Roll over, Beethoven—the spring 2026 portion of the UVA Chamber Music Series is not built on composer names that a novice would recognize, or pieces played on standard instrumentation configurations.
They’ve already done a bassoon-focused event, so try this on for size: percussion and viola. The Piedmont Duo highlights two music professors, I-Jen Fang and Ayn Balija, performing percussion- and string-related interpretations of pieces written in the last 40 years or so. A few were even penned in this century.
The 90-minute performance is built on a program of six compositions intended to “explore how memories shape and re-shape our lives.” Barring an expository speech before each piece, instrumental music often requires a great deal from our imagination; it’s on us to hear the stories we concoct from the non-verbal narratives unfolding.
“Limestone and Felt” (2012) upturns the viola-driven piece from Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Shaw by taking the cello part to the marimba, a natural shift given the plucky, slapping arpeggios that define the brief work.
Charles Knox’s plainly put “Music for Viola and Percussion” (1987) continues with a deep dive into tense soundtrack drama where the drawn-out plaintive sound of the viola counters alternately with a playfully sinister marimba and aggressive, hurried timpani. I could not tell you what either piece is about.
Charlottesville resident Brian Simalchik’s “Overlooks” (2016) provides a 15-minute flutter into eight brief movements, reflecting the natural beauty of locations in Shenandoah National Park, New York’s Hudson Valley, and other protected areas—information he has shared online.
The Duo continues with “Three Brazilian Tunes” by Pittsburgh-by-way-of-São Paulo transplant, Latin Grammy-nominated Flávio Chamis. Fang and Balija also take on Kenji Bunch’s “Four Flashbacks” (2014), a short work that aims to succinctly capture aspects of the Portland Oregon-based composer’s experience living in New York City—from hectic to contemplative.
The afternoon closes with Elise Winkler’s “The Allegory of the Cave” (2019), based on the famed story from Plato’s Republic. The intriguing work proceeds in a lyrical interplay between the instruments that leads to discovery and disbelief.
Will you be able to hear when the protagonist burns his eyes upon first seeing the sun, or his blindness upon returning to the cave?
Sorry for the spoilers, but no matter how incredible Fang and Balija play, you’d need to have an otherworldly sense of hearing to pull that storyline from the sound
