“To BEethoven Rather Than To Seem”: Part IV | Gut Instinct Chamber Music Project

FEATURING

Nicholas DiEguenio, violin
Mimi Solomon, piano

PROGRAM

Featuring Beethoven’s final Violin Sonata, the elegiac and enigmatic op. 96, along with Tonia Ko’s Tribute: Axis II

This season, Gut Instinct takes on the large-scale project “To Beethoven Rather Than To Seem,” marking 200 years since Beethoven’s death and 250 since the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Over the course of five concerts, Nicholas DiEugenio and pianist Mimi Solomon will present all ten Beethoven Sonatas on period instruments along with five commissioned works written expressly for them.

This concert is presented as part of the NCHIP Festival.

ADMISSION

Free, no reservation required.

PARKING

Please plan to arrive early as parking on campus can be tricky. Learn more about parking and directions to UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus.

The Gut Instinct Chamber Music Project, now in its third season, is a concert series in the Triangle area which brings UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University’s historical instrument collections together with artists committed to presenting inspired, visceral, historically informed performances of the 19th-century chamber music repertoire. The series features music of female composers and their artistic circles. The name “Gut Instinct” is a play on words. In 19th-century Europe, the violin, viola, and cello were strung with (sheep) gut.

All of the artists collaborating with the Pleyel and Graf pianos at UNC-Chapel Hill (built in 19th-century Paris and Vienna, respectively), as well as the Clementi piano at Duke (early 19th-century England) use these gut string materials. The turn of phrase “gut instinct” also refers to the visceral, accessible nature of the musical performances that this series presents. Our mission is to make “Historically Informed Performance” accessible, relatable, and culturally relevant! We also want to feature these special pianos that are rarely heard by the public, along with great music by female composers which has remained lesser known to the greater public for far too long, and living composers who are keeping our art form alive!