SOLI Chamber Ensemble caps off this season with the world premiere of Scott Ordway’s The Clearing and the Forest, a site-specific evening-length work commissioned by the ensemble for its 25th anniversary. Ordway last collaborated with SOLI for its 20th season concert Future, and his star has only risen in the five years since.
Critically acclaimed for “boundary-defying mixed-media pieces” like the audience-interactive “whisper play” Tonight We Tell the Secrets of the World, Ordway has applied his trademark multidisciplinary approach to The Clearing and the Forest, blending “chamber music, experimental theater and visual art installation” in a work that “explores themes of displacement, immigration, refuge and home.” The Clearing and the Forest is an immersive landscape — SOLI members Ertan Torgul, Stephanie Key, David Mollenauer and Carolyn True move fluidly through the space, at times eschewing the imposed border of the proscenium to play their instruments behind or even hidden from the audience, all the while surrounded by the lush scenic design of Boston-based Erica Eliot, who crafted the set from predominantly organic materials.
For more insight into the performance, grab a seat early for a pre-concert talk at 2:30 p.m., in which SOLI members and Ordway will talk about the process of bringing this work to life.
$10-$25, 3pm Sun June 2, McNay Art Museum, Leeper Auditorium, 6000 N. New Braunfels Ave., (210) 824-5368, solichamberensemble.com.
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This article appears in May 22 – Jun 4, 2019.
