SoSCC provided support for the upcoming August 8, 2021 BBC Proms commission to Augusta Read Thomas (“Gusty”) for her new work entitled “Dance Foldings (for orchestra).” The world premiere by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales will be ih the Royal Albert Hall in London, UK. The piece captures the process of protein synthesis (primary structure) and protein folding (secondary, tertiary, and quaternary structure). Important to our current emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic, Dance Foldings takes inspiration from the often frenzied biological ‘ballet’ of proteins that occurs when a messenger RNA vaccine initiates synthesis of the spike protein, which must then fold to the final folded structure. The folded spike protein then stimulates the antigenic response, producing antibodies to protect the human body to fight off subsequent viral challenges. (Click for a fascinating article by Megan Scudellari on the delta virus variant and brilliant animation of SARS-CoV2 virus particle by University of Utah’s Janet Iwasa.)

SoSCC co-commissioned Scar Tissue by Vancouver, BC-based composer Jeffery Ryan, with librettist and Giller-prize winning novelist and poet Michael Redhill. The premiere of Scar Tissue, in Ottawa, ON, Canada at the Ottawa Chamber Fest Concert Series was performed by the iconic Canadian piano trio, the Gryphon Trio,  in collaboration with the world-reknowned vocal ensemble Nordic Voices.

Themed on the concept of disturbance, recovery, and the role of relict structures in the recovery process, this piece captures in 9 movements how systems recover from devastating events and the establishment of a new normal. In human wound healing, in refugee crises, in weather disasters, in financial crashes, in rainforest deforestation, in accidents changing traffic flow, and in family transitions of death or divorce, the cycle of recovery is slow and never quite gets back to the original starting place.

SoSCC commissioned a work titled negative expanse by UC Berkeley composer  Jon Kulpa and performed by the Friction Quartet.Themed on the dramatic orbiting and “descent” into a black hole, then collapse to a quantum singularity, this piece was been created for installation/performance in science venues, planetariums and other suitable spaces. negative expanse (2017) was premiered by the Friction Quartet in combination with an electronically interactive sound system in UC Berkeley’s Hearst Memorial Mining Building on April 30, 2017 as part of an astronomically-themed program entitled Spaced Out. The live performance was recorded and can be seen and heard here.