Contemporary/avant-garde music collective Mothership Ensemble continues to bring innovative and experimental modern classical music to the Louisville area with a free concert on March 15, 2014 at Indiana University-Southeast’s Paul W. Ogle Cultural Center. The concert will feature both newly-composed works and 20th century classics performed by some of the most versatile and enthusiastic musicians in Kentuckiana.

The program revolves around Terry Riley’s classic minimalist composition In C (1964), in honor of its 50th birthday this year. The piece consists of a series of 53 musical phrases which can be played by any musician, in any order, and for any length of time, resulting in a thrillingly hypnotic experience. The work is considered one of first compositions of minimalist music, originally written as a reaction against the highly structured, ultra-complex music of the era.

Another masterpiece that Mothership will reprise is Louis Andriessen’s Workers Union (1975), which the ensemble first performed on its season kickoff concert in 2013. The piece is a raucous, rhythmically charged workout written or “any loud-sounding group of instruments.” Andriessen has described the work as a politically symbolic, displaying “a combination of individual freedom and severe discipline... it is difficult to play in an ensemble and to remain in step, sort of like organizing and carrying on political action.”

In addition to performing these twentieth century classics, Mothership prides itself on promoting the music of composers from Louisville and Southern Indiana. This concert will feature the world premiere of Chris Kincaid’s Full Sunlight, written for bass flute, viola, cello, and electronic sounds. The work is inspired by the poem “Full Sunlight” written by Louisville-born poet Conyer Clayton, and explores music that, according to Kincaid, “is not exactly frozen in time, but instead takes place in time that slowed almost to a standstill.”

Mothership is also excited to perform Sympathetic Vibrations, for tuba and piano, by the ensemble’s co-director and hornist Rachel Short. For much of the piece, the pianist employs the rarely-used sostenuto pedal, allowing the piano’s strings to subtly resonate in harmony with the tuba. Short describes the work as being based on the famous Hindu parable, “Why We Shout in Anger.”

Ensemble director and cellist Jon Silpayamanant will perform in almost every work on the program, including Recursive Iteration No. 1, a new composition by Silpayamanant for cello, bassoon, and electronic sounds. Video artist Roxell Karr, who collaborates with Silpayamanant in their duo Camera Lucida, will provide projections for many of the works on the concert to provide an immersive audiovisual experience.