Nicolas Lell Benavides is currently a composer in residence with the Elevate Ensemble. He recently wrote a piece titled ‘Summer of ’69’ which is a multimedia work involving projected video and chamber orchestra. This was fun to play and utilized a minimalist composition technique, by giving players short musical games that we would play when cued. This was also my first performance on my new instrument, I picked it up earlier in the week!

San Francisco composer Joe Colombo wrote a great new piece which premiered with the Elevate Ensemble last month. A wind trio for piccolo, oboe, and contraforte drawing inspiration from Beethoven, Ravel and Xenakis (B:R:X)

Conductor: Chad Goodman

Piccolo: Bethanne Walker

Oboe: Sydne Sullivan

Contraforte: Kris King