Presents Second Nature by Eric Wubbels
Sunday, March 9 | 7:30 p.m.
Harper Hall
Written for and performed by the Wet Ink Ensemble
- Erin Lesser: Flutes
- Ian Antonio: Percussion
- Eric Wubbels: Keyboards
Second Nature is a new concert-length music and video work from composer/performer and Wet Ink Ensemble Co-Director Eric Wubbels, an artist who “brings meticulous poise to his experimentalism,” and whose music, “with references to many traditions, sounds like nothing by any other composer” (The New York Times).
Written for and developed in long-term collaboration with Wet Ink Ensemble members Erin Lesser and Ian Antonio, Second Nature is an extended meditation on cycles of growth, decay, and regeneration, drawing on ancient, contemporary, and futurist perspectives, instruments, and technologies.
Taking as its genre-ancestor Morton Feldman’s late trios for flute, piano, and percussion, the piece then pivots in a radically different direction, finding meaning and complexity in the particularly loaded contemporary intersection of nature, culture, and technology.
Over the course of more than 70 minutes, Second Nature brings together musical scenarios of the most extreme variety and diversity into a stunningly original synthesis. Movements for traditional instrumental combinations (flute, vibraphone, piano) segue directly into music for computer-controlled cymbals and 3-D printed ultrasonic flute, and passages for analog synthesizer and inside-piano technique are accompanied by homemade (and in one case, home-grown) wind and percussion instruments made from plant, rock, and animal bone materials. Video interludes of the trio performing outdoors at specifically chosen geographical and seasonal locations extend the conceptual and symbolic reach of the piece beyond the concert hall and back into the natural world itself.