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Round II of Anthony de Mare's commissioning project
I f he's smart, he'll play 'Send in the Clowns' as an encore," said the critic I in the seat next to me when pianist Anthony de Mare took a bow. But that would have been too easy. De Mare had just performed 18 composers' hommages to Stephen Sondheim in Liaisons II: Re-imagining Sondheim from the ñaño on March 9, 2013, at Symphony Space in New York City. He had already played "Send in the Clowns" - sort of.
De Mare is the force behind "The Liaisons Project," which has commissioned 35 composers (with one more to be announced) to write piano works based on songs by Sondheim. Its first installment was presented on April 21, 2012, at Symphony Space, site of the memorable 12-hour birthday marathon Wall-to-Wall Sondheim in 2005. Liaisons II comprised 18 pieces, all but three of them new. The composers ranged from grand old men of contemporary music (Steve Reich, Frederic Rzewski) to its hot young bloods (Nico Muhly, Mason Bates). Some offered reinterpretations, some meditations; some took Sondheim as inspiration to create something of their own.
This year's theme was conversation - the musical dialogue between Sondheim and his interpreters. "It's been a real joy helping to bring these conversations to life," de Mare said in opening remarks. Another theme, a 2.0 generation of Sondheim, was suggested by Peter Golub's contribution, "A Child of Children and Art" (Sunday). Starting with a fairly straightforward rendering of "Children and Art," the piece then exploded into color and light, taking the music a step beyond the original.
The stage was bare except for a Yamaha concert grand under a screen showing Scrabble-like images (perhaps patterned after the cover for the 1973 album Sondheim:...