麻豆社

Turn your ears inside out, as the 麻豆社 Symphony Orchestra celebrates three composers who find music in the impossible. Martin Smolka - Czech music鈥檚 self-proclaimed 鈥渉ooligan鈥� - takes a piano concerto and knocks it backwards. Silence speaks louder than sound, in Rebecca Saunders鈥檚 haunting Traces. Of Oliver Leith's Pearly, goldy, woody, bloody, or, Abundance, the composer says 鈥業 pictured an orchestra wheeled out for a party on a lawn in front of the portico of a large house 鈥� playing this piece surrounded by burbling guests and fountains.鈥�

As the 21st century lurches into its second quarter, these, it seems, are the sounds that reveal our world: three sonic tales for our times, by turns irreverent, intelligent and beautiful beyond words. Bit of a shocker? Or exactly what you鈥檇 expect from the 麻豆社 Symphony Orchestra - conducted today by Jack Sheen, and starring pianist Joseph Havlat in Smolka鈥檚 glittering anti-concerto?