Event

confluss at Areté

Amber Evans, soprano and Sam Zagnit, double bass are confluss two musicians with a like-minded ethos to commission, perform, and record new and established works for their instruments. Initially bonding during their first performance project in George Crumbs Madrigals Book I as part of Manhattan School of Musics Contemporary Performance Program, both soon realised the potential for the evocative melding of the seemingly antithetical, yet easily divergent timbres of the soprano voice and the double bass.
confluss is derived from both Latin (con- with) and German roots (Fluss (m.): river), with an inadvertent onomatopoeic reference to conflux. Convergence is a key part of the duos ethos, setting future plans in motion to form educational programs, composer think-tanks, national and international commissioning projects to compile a catalogue of works to build a new body of works dedicated to weird/unusual/rarely used instrumentation.
Currently based in New York City, the duo will present their first live presentation in May 2018 of established and new works for soprano and double bass, working with upcoming composer Nhat Nguyen and Manhattan School of Music composition faculty member, Paolo Marchettini to devise two new works for the group. Commissioned works are in process for future performances by New York- based composer Reiko Fueting, and Australian composers Chris Healey and Jakob Bragg. Works by Beat Furrer, Sofia Gubaidulina and Jon Deak also form part of the duos core repertoire, with many other names to be added to this ever-growing list.