Valencia International Contemporary Ensemble (VICE)

@ Ateneo Musical del Puerto

19:00 - free and open to the public

Music by Murong Tang, Chenxuan Huang, Ethan Pérez, Joseph Dunkelberg, Ollie Becker, Ryan Garvey, and faculty members Amy Williams, Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann, and Emmanuel Berrido

VALENCIA INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Luis Fernández Castelló, clarinets
Mariel Roberts, cello
Juanjo Llopico, percussion
Dimitri Vassilakis, piano
Carlos Amat Arocas, conductor

PROGRAM / PROGRAMA

MURONG TANG: Move! Sisyphus!
for cello, percussion, and piano

This work was inspired by an experience during my travels in Haixi Prefecture, Qinghai Province. I was deeply
struck by the sight of waterbirds seemingly frozen in midair by powerful winds, yet constantly struggling against them.

CHENXUAN HUANG: Auh!??
for bass clarinet, cello, percussion, piano, and electronics

"The fuckers.
There, I feel better.
God-damned human race.
There, I feel
better...............................................

Do you know that cats sleep 20 hours out of 24?
No wonder they look better than I."

— Charles Bukowski, The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship
8/23/92 12:28 AM

AMY WILLIAMS: Cineshape 4
for piano solo

Cineshape 4 for solo piano takes structural elements from the German film “Run Lola Run” as a point of departure. This film is divided into three episodes; Lola repeats the same day three times, starting in exactly the same way, but each time hoping that a slight modification of her actions will save the life of her boyfriend. This simple concept—that minor choices impact the unfolding of events—leads to a multifaceted structure. Much like the film, the piece is high-paced and energetic, literally running from start to finish with only occasional moments to stop and take a breath.

JORGE VILLAVICENCIO GROSSMANN: Shadow Catalog
for cello and piano

This work takes its title and premise from a peculiar corner of music history: pieces inspired not by paintings that hang in galleries, but by paintings that never existed at all — images invented by composers, or by the poets and folk traditions composers drew upon. Shadow Catalog imagines these phantom canvases as real holdings in some impossible archive, and offers musical responses to them, each one already once removed from any actual brushstroke.

I. La Maja y el Ruiseñor (The Maiden and the Nightingale)

Francisco Goya painted dozens of majas — the spirited, independent women of working-class Madrid — but no canvas by his hand shows one of these women pouring out her heart to a nightingale. That image belongs to Enrique Granados, who built it from a Valencian folk song and offered it to the world as though it were a missing scene from Goya's Spain. This movement takes up that invented image again: guitar-like clusters with sympathetic vibrations by piano silently depressed notes and cello pedal tones give way to a succinct cello line, which the piano comments on with birdsong-like figuration, evoking a private confession overheard in the dark.

II. Scarbo

Among the most feared pieces in the piano repertoire, Ravel's Scarbo was itself born from words rather than paint: Aloysius Bertrand's prose poem, written in homage to the shadowed, lantern-lit world of Rembrandt, describes a malevolent goblin-like creature that flickers in and out of visibility. No such Rembrandt painting exists — only Bertrand's imagined version of one, filtered through Ravel's nightmarish piano writing. This movement continues that chain of imagination, with the cello's whispering, ponticello tremolos and the piano's sudden, jagged eruptions conjuring a presence that is felt more than seen.

EMMANUEL BERRIDO: Asterism
for cello solo

I. Altair • II. Vega • III. Deneb

Part of the summer night sky in the northern hemisphere is the three-star formation commonly known as the "Great Triangle" (or the "Summer Triangle"), a formation that shines brightly during the summer months. Like the Summer Triangle has its three vertices, this work features three movements named after the stars in each vertex of the formation: Altair, brightest star in the constellation Aquila (the Eagle); Vega, brightest star in the constellation Lyra (the Lyre); and Deneb, brightest star in Cygnus (the Swan). Each movement progresses onto the next one, as if tracing a triangle, with the final moments in "Deneb" bringing the listener back to the beginning of the triangle. ASTERISM was composed for and is dedicated to cellist Megan Chartier.

ETHAN PÉREZ: American Dream
for clarinet, cello, and marimba

I began to write this piece in January of 2026. During this time, the United States government has started foreign wars and mass deportations. These have been met with massive protests, which the government has responded to with brutal crackdowns. This piece goes through the growing dissatisfaction of my generation with the current state of the American government. I use American folk tunes as the base of the piece. The tunes deteriorate as the music goes on, just as the American dream has for people of my generation.

The main tune I use is the Battle Hymn of the Republic. The tune got popularized by the abolitionists during the Civil War. It was sung as “John Brown’s Body.” The marching song was in honor of devout abolitionist John Brown, who was seen as a martyr by Northerners. As the Civil War dragged on, the song got transformed into the Battle Hymn by Julia Ward Howe. Ever since the publication of the song, it has become a sort of national anthem for the country. It has acted as a symbol of nationalist fervour as well as a protest song. It is a song of both unity and division. The song was used to justify American imperialism throughout the years, from the Spanish-American War and the conquest of the Philippines to the Iraq War in 2003. The song has also been used to protest those same wars. Immediately after the Civil War, the song was used by former slaves who were disappointed with the failures of Reconstruction. During the early movements of the labor unions, the song took a new name, "Solidarity Forever,” and during the civil rights movement, it became “Move On Over.” I believe this song and its renditions of it hold hope for what this country could be. 

“As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.”

JOE DUNKELBERG: Alternations
for cello, percussion, and piano

OLLIE BECKER: Gutter System
for clarinet, cello, percussion, and piano

RYAN GARVEY: pond water
for clarinet, cello, percussion, and piano

Program note: