Illuminations: “Human and Machine”

Keyboard virtuoso Kristian Bezuidenhout has programmed a recital that illustrates the evolution of the keyboard predecessors of the
modern piano, celebrating these instruments as gloriously man-made inventions and marvels of human ingenuity.

Percussionist Colin Currie’s acclaimed ensemble is devoted to realizing the musical vision of Steve Reich, the maverick minimalist composer whose innovations and experimentation went on to redefine the sound of 21st-century chamber music.

Sō Percussion navigates the addition of novel sounds—noisemakers, computer timekeeping devices, pre-recorded samples and loops—and unseen electronic collaborators into their performance environment to realize works exploring complex human emotions.

In his meticulously crafted new chamber opera, revered South African artist William Kentridge connects ancient wisdom with modern data-tracking and ruminates on the role of algorithms in contemporary life.

In composer and producer Michel van der Aa’s genre-defying chamber opera Blank Out, video and electronic music techniques entwine to invoke the textured, fragmented experience of processing personal tragedy and loss.

Octavia E. Butler’s dystopian novel Parable of Sower is realized as a congregational opera by the daughter/mother musical team of Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon, exploring humanity’s attempts to recover and heal itself after its dependence on technology has gone too far.