Voices of the Soul featuring Fred Child | Chamber Music Northwest Summer Festival at Reed College, Kaul Auditorium

Music can be an extraordinary expression of personal suffering, loneliness, loss, and ultimately triumph. The wild colors of Alexander Scriabin’s brilliant third piano sonata, the penetrating soulfulness of the folk songs of the great Armenian priest Komitas, and the symphonic scale of Richard Strauss’s chamber music make this the most wide-ranging concert of the summer festival. Chinese-American composer Wang Jie’s world premiere for Pierrot ensemble and narrator, Blame the Obituary, is simultaneously a whimsical, comical, and bleak musical picture of life during the trying last few years. Wang Jie’s husband and host of the radio show Performance Today, Fred Child, narrates with pathos and self-deprecating humor.