Out of Darkness into Light

If you afraid of the dark, this event may not be for you!
However, if you are intrigued with the idea of being enveloped in total darkness while you indulge in a sensuous music experience, then please do join the Borealis String Quartet on March 5 at the Orpheum Annex. Out of Darkness into Light is a music concert that will take the audience on an auditory journey out of darkness to the illuminated reaches of the human soul.

The concert will begin with Georg Freidrich Haas's String Quartet No. 3, "In iij Noct." This groundbreaking composition challenges both performers and audience as they are submerged in darkness for a deeply moving listening experience. When the works premiered, in 2002, the composer said darkness is something we have lost in our lives and we have suppressed the natural tension it creates. In this work, I hope to reawaken deep emotions and profound states of the soul. The Borealis String Quartet must rely on their memory and performance skills as they play this work in complete darkness without music scores or the ability to see one another.

Additional works on this program include works of Shostakovich, Gorecki, Dankner and local Vancouver composer Farshid Samandari. Samandari's work vita Borealis is a Canadian premiere. This piece was commissioned for the Borealis String Quartet and first performed in 2015 at the Casalmaggiorie International Music Festival in Italy. vita Borealis is informed by Samandari's interest in spectral music techniques and by the music and customs of the First Nations peoples of the Canadian North.

This unique program came out of the Borealis Sting Quartet's ongoing quest for nuance and colour within musical expression. "The perception of these colours influences how we articulate the music. The whole human emotional spectrum can be expressed in terms of shades of light or dark." - Yuel Yawney, Borealis String Quartet.

The Out of Darkness into Light concert program includes:

Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 9 in E-flat Major, op. 117, (1964) This work was composed and dedicated to his third wife, Irina Antonovna Shostakovich. It is cast in five continuous movements, whose interrelationships are rhythmic elements with the main theme philosophical.

Gorecki's String Quartet No. 1, Already it is Dusk (1988) work is inspired by the folk music of the mountainous Tatra region in Poland, a place beloved by the composer.

Stephen Dankner's String Quartet No. 18 (2009) with no heaven-storming or demonic outbursts imbued with Romantic passion, this is a simple piece, sincere and cheerful. Its message: a warm “welcome,” and a joyful “farewell”.