Episode 115 — May 25, 2021
Kevin Day: “Silent Spaces” for viola
Performed by Kallie Sugatski

Violist Kallie Sugatski performs Kevin Day’s Silent Spaces for the House Music series. Day’s program note for the piece opens with a quote from the poet Rumi: “The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.” Sugatski inspires this deeper listening in her House Music series video, which she recorded in the silent, but not-so-silent, Central Park. The soundscape itself becomes part of the music.

Sugatski started working with Metropolis Ensemble right before the COVID-19 pandemic began. In fact, her first Metropolis live performance was one of the last concerts she played in before music venues shut down for in-person programming. It was a premiere of composer Ricardo Romaneiro’s Fritz Lang Metropolis, a film score for the dystopian silent film, Metropolis, which, to Sugatski, almost felt like poignant foreshadowing for what would happen next.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Sugatski has wondered what music we need, and how she could present that music. One day, she consulted Tarot cards around a fire, asking what she should do to move forward. She pulled a card that contained the phrase, “vigorous tenderness,” which eventually became the title for an outdoor concert series she began last year. The vigorous tenderness series is a way Sugatski can unite her values with her music making, presenting marginalized voices in new and contemporary classical music while creating a safe, accessible concert for audiences. In this endeavor, and her House Music series video, she hopes to create sonic environments that inspire deeper reflection.

Notes by Vanessa Ague. Sugatski’s video was made in collaboration with Jonah Rosenberg of Blooming Lightways Studio.

 
House Music: Bite-sized concerts recorded at homes around the world

In 2020-21, we created a weekly video series featuring short-form concerts of newly-commissioned works, supporting 208 artists around the world during the pandemic.