Cellist Jay Campbell and pianist Conor Hanick return to Yellow Barn to explore the first “chapter” of a new work by composer Marcos Balter.  

Kern, my new 20-minute work for cello and prepared piano, is inspired by the graphic designing term “kerning”. It will be built around the concepts of clarification and obscurantism, and how they relate to the temporal and spatial organization of musical material.

Eventually, Kern will become part of Three Enigmas, an hour-long tableaux comprised of three interconnected works. Incorporating hidden music quotations and systems, as well as extra-musical elements hidden within the fabric of the tableaux, the three sections point toward a single, larger-scale enigma.

—Marcos Balter

“Kerning” is the method of adjusting the spacing between letters or characters in a piece of text to be printed.