Modern Notebook for January 1-7, 2023

Photo: composer Viet Cuong (Photo credit: Phil Parsons).

“Cuates” formally means “fraternal twins” in Spanish, and it is the title of this work by Nicolas Lell Benavides that is inspired by his twin sisters. It’s a work for two violins where each part shares a lot of material with the other, yet they rarely exactly align or agree on what they should do with that material - kind of like twins.

You can hear that work on the next Modern Notebook with Tyler Kline, plus: Viet Cuong composed his “Tuba Concerto” as a way to celebrate the tuba, and one way he achieves this is by writing music that constantly rises and grows from the lowest notes in the ensemble.

Also featuring music by Hilary Kleinig, Valerie Coleman, Jennifer Jolley, Kotoka Suzuki, and others; and performances by the Zephyr Quartet, violinists Lucia Lin and Shaw Pong Liu, pianist Brianna Matzke, cellist Hannah Addario-Berry, tubist Justin Benavidez, pianist Cristina Valdes, and more.

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