Sacred and Profane: Sheree Clement & Robert Sirota

Sacred and Profane

Music by Sheree Clement and Robert Sirota

Featuring:

Mary Birnbaum, director
Hyungjin Choi, piano
Katherine Fortunato, percussion
Ariadne Greif, soprano
Benjamin Larsen, cello
Roberta Michel, flute
The Momenta Quartet
Paul Pinto, baritone
Jonah Sirota, viola
Nadia Sirota, viola

Program:

Broken Places by Robert Sirota (2016)

Mermaid Songs by Sheree Clement (2024, world premiere)

A Sinner’s Diary by Robert Sirota (2005)

Table Manners by Sheree Clement (2020, live premiere)

Composers Robert Sirota and Sheree Clement present Sacred and Profane, a performance that invites audiences to explore the dual narratives of conflict and reconciliation. A unique blend of chamber music and opera, Sirota and Clement’s music grapples with the human condition through the lenses of comedy, drama, and lyricism. The evening will feature an all-star group of performers including soprano Ariadne Greif, baritone Paul Pinto, the Momenta Quartet, cellist Benjamin Larsen, pianist Hyungjin Choi, flutist Roberta Michel, violists Jonah Sirota and Nadia Sirota, and percussionist Katherine Fortunato.

Sacred and Profane opens with Robert Sirota’s Broken Places (2016), which comprises seven brief movements as a meditation on the theme of brokenness. The chamber work for flute and cello is accompanied by an original poem written as a textual companion to the piece.

Continuing the theme of contrast and internal conflict, the world premiere of Sheree Clement’s Mermaid Songs (2024) for string quartet and soprano features three humorous and forthright songs containing fantastically vivid stories about dreams of becoming a mermaid, maintaining friendships with sea urchins, and coping with chemotherapy amidst champagne cocktail parties. Derived from the text of Heather Hartley’s Adult Swim, the three songs expose conflicting truths told through Clement’s intricate musical language and candid humor.

Robert Sirota’s 2005 work A Sinner’s Diary for flute, violas, cello, percussion, and piano, opens the second half of the concert, and serves as a musical confession, probing the push and pull of suffering, doubt, and grace. Written in nine movements, Sirota describes the piece as a “surreal liturgy” with titles and themes taken from rubrics in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. He explains that the movements, which began as a kind of journaling, “evolved into a conversation between my inner demons and the angels of my better nature. This duality reflects the year in which is was written – a year that included a number of personal crises as well as abundant grace.”

The evening ends with the live premiere of Sheree Clement’s Table Manners (2020), a comedic duet with soprano Ariadne Greif, baritone Paul Pinto, and 40 pounds of silverware. With text by Phillis Levin, the duet revolves around dueling themes of friendship, competition, and greed, punctuated by mercurial moments of connection and dada comedy. Table Manners is directed by Mary Birnbaum.