The Dallas Morning News on "One Red Rose"

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Michael Granberry writes for The Dallas Morning News:

The Nasher Sculpture Center has long prided itself on offering more than an internationally famous sculpture collection.

The museum has chosen to embrace music as its way of honoring President John F. Kennedy. The 50th anniversary of his assassination is Friday.

The Nasher’s observance of the darkest day in Dallas history will manifest itself in a special Soundings concert at Dallas City Performance Hall and The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

The City Performance Hall concert is at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, followed by a 2 p.m. show at the Sixth Floor on Sunday. The centerpiece of the show is a new work by American composer Steven Mackey titled One Red Rose. It was commissioned by the Nasher in conjunction with Carnegie Hall and the Putney, Vt.-based Yellow Barn. Mackey wrote One Red Rose for the Brentano String Quartet in commemoration of the anniversary.

The quartet will take the stage with clarinetist Charles Neidich and pianist Seth Knopp, who also serves as artistic director of the Nasher Soundings program. Other works being performed include pieces by Olivier Messiaen and John Cage.

Knopp, who conceived the idea, is a busy man. I reached him in Vermont, where he’s artistic director of Yellow Barn, an international center for chamber music. With the Nasher show, Knopp hopes to create an evening that touches “people who have the misfortune of being where bad things happen, who live through events that tragically change the course of society itself.”

He hopes “the music becomes both a refuge and a way of using history whether it’s fortunate or unfortunate … to move on, to move beyond.”

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Find out more about Yellow Barn's program to honor President Kennedy