Ensemble Connect is the resident educational ensemble at Carnegie Hall. I mostly encounter them in concerts, either in Zankel or, as tonight, in the Resnick Educational Wing's music hall. As part of the impending semiquincentennial, Carnegie is doing a set of concerts themed as "United in Sound: America at 250." But really, I'm just here because it's a bunch of new or relatively new American music! Unlike previous Education Wing concerts, we have a smaller audience tonight, but that's presumably because of the cold and the massive snowstorm we're still digging out from -- 12 inches in Brooklyn!)
First up is one of the two living composers--Jessie Montgomery with "Strum". This time, even though there is a violin part, she's not playing here (and isn't here at all, though the snow & cold may have something to do with that). What to say except that it's another one of her typical joyous consonant pieces (for string quartet in this case) and it still feels enjoyable to listen to her in this vein.
Next was the only composer I don't know -- Emma Lou Diemer and her 'Quartet for Trumpet, Horn, Trombone and Piano'. Harmonically this is an uneasy piece that seems to never settle itself down. Though eventually with the trumpet all I can think of is Copland's Quiet Night.
Jennifer Higdon's 'Book of Brass' was a quintet, two a horn, two trumpets and two trombones (one bass). There were moments of vitality for me, but also moments that were less so. It was fine.
The finale was by far the most exciting as well as the most complicated -- Christopher Rouse's Rotae Passionis. With seven players, many doubling instruments, including several who occasionally left their regular instruments to play percussion, this piece required a conductor and Marin Alsop was there. (She's some kind of fellow this year.) This was Rouse in his apocalyptic mode -- it was written in 1982 just a few years before the flute concerto, and you can really hear that it's the same composer. The same crashing dissonant chords and even the flute piercing through the thickness of the cacophony. It doesn't have the same heart-wrenching tune as the Flute Concerto, which I still think may be his masterpiece, or at least may end up being a piece that flautists love so much it has significant niche populatiry (much as Arutunian's Trumpet Concerto). I loved it and was blown away - this was a fantastic finale.
Ensemble Connect Up Close, Saturday 31 January 2026, Weill Music Room, Resnick Educational Wing, Carnegie Hall
(See also the review by Daniele Sahr who I sat next to and had a very nice conversation -- https://seenandheard-international.com/2026/02/marin-alsop-and-ensemble-connect-explore-demanding-american-chamber-works/ )
