Note

Composer note:
I once stayed at a hotel in Geneva and my room was on a high floor right between the bell towers of two churches, each with a wonderful set of bells that were slightly out of tune with each other. I tried to recreate the sound of being between those bells with XVI, written for a chorus of 16 voices. The chorus is divided spacially into two microtonal groups that sing back and forth. The text is a setting of Lecture XVI (1984) by composer Morton Feldman, a rant in which he describes his analysis of a piece by, and subsequent conversation with, Pierre Boulez.

––Michael Gordon

XVI was commissioned by The Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust.