Since the fall, SOLI Chamber Ensemble has been working with students from four area universities on a project to debut eight new compositions at a first-ever SOLI Invitational Composition Contest. The free event will be held on Wednesday, March 6 at 7:30 p.m. at the Recital Hall on the UTSA Main Campus.
SOLI’s violinist, Ertan Torgul, says the unique instrumentation of their group—violin, clarinet, piano and cello—has challenged the students. “They have grown so much,” Torgul says of the students. “Not just in their [writing], but our interactions together.”
A first, second and third prize will be awarded at the concert, as well as an audience favorite prize. The event also includes SOLI’s premiere of a suite of music from composer Ethan Wickman’s “Ballads of the Borderland,” written to celebrate San Antonio’s Tricentennial. Wickman says the larger work is a cantata about “the meaning of migration [and] assimilation,” and the suite distills some of its themes into a shorter work for SOLI.
Hear more from Ethan Wickman and Ertan Torgul:
Hear an excerpt from “Ballads of the Borderland.”
