Performance Program

• Pierrot Lunaire, Part I (1912) — Arnold Schoenberg

      Performers

      Phongphairoj Lertsudwichai

      Niratda Manochart

      Jirapat Nilarthi

      Porntawan Phetchad

      Narisada Chantarasuphasang

• Lament (1915) — Frank Bridge

      Bernard Lanskey

      Jirapahn Khaokham

• Sept Papillons (2000) — Kaija Saariaho

      Jungin Kim (Cello)

• The Aurea Terra Project (work-in-progress) — Prach Boondiskulchok

      Performers

      Prach Boondiskulchok  (Piano and Artistic Direction)

      Somnuek Saengarun  (Pi Nai)

      Thaweesak Akarawong  (Ranat)

      Jenna Sherry  (Violin)

      Athita Kuankajorn  (Cello)

      Anusorn Prabnongbua  (Percussion)

• Phenomenalistic Blackouts (2021) — Arda Bayram

      Mine Ece Pahsa (Flute)

• Alisa in Nusantara (2025) — Anant Narkkong & Rasmi Paoleungthong

     Performers
     Parada Siriphapsophon

     Peerasin Thanakonsit

     Aparat Mungthong

     Araya Yangkham

     Musicians

    Jirawat Pattana

    Kasidet Somman

    Woraphop Rattanasuk

    Thanawat Aromthip

    Don Winyachai

    Varis Likitanusorn
   Watchara Pluemyart

    Pariyata Phahulo

    Thananop Pluemyart

    Puket Kijjathon

    Pakorn Chongpreprem

    Puriwat Synvarasej

    Chawanakon Kanchanawichot

    Peerapat Srithandet

    Tossaporn Tasaana

    Kasidet Somman

    Thiptawan Phamti

    Aparat Mungthong

    Peerasin Thanakonsit

    Jirawat Pattana

Program Note

Drawing inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland—a story of transformation, curiosity, and navigating strange new territories—tonight’s performance invites you into a musical Wonderland, where familiar boundaries dissolve and sound itself becomes a place of wonder.

We begin with the first part of Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (1912). In these seven poems set for voice and chamber ensemble, the singer hovers between speech and song in Sprechstimme. Pierrot, the dreamer, wanders through a moonlit landscape of intoxication, shadows, and distorted reflection. Much like Alice’s first steps down the rabbit-hole, this surreal journey unsettles our sense of reality, opening the concert in a space where identity and perception are in flux.

Frank Bridge’s Lament (1915) follows—his tribute to a young victim of the Lusitania disaster. Written for string orchestra, it embodies both private grief and public catastrophe. Here, the ocean liner becomes a kind of Wonderland and the piano a looking glass, as multimedia reflections explore memory and myth. The piece continues questions raised in earlier explorations—such as Schultz’s Sea-Change and Debussy’s 10th Étude—about how music carries stories across time and place.

Kaija Saariaho’s Sept Papillons (2000) shifts the focus inward. These seven fragile miniatures for solo cello hover, alight, and vanish like butterflies in flight. With harmonics, whispering dynamics, and ethereal textures, Saariaho captures fragility and impermanence—reminding us that music, like wonder, can be most powerful when fleeting.

From reflection we turn to ritual with Prach Boondiskulchok’s Aurea Terra Project. Drawing on Piphat traditions and the Burmese-inspired Thai song Burmese Dance of the Blades, this work-in-progress reimagines ceremonial sound through dialogue with European contemporary practice.

Arda Bayram’s Phenomenalistic Blackouts (2021) then fractures perception itself. A work for solo bass flute, it transforms a plain sentence into theatre, texture, and sound. Voice and flute interweave in phonetic fragments, echoes, and distortions, exploring the fragile threshold where meaning flickers in and out of focus.

The evening closes with Alisa in Nusantara (2025), a collaborative creation by Anant Narkkong and Rasmi Paoleungthong. Inspired by Alice in Wonderland but set in a fractured Southeast Asian archipelago, it interweaves Thai Piphat and Indonesian gamelan with digital shadow puppetry. Alisa’s journey through landscapes of beauty and crisis reflects both celebration and critique of the region’s cultural identities and contemporary challenges.

Curiouser and curiouser! 

Each work tonight invites us to cross thresholds—into unfamiliar sound worlds, unexpected histories, and reimagined traditions. To be an artist is to keep dreaming, to keep wondering—and to discover, like Alice, that the very heart of the journey lies in stepping beyond the known.