Alarm Will Sound Returns To St. Louis February 1 With World Premieres

Alarm Will Sound returns to the 560 Music Center on February 1st with world premieres of music by Alyssa Pyper and Lucrecia Dalt. Pyper joins Alarm Will Sound as singer and violinist for the world premiere of her new work, Descansos. Descansos are roadside memorials that mark where a loved one has died. Pyper's work reflects on the composer's own life experience growing up as a gay woman in a Mormon family, and trying to mark and move on from those spots in life where loss and trauma have occurred. Pyper is one of the first recipients of support from Alarm Will Sound's Matt Marks Impact Fund, the goal of which is to support new work that may not otherwise receive funding because of systemic barriers to unconventional work or under-represented artists.

Lucrecia Dalt is an electronic musician who began her career as a civil engineer in Columbia but moved to Spain and then Germany to pursue her interest in avant-garde sound. Dalt collaborates with Alarm Will Sound via Alarm System, a program to interface with musicians who create compelling work in non-classical ways such as through improvisation, electronics, or oral transmission.

"Our repertoire ranges from the arch-modernist to the pop-influenced,
but our approach goes beyond the music itself. We frequently incorporate video, text, theater, and movement into our productions to inspire new questions in our listeners and encourage the search for new answers. Since our earliest days playing together at the Eastman School of Music, we have collaborated with composers, designers, writers, choreographers, videographers - a wide range of compelling experimental artists - in pursuit of undiscovered artistic territory. Along the way, we've proved that a small, audacious orchestra can make a huge impact. In every performance, we explore, challenge and reshape familiar musical conventions to create arresting experiences."

Alarm Will Sound is a 20-member touring ensemble led by Artistic Director Alan Pierson that commissions, performs, and records innovative works by established and emerging composers, especially works that incorporate theatrical and multimedia elements by choreographers, visual artists, designers, and directors. Its wideranging artistic vision looks beyond genre-electronic vs. acoustic, high-modernist vs. pop-influenced, conventional classical concert vs. multimedia experience. The members of Alarm Will Sound began playing together while studying at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. With diverse experience in composition, improvisation, jazz and popular styles, early music, and world musics, they bring intelligence and a sense of adventure to all their performances.