The Los Angeles-based world chamber jazz ensemble Quarteto Nuevo will play an Alaska-inspired piece for the first time at their Oct. 5 concert at the Chilkat Center. The piece is part of a project to write a piece of music about all 50 states.
“I’m trying to capture the magnitude, the scope and the size, and how it’s evolved over the centuries from the Natives, the Russians and American influences,” said Damon Zick, a member of the group who is composing the piece.
He said as part of his process, he’s been listening to recordings of Native melodies, and working on adding jazz chord progressions underneath the nine-piece movement.
“The same melody sounds vastly different when you put different sounds underneath,” he said.
Zick hasn’t been to Alaska but said his experiences working on a cruise ship in Norway gave him some idea of the landscape he might expect.
“There were passengers on the ship who had done cruises in Alaska who said there were a lot of similarities with Norway, but Alaska is ten times bigger,” he said.
The Quarteto Nuevo is stopping in Haines to begin a five-city tour including stops in Juneau, Skagway, Homer and Kodiak.
The group cites a variety of influences from around the world, playing music by composers from Brazil to Bulgaria. Zick said that most of the pieces are original compositions.
Tom Heywood with the Haines Arts Council said the council got interested in the group in the spring.
“This is a virtuosic quartet that tours nationally and internationally, and has been very popular with audiences presenting an eclectic blend of classical, jazz, eastern European folk, and Latin music. The instrumentation is very unique and includes guitar, cello, soprano sax and hand percussion,” he wrote in an email.
Members will be looking for feedback from their Alaskan audiences during the intermission and after the show. That feedback could inform the final version of the composition, which will be recorded in March.