Ciompi Quartet
featuring Molly Morkoski, Piano
Songs, Games & Messages

Sunday, April 5, 2020 | 4:00 pm

Baldwin Auditorium

March 16, 2020: Important Announcement: Remainder of Duke Performances spring season cancelled

Dear Friends,

Due to precautionary measures related to COVID-19, Duke University has temporarily suspended on-campus classes and is postponing all events with an expected attendance of more than 50 people taking place both on- and off-campus.

Sadly, we must cancel all Duke Performances presentations, both on- and off-campus, for the remainder of our spring season, through May 16.

We wish these changes weren’t necessary, but under the circumstances an aggressive course of action is justified to protect public and community health.

We will do our best to present in the future the artists impacted by these cancellations.

The Duke University Box Office will issue refunds to patrons holding tickets for presentations through May 16. Tickets purchased with a credit card will be refunded to the card of purchase. If card of purchase is expired, refund will be issued via check. Tickets purchased via check or cash payment will receive a check reimbursement sent to the address on record. All refunds are expected to be completed within 8 weeks. Thanks for your patience as we work to expedite refunds.

We thank you for your support of Duke Performances and look forward to seeing you at our presentations in the future.

Until then we wish good health for you and your loved ones as we endure this unprecedented challenge.

With best wishes,

Scott Lindroth
Vice Provost for the Arts
Duke University

Eric Oberstein
Interim Director
Duke Performances

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Pianist Molly Morkoski joins the Ciompi Quartet for a program that spans five centuries. An arrangement of John Dowland songs for piano quintet by Durham-based composer Andrew Waggoner opens the program, presenting a fresh take on vocal works by the beloved Elizabethan composer. Morkoski, whom the Boston Globe calls “outstanding,” joins for another quintet, Weinberg’s opus 18; Weinberg, a Polish war refugee who established his career in Soviet Russia, looks backward to exemplars of genre and form in this majestic work. These two quintets bookend Kurtág’s 12 Microludes (“tiny games”), a sort-of “micro-well-tempered clavier” according to the composer; and the world premiere of Duke professor of composition John Supko’s Continual Park #17. Supko describes Continual Park, commissioned by the Ciompi, as “an ongoing series of pieces for instruments, electronics, field recordings, and spoken text. Concerned with the intersection of sounds recorded from life and the sounds that instruments make, these works also explore the ambiguous play that results when language encounters music.”

Program