In the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra’s Live at the Pulitzer series, the musical curator programs contemporary chamber music in response to the current exhibition at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation and selects SLSO musicians to perform it.
On Tuesday night, current musical curator Christopher Stark responded to Weaving the Infinite by Olga de Amaral, an exhibition of textile art. He focused on the solitude of the weaver. Five of the six pieces were solos, and four featured pianist Peter Henderson playing an instrument that, like a loom, requires two hands to perform different tasks at the same time.
In addition to their hands, pianists also work a foot pedal. In the program’s only duet, Woven by Donnacha Dennehy, Kevin Ritenauer played marimba while stomping a bass drum pedal. The connection to weaving was hard to miss. Textiles likewise require coordination between two hands and a foot pedal.
The centerpiece works in the Pulitzer exhibition are massive, but Stark did not respond with musical epics. Rather than mirror scale, he emphasized technique. Weaving relies upon the repetition of patterns and ideas. In response, Stark programmed music that was repetitive, hypnotic and rooted largely in a minimalist aesthetic.
The repetition extended to the composers represented on the program. In a concert of six works, Stark included two compositions each by Dennehy and Adolfo MejÃa.
Stark incorporated de Amaral’s themes as well as her methods. The artist uses gold both for its beauty and for its connection to the conquest of the Americas. The program opened with Ishi’s Song by Martin Bresnick, an intensely repetitive piano work built around a fragment of song by a Native man whose people, Stark noted, were exterminated during the California Gold Rush.
Repetition requires variation to sustain attention. Both de Amaral and Stark found power in that balance. The only solo work not performed on piano, Dennehy’s Bridget, featured Jennifer Nitchman playing flute against repeated samples of her own performance, creating an evolving dialogue between repetition and change.
The program also featured a world premiere. A new version of Julia Wolfe’s Weave incorporated another technique associated with weaving: crossing hands. Henderson repeatedly carried his right hand past his left on the keyboard and his left beyond his right, creating a striking visual and musical effect.
As engrossing as the solo performances were, the concluding duet by Ritenauer on marimba and bass drum and Bjorn Ranheim on cello approached the scale of the textiles that inspired the evening. Lasting more than 22 minutes, Dennehy’s Woven matched many concertos performed by the full orchestra on the Powell Hall stage in ambition and scope.
Since David Robertson introduced Live at the Pulitzer in 2002, the series has united two of St. Louis’ most significant artistic institutions in an ongoing collaboration. Now in his fourth season as curator, Stark brings sensitivity to visual art, a grounding in contemporary classical music and the imagination necessary to keep this St. Louis treasure vibrant.
Weaving the Infinite at the Pulitzer closes Jan. 31, 2027.