Kinnara: The Little Match Girl Passion

A Beautiful and Moving Piece of Music:
Yet another review in the form of a hastily and poorly written sonnet
By Robbie

A brief but rich evening I saw unfurl
With work by the composer David Lang
The story of the little matchstick girl
Within Mint Gallery, Kinnara sang
Delivering such beauty in large dose
For any hungry soul, no better food
Bass and tenor by Berlanga and Klose
The high notes sung by Yang Temko and Rood
From Herron’s hands, accompaniment sounds
Percussion simple and so sweetly played
The music echoed through the space around
The story of the girl was thus conveyed
Escape from suffering through flames divine
Told through sounds both beautiful and sublime

YInMn Project

The problem with liking new music in Atlanta is that concerts are often held in spaces with no climate control. Yesterday’s YInMn Project new music festival organized by Cassidy Chey Goldblatt was held in one of the galleries at Whitespace Gallery. While it’s a lovely space and its location in Inman Park likely provided the inspiration for the festival’s name (the blue chemical compound YInMn is a homophone of Inman), the gallery provided no cooling on a humid, sticky day that reached 90˚F. For ventilation, the gallery was left open to the property’s lovely courtyard, which is wonderfully well protected from any errant breezes that might try to invade it. So, sweaty, salty, and sticky, I sat for 6 ½ hours or so listening to six ensembles do an excellent job playing a wonderfully varied array of music. With the exception of one of the ensembles, there were no printed set lists and the heat slowed my poor brain down too much to note what the musicians said, so below are my general impressions of each set with only a few pieces mentioned by name.
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