Coming up in Philly music: David Ludwig spans the eras

In the last few years, some music organizations have noted the overlap between the early-music audience and the new-music audience. Piffaro has appealed to both groups by commissioning new music for its Renaissance instruments. The Bach@7 series frequently pairs new music with works by contemporary composers.

The two audiences overlap because new music and early music both attract people who are looking for unfamiliar music firmly rooted in the classical tradition. The early-music audience explores the enormous treasure house created by Renaissance and Baroque composers. The new-music audience advances into the future with living composers.

On October 17, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society will join this movement with a program that teams Piffaro with the very modern sound of the PRISM saxophone quartet. The centerpiece will be the world premiere of a new song cycle, The Anchoress, by one of Philadelphia’s most popular composers, David Ludwig. Piffaro and PRISM will provide the instrumental accompaniments and the vocalist will be a rising young soprano, Hyunah Yu.

The Anchoress explores the spiritual world of an anchoress, a type of Christian mystic who walled herself in a cell and spent her life praying, meditating, and dispensing advice through a small window. Ludwig describes the cycle as a “monodrama” that explores “struggles with faith, alienation, gender, and social power.” The rest of the program will include two of Ludwig’s older works and a group of Renaissance pieces played by Piffaro and arranged by Ludwig.

The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society will present Piffaro; PRISM; and Hyunah Yu, soprano on Wednesday, October 17, at 7:30pm at the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater (Broad and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia). Tickets ($30) are available online and at the door.