The Happenstancers latest gig; Broken, played on Friday evening at Redeemer Lutheran. Getting back to their core mission, this concert explored the relationships between baroque music and contemporary repertoire and the plusses and minusses of combining music, instruments and techniques from both.  So, interspersed between sonatas by Johann Rosenmüller; originally scored for strings and continuo but played here by various combinations of oboe/cor anglais, regular and bass clarinet, strings and accordion, we got contemporary pieces.

The concert began with Kaija Saariaho’s challenging Folia for bass (Travis Harrison) and live electronics (Fish Yu).  Two Rosenmüller sonatas bookended Du Yun’s seriously atonal and busy i am my own achilles heel (a form that would never shape) for string quartet. The first half closed out with Kalaisan Kalaichevalan’s La Notte for cello (Peter Eom) and lots of electronics again.

Part two kicked off with Danika Lorèn performing selections from George Aperghis’ Récitations.  This involves some pretty serious vocal gymnastics as a wide variety of vocal techniques are drawn on to project syllables and fractured words as if of a woman who is trying to speak but somehow can’t.  Fascinating stuff.  Then more Rosenmüller before Saman Shahi’s Misshapen which is scored for viola (Lauren Spaulding), cello, bass clarinet (Brad Cherwin) and cor anglais (Aleh Remezeau).  There are six short movements each representing a French baroque dance style but absolutely not in a way that Louis XIV would have recognised.  And to close things out Vivaldi’s trio sonata in D; La Folia.

It really did the job.  Some of the links and contrasts were obvious, some not so much, but the basic theme of exploring how the music of the baroque and that of the 21st century relate (or don’t) was clear enough.

Musicians not otherwise mentioned; Chris Whitley and Julia Mirzoev on violins, Matti Pulkki on accordion, Joonghun Cho on harpsichord.

Photo credits: Thomas Li