Thirty years ago, the SOLI Chamber Ensemble performed its first concert at University Methodist Church, opening with Quartet for the End of Time by French composer Olivier Messiaen.
Since then, time has not stood still for the quartet. Violinist Ertan Torgul estimates that SOLI has commissioned more than 100 new works by living composers over its three decades, which its members have chosen to celebrate with SOLI 30x30x30, a competition to select 30 new music scores.
Three of those new pieces will be performed Monday, May 13, at the San Antonio Botanical Garden, along with new works by Daniel De Togni and SOLI veteran Elliott Miles McKinley.
Listening for soul
The three new compositions are Piano Trio No. 1 by Brittney Benton, Wail On for solo cello by Alex Barsom and Through Your Eyes, Movement by Alexa Canales.
The three composers were among nearly 300 entrants to the SOLI 30x30x30 competition, which was announced in February. The 27 other winning compositions will be sprinkled throughout SOLI’s upcoming season, some performed by other partner ensembles throughout the country, Torgul said.
But it’s fitting to include three competition winners in the concluding concert of SOLI’s anniversary season, said clarinetist Stephanie Key, who also serves as the quartet’s artistic director.
“We love creating, and being the one to invite others to create,” Key said. “That is our legacy.”
The competition was open to anyone creating new music scores and drew a diverse range of applicants. “There are a lot of different demographics going on, which is kind of cool,” said the Turkey-born Torgul.
The panel of judges for the competition — made up of current SOLI members and composers and musicians the ensemble has worked with in the past — was pleasantly surprised by the number and quality of the submissions, and Torgul and Key said the selection process was exceedingly difficult.
“Everybody has a different [musical] language, everybody has something different to share in their piece,” Key said. “You’re really just listening for someone’s soul.”
Looking to new horizons
The culmination of the 30x30x30 project will be a compilation recording involving SOLI and partner ensembles, Torgul said.
In the meantime, select pieces will be programmed into SOLI’s 31st season, to be announced in August.
Whether the composers will be able to attend the concerts in which their pieces are performed is an open question, but Benton, Barsom and Canales will be in attendance for the Botanical Garden concert, titled Macrocosm following the cosmological theme of the 30th anniversary season.
The first concert in October was titled Nebula, the gas-cloud birthplaces of stars as a metaphor for the birth of new music, followed by Galaxies in February and Eclipse on April 8, timed appropriately for the total solar eclipse that just visited the region.
Macrocosm both encompasses the past and looks toward the future, Key said, and Torgul offered a glimpse of what’s to come.
“We’re really looking to two new horizons, looking to create legacy types of projects,” he said. “We’re really not slowing down. We’re certainly going to make some good waves going forward, so we’re nowhere near done yet.”
Tickets for Macrocosm are available through the SOLI website.
This article has been updated to correct the date of the Macrocosm concert, which takes place May 13.
