Le Balcon plays Beethoven, Repečkaitė, Vivier, and Sciarrino — With Michaël Levinas

The immortal Beethoven is in excellent company in this concert entitled Winds, dedicated to wind instruments. Pianist Michaël Levinas, accompanied by the superb musicians in Le Balcon, kicks off the program with the Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat Major, a heartfelt early masterwork by the 26-year-old Beethoven. Next up is Incantare by Lithuanian composer Justina Repečkaitė, a star on the rise in the classical world, a showcase of unconventional extended techniques that stretch the limits of traditional timbre.

Claude Vivier, a Quebecois composer who championed spectral music before his tragic murder in 1983, follows Repečkaitė's work with the mysterious Woyzeck for tape, set to the sublimely intriguing images of David Daurier. This multimedia spectacle, given in 2018 at the Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet in Paris, closes out with a nod to contemporary Italian classical, Salvatore Sciarrino's Il silenzio degli oracoli (The Silence of the Oracles), a short work that plays cleverly and cheekily with texture.