The Queer Urban Orchestra (QUO) began its new season, billed as “United We Stand,” with a welcome first-ever virtual QUOtets chamber concert, recorded at St. John’s Episcopal Church in the Village by Musae, responsible for vivid sound and production, and presented, in association with St. John’s and Denise Marsa Productions, on line on October 31. Artistic Director Ian Shafer was the host and the diverse afternoon concert, paying tribute to invaluable front-line workers, comprised four compositions.
Justin Lee played a soaring, buoyant solo flute in “Be Still My Soul,” by Rhonda Larson, from a hymn—“Be still my soul, thy Lord is on thy side. Bear patiently your cross of grief or pain”—after a theme from Jean Sibelius’ “Finlandia,” with peace its prevailing mood.
Aaron Patterson lent the mellow, plangent sound of his instrument to Elliot Anthony de Borgo’s “Canto for Alto Saxophone,” a largely contemplative piece, punctuated by rapid runs and a startling two-octave leap from low B-flat to high B-flat, so smoothly executed.
New QUO principal cellist Luis Mercado, the sole string player participating in the program, played George Crumb’s three movement Sonata for Solo Cello and guided us through a Fantasia, filled with foreboding; Tema Pastorale con Variazioni, with a gentle pastoral theme; strong pizzicato variation; tearful, throbbing variation; lyrical dance; and then forceful, stormy Toccata and Coda.
Eight of QUO’s wind players—Matthew Hadley and Brian Shaw on oboe, Fran Novak and Travis Fraser on clarinet, David Lohman and Charlie Scatamacchia on bassoon, and Kyle Walker and Lynn Caron on horn—collaborated on the clean classicism of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Octet for Winds in E-flat major, opus 103, favoring us with an ebullient, lilting Allegro; meditative, almost Mozartian Andante and, then, Menuetto; and Presto as lively as the rousing finale of an opera.
Go to www.queerurbanorchestra.org for information about QUO’s future virtual concerts.