escapeVelocity
Giancarlo Latta, violin
Robert Fleitz, piano
escapeVelocity is a violin and piano duo comprised of performer-composers Giancarlo Latta and Robert Fleitz, focusing on music of the 20th and 21st centuries.
“Escape velocity,” a concept in physics, here references the violin and piano as two bodies in space. The piano, a massive and at times unwieldy force, pulls the violin into its sphere: sometimes, the violin’s velocity and voice escape the piano’s gravitational pull and the two instruments enter a dialogue; at other times, the piano draws the violin in and the two objects must act as one.
The duo has been in residence at Avaloch Farm, The Banff Centre and the Composers Conference at Wellesley College. They were recently featured as part of Mise-En Place’s Curators Program, and performed in Florida, Michigan, and New York during the 2018-19 season.
Recent commissions include works by Theo Chandler, inti figgis-vizueta, Linda Leimane, Jessica Mays, Darian Donovan Thomas, Zeynep Toraman, and Julie Zhu.
escapeVelocity is a recipient of a Chamber Music America Ensemble Forward Grant, made possible with generous support from the New York Community Trust.
Programs
Re-Creation of the World
Centered around Darius Milhaud’s groundbreaking 1923 ballet “La Création du monde,” Re-Creation of the World explores the interconnected musical landscapes of 1920s France and America through works by Milhaud, Lili Boulanger, Germaine Tailleferre, and Duke Ellington. Presented in a new arrangement for piano and violin by composer-performers Robert Fleitz and Giancarlo Latta, Milhaud’s piece is in turn seen through the eyes of six composers whose work represents today’s diverse and far-reaching landscape of contemporary classical music. These six composers (inti figgis-vizueta, Linda Leimane, Jessica Mays, Darian Thomas, Zeynep Toraman, and Julie Zhu) offer six responses to “La Création,” crafting a new narrative about the “creation of the world” that reflects an updated, contemporary worldview.
Reflected Arcs
escapeVelocity presents a recital of rarely-heard masterworks for violin and piano. Anchoring the program are pioneering American modernist Ruth Crawford’s brutally beautiful Sonata for Violin and Piano and the visionary Charles Ives’ succinct and nostalgic Violin Sonata No. 4 (subtitled “Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting”). These pieces are contrasted with—and illuminated by—Judith Weir’s elegant and humorous “Music for 247 Strings,” the compactly lush “Duo” by Jessica Mays, and Oliver Knussen’s colorfully timbral “Autumnal.” Exploring symmetry, reflections, and the balance between opposing forces, Theo Chandler’s new work for escapeVelocity itself holds the program in balance.