Texas New Music Ensemble – 2019 Spring Composer Spotlight Concert

As part of Texas New Music Ensemble’s  6th Season, TNME will be presenting an evening of works by Ft. Worth’s Martin Blessinger and Austin’s Yevgeniy Sharlat.

Yevgeniy Sharlat is a Russian-American composer who is on the faculty at The University of Texas at Austin. His string quartet RIPEFG is featured on Aizuri Quartet’s CD “Blueprinting” which got nominated this year for a Grammy Award. It was described by the San Diego Union Tribune as “the most startlingly compelling string quartet by an under-50 American composer I’ve heard in years.” On the TNME program, you will hear his Second String Quartet entitled “Moth” that tries to capture the beauty of all things tiny, fragile, and easily broken. It will be preceded by the second-ever performance of a wordless re-imagining, for violin and piano, of Shostakovich’s last and most sardonic song cycle based on the mad rants of Dostoyevsky’s drunk captain from The Devils.  

Martin Blessinger is Associate Professor of Music Composition and Theory at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.  His music draws from numerous divergent influences, including American minimalism, French impressionism, as well as jazz and popular styles, but what interests him most is fostering a connection with audiences.  Featured on the 2018 International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) World Music Days Festival in Beijing, China, Blessinger’s works have indeed connected audiences around the world. “I’ve been fortunate that my music has taken me so many places in this country and others,” Blessinger says.  “There’s a virtuous cycle at work, where my music has afforded me the opportunity to travel and build relationships with many different people, and these connections have in turn inspired more music.”

Texas New Music Ensemble is a 501c3 not for profit organization established in Houston, founded by Artistic Director Dr. Chad Robinson, whose musical training includes degrees from University of Houston, Carnegie Mellon, and King’s College, London.