Event

TownMusic: 'Quartet'

Joshua Roman, the 23-year-old principal cellist of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, has joined Town Hall as artistic director of TownMusic, Town Hall's exploratory classical music series. Dubbed a "classical music rock star" by KUOW, Roman's interests extend into the baroque, classical, jazz and rock repertoires; in a head crowded with many musical voices, he finds his own as a performer and a programmer through confidence, passion, and technique. Reflecting his view that "excellence is where you hear it," his debut season is a highly personal expression of his many influences; it's a season of music he loves. In a genre-spanning program, Joshua Roman has chosen three innovative 20th century works, all featuring the widest possible range of musical influences. Beginning with the Quartet for the End of Time by French composer Olivier Messiaen (written and first performed while imprisoned in a German prison camp) the groundbreaking work is a musical extension of the Biblical account of the end of time. Featuring the same instrumentation as the Messiaen (clarinet, violin, cello, and piano), Dan Visconti's Fractured Jams is an exploration of the thrill, confusion and driving power of rock and carefully-crafted lyrisicm of Tin Pan Alley. In the program's second half, Roman along with clarinetist Bill Kalinkos, pianist Grance Fong, and violinist Amy Iwazumi, and vocalist Sarah Rudinoff perform a medley of works by the influential rock band Radiohead.