Violin Octet Performs Eerie World Premier and Baroque Classic

Nov. 4, 2011 - PRLog -- The acclaimed violin octet, The Hutchins Consort, will perform their second concert of their 2011-2012 season. The evening is titled, “The Four Season Meet the Old Gods,” and expands their already substantial repertoire with a World Premier of Jeff Harrington’s “The Song of R’lyeh” followed by the full suite of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” featuring virtuosi Chris Woods, Beth Folsom and Kevin Connolly.
    “The Song of R'lyeh” is an eight-minute composition written specifically for The Hutchins Consort. The title comes from a fictional lost city that first appeared in the H. P. Lovecraft short story The Call of Cthulhu. According to Lovecraft's story, R'lyeh is a sunken city in the South Pacific and the prison of the malevolent entity called Cthulhu. Composer Harrington says, “The piece is monstrous, otherworldly, and ecstatic.”
    Enhancing 'The Four Seasons,” Vivaldi’s most popular work, will be a high tech collaboration between the famed octet and special guest artist J-Walt. The technical wizard will create his “Spontaneous Fantasia” of on-screen, improvised computer graphics. J-Walt is a performer, interactive designer, filmmaker, graphic artist, and composer. For two decades, he has been at the forefront of interactive art and computer performance, expanding the uses of computer animation into uncharted territories.   His performances combine aspects of animation, video games, music, theater, dance and architecture into a seamless new art form.
    This unique performance will be on Saturday, November 19 at 7:30 PM at the Neurosciences Institute, 10640 John Jay Hopkins Drive, La Jolla, CA.
    Tickets are $25 for adults and $15 for seniors and student and can be purchased at the door or online at www.hutchinsconsort.org. A select number of low price tickets may be purchased at www.goldstar.com (subscription to Goldstar is required).

ABOUT THE HUTCHINS CONSORT
    The Hutchins Consort, founded by Artistic Director Joe McNalley, plays on the eight scaled violins designed and built by famed luthier Dr. Carleen Hutchins. The instruments are the first successful attempt to create an acoustically balanced set of instruments that can truly sound like violins across the entire range of written music. A Violin Octet is a true consort of violins composed of eight violins across the range of a piano—treble, soprano, mezzo, alto, tenor, baritone, bass, and contrabass violins—a tuned set of violins from an 11” treble to a seven-foot contrabass. The Hutchins Consort, based in Southern California, is the only professional ensemble in the world performing on this octet of the New Violin Family instruments.
    The Consort brings together a group of extraordinary musicians to play music from the Middle Ages and Renaissance to the music of the modern masters and new works written specifically for these instruments. They display a breadth and depth that few traditional groups match, and a sound that is truly unique.
    The Hutchins Consort is a 501(c)(3) not for profit organization. For more information go to www.hutchinsconsort.org

ABOUT CARLEEN HUTCHINS
    The famed violinmaker is Carleen Maley Hutchins (May 24, 1911-August 7, 2009) was called the “female Stradivari” by her mentor Harvard physicist Frederick A. Saunders.  Her contribution stems from her efforts to harvest technology to improve on the centuries old string instruments and her invention of a new “family” of musical instruments to give new expression to music both ancient and modern.
    Hutchins was the only woman to be awarded the Honorary Fellowship of the Acoustical Society of America – whose very short list of recipients includes Thomas Edison. Hutchins was also the recipient of four honorary doctorates, a Guggenheim Fellowship and was considered the foremost authority on violin acoustics. From 2002 to 2003, Mrs. Hutchins’s octet was the subject of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Titled “The New Violin Family: Augmenting the String Section.”