Carolina Eyck Performs at National Gallery of Art

On Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 3:30pm, German-born composer, vocalist, and internationally renowned theremin virtuoso Carolina Eyck and the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) will perform presented by the National Gallery of Art in the West Building, West Garden Court (entrance at Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue). Doors open to the public at 3pm, and admission is free.

Eyck and ACME will give the Washington, DC premiere of Eyck’s Fantasias for theremin and string quartet, and Eyck will perform her solo songs Music on a Painting and Delphic. The program includes composer and The National guitarist Bryce Dessner’s Little Blue Something for string quartet, performed by ACME, and will feature improvised selections by Eyck and ACME cellist and artistic director Clarice Jensen. In addition to Jensen, the ACME players for this concert are Ben Russell, violin; Keats Dieffenbach, violin; and Isabel Hagen, viola.

Fantasias was released to critical acclaim on Butterscotch Records in 2016. For the project, Eyck composed six minimalist-inspired string quartet pieces, over which she improvises a solo theremin part. With these pieces, Eyck strives to “sonically investigate the interplay between nature and human imagination.” Eyck’s musically daring and physically challenging compositions defy easy classification, while her uncanny mastery of the theremin and use of electronic effects bring an authentically fresh sonic pallet to the forefront. Her Fantasias range from slow-evolving arpeggiations reminiscent of Reich and Glass, to alternative bowing and fingering techniques that achieve an ethereal ambience, to athletic explorations reminiscent of Bartók’s String Quartets.

Eyck’s striking theremin performances showcase her dead-aim intonation, her command of microtonality, her fluid melodicism, and her lack of self-consciousness as an improvisor. This latter quality is no accident, as Eyck has practiced improvisation for years, and has even studied techniques typically aimed at athletes for entering flow-states and shutting down critical inner dialogue.

Since making her debut in the Berlin Philharmonie, Carolina Eyck has been invited to perform all over the world. The BBC World Service proclaims, “Carolina Eyck is one of the world’s leading theremin players … and is a pioneer of this relatively new instrument,” and Cicero calls her the “queen of the theremin.” She was a winner of the 2015 ECHO-Classic prize in Germany for Concert Recording of the Year (Music 20./21.Century), and her book The Art of Playing the Theremin (written when she was 17) teaches the theremin technique she developed at age 14.