Events

Festival of Premieres: Zachary Wadsworth’s “C/1995 O1”

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  • Date: January 31, 2025
  • Time: Available Through Jan 31
  • Venue: Streaming Online

Through the month of January, CMSCVA continues our 20th anniversary season by celebrating our contribution to the chamber music repertoire – with a digital festival of pieces we have commissioned and premiered. Enjoy works written for CMSCVA in the past four years that have transformed the chamber music repertoire and delighted audiences throughout Richmond. 

First up is C/1995 O1, a sextet for flute and clarinet and strings by Zachary Wadsworth, commissioned by CMSCVA and premiered on March 3, 2024. The composer was inspired by the Hale-Bopp comet, which appeared in the skies over Richmond in 1997.

When CMSCVA approached Zachary Wadsworth to commission a piece for our 2023-24 season, we told him that the theme of the concert on which we wanted a new piece was “Illumination” and left the inspiration up to him. The result is a delightful surprise – an evocative Southern musical nocturne in which the spectacular Hale-Bopp comet makes an appearance. Wadsworth provides the notes on his piece, C/1995 O1:

“The most memorable “illumination” of my childhood was when Comet Hale-Bopp appeared in the night sky. When it was at its brightest, in the early spring of 1997, I was 13 years old, and I remember walking out to my front porch and peering up at it in awe. Though it hung silent and completely still, it shone brightly and loomed large in the sky, like a strange visitor. Once it departed, I felt strangely sad, and more than a little lucky, knowing it wouldn’t return during my lifetime.

The formal scientific designation for the comet was “C/1995 O1.” In my piece of the same title, written for string quartet, flute, and clarinet, I try to sonically paint my experience of that comet. In the opening of the piece, the music paints calm, aimless teenaged evenings in the suburbs of Richmond, with insects starting their high-pitched calls and birds singing as I wandered in the yard. When, finally, the comet comes into vivid (but brief) view, the music grows more ecstatic, with moments of frozenness interrupted by moments of bustling activity. Finally, when the comet fades into the icy distance, the grateful memory of this strange visitor lingers, and the insects and birds return to their spring songs.”

Click here to watch C/1995 O1 performed by:
Mary Boodell, flute
Abigail Fayette, violin
Caleb Georges, viola
Grant Houston, violin
David Lemelin, clarinet
James Wilson, cello