Alarm Will Sound: in vain

“One of the most vital and original ensembles on the American music scene.” — The New York Times

About the Program

Alarm Will Sound joins Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Thursday Night Music for Georg Friedrich Haas’s in vain, one of the defining works of the 21st century. Scored for 24 players and conducted by Alan Pierson, the hour-long piece moves through passages of total darkness, where the musicians play from memory and listen their way through music that seems to spiral endlessly upward and back on itself.

Haas tunes the ensemble into shimmering, microtonal harmonies that never quite settle—beautiful, unstable, and impossible to pin down. Written in 2000 in response to the political moment in his native Austria, in vain carries the weight of its title: a reckoning with cycles that repeat no matter how hard we try to break them. It is a piece to be heard in a single, immersive sitting.

About Alarm Will Sound

Celebrating its 25th anniversary, Alarm Will Sound continues to expand what it means to make music in the 21st century. Equally at home in concert halls and clubs, the ensemble champions voices that redefine genre and tell the evolving story of American music in all its complexity.

support

Alarm Will Sound’s performance of Georg Friedrich Haas’ in vain is made possible with the friendly support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.