New Music, Old Instruments

Join the Oklahoma Baroque Orchestra for an evening of innovative compositions that bridge past and present in New Music, Old Instruments. Featuring world premieres by composers Dr. Charles Shadle and Callen Clarke, this concert explores the expressive possibilities of historical instruments in a contemporary context.

MIT Professor of Composition and Oklahoma/Choctaw native, Charles Shadle, was commissioned by OBO and composed, Chahta Toffa (Choctaw Summer), which weaves together the sounds of harpsichord, flute, and strings in a vibrant concerto inspired by his Choctaw heritage. The work evokes the echoes of baroque music heard by Choctaw ancestors while embracing modern influences, from shaped-note hymns to the rhythmic vitality of Pow-wow culture.

Callen Clarke’s The Golden Thread, Suite No. 1, is a musical journey through the intersections of Arabic and European baroque traditions. Drawing inspiration from Middle Eastern forms and ornamentation, the suite reimagines the cultural and musical connections that link Sicily and North Africa in a series of evocative and colorful movements. Clarke will be joined by his daughters, Elizabeth and Hope, performing on traditional Middle Eastern instruments including the oud, nai, and percussion, adding an authentic and vibrant dimension to the composition.

Celebrate the spirit of Musical (r)Evolution with Oklahoma Baroque Orchestra as we bring these bold and captivating new Oklahoman works to life on instruments of the past.

Charles Shadle Bio:

Charles Shadle teaches composition, music theory, and music history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he serves as a Senior Lecturer in Music, and as Theory Coordinator. He is the 2016 recipient of a SHASS Levitan Teaching Award. Numerous institutions, including SUNY Buffalo, Longwood Opera, The Lake George Opera Festival, The Handel and Haydn Society, The Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, The Newton Choral Society, and Lontano (UK) have commissioned his work. For the National Film Preservation Foundation he has composed six film scores, all of which are commercially available. A career-long focus on vocal music has resulted in commissions from such distinguished singers as Carlos Archuleta, Fernando Del Valle, Gale Fuller, Jason McStoots, Margaret O’Keefe, Stephen Salters, Frederick Urrey, and Jeremy Huw Williams. Dr Shadle collaborated with MIT colleague and librettist Michael Ouellette on two operas, Coyotes Diner and A Question of Love, as well as the cantata, A New England Seasonal. Having previously served as Composer in Residence to the Ecclesia Consort in 2000, he held the same position with Intermezzo in 2007-08 during which time he composed the critically acclaimed opera A Last Goodbye, again to an Ouellette libretto.

Major recent works include the song cycle Primordia for Baritone Jeremy Huw Williams, a Missa Brevis Sanctii Oswaldi for the Schola Cantorum of St Stephen’s, Providence, Dogtown Common (piano quartet) for the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, a 3rd Symphony for the MIT Symphony Orchestra, and Three Chardin Fantasies for fortepiano trio, as part of “On Beethoven’s Piano” a residency cosponsored by MIT and The Handel and Haydn Society. During the 2021-22 season his choral setting of poems by the Mvskoke/Creek poet, Alexander Posey, The Far Blue Hills, and the Symphony No.4 are slated for first performances.

He received his Ph.D. in Composition and Theory from Brandeis University and counts among his teachers Cecil Effinger, Richard Toensing, Barbara Jazwinsky, Martin Boykan, Yehudi Wyner, Edward Cohen, Harold Shapero, and Eloise Ristad. Dr Shadle is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. This heritage is reflected in works ranging from the large-scaled Oklahoma Choctaw Cycle (Limestone Gap, Red Cedar, and The Old Place) for chamber ensemble, to the short and accessible Choctaw Animals piano pieces, recently made available (https://news.mit.edu/2021/with-choctaw-animals-piano-charles-shadle-honors-native-american-heritage-0413) by MIT.

Callen Clarke Bio:

In June 1998, while on vacation in Israel with his wife, Callen Clarke heard the Oud (Arabic Lute) for the first time, played in the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem. That day changed his life and the course of his career. Having studied music composition and piano performance at OCU and OBU in the early 90s, Clarke was already established as an arranger and working pianist. But he immediately sensed new possibilities in this ancient-yet-contemporary Arabic musical instrument, even if it was utterly unlike anything he had ever played or heard before. Callen Clarke bought an Oud and returned to Oklahoma with it, eventually making his way to the annual Arabic Music Retreat, presented at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, by the renowned composer and oud virtuoso Simon Shaheen. Attending the AMR for the first time in August 2001, Clarke studied with Shaheen, Dr. A.J. Racy of UCLA, renowned Lebanese percussionist Michel Merhej, and many others in the period 2001-2004. He began performing and presenting Arabic Music professionally in 2004 with his middle eastern ensemble 'Nur.'

In 2007, Clarke began a partnership with native Oklahoma violinist Kyle Dillingham to present new orchestral works in Oklahoma. Together they premiered nine works for Violin and orchestras of various sizes between the years 2007 and 2014, including Wiley Post, Opus 16, a tone poem commissioned by the Oklahoma Historical Society in 2011, and the Life Symphony, Opus 17, commissioned by OK Mozart in 2012, and premiered  by the Amici New York Orchestra, who gave premier performances of the symphony both at the Festival in Bartlesville, OK, and at the Civic Center in downtown Oklahoma City. Clarke has also premiered additional orchestral works in Taiwan and elsewhere in the US.

In 2008, Clarke premiered his first concert work for the Oud, the Concerto Mediterra, Opus 5, with the Academy Sinfonia under the direction of Karen Khanagov. As a regular performer on the Oud in Oklahoma, Clarke was always in need of drummers who could play Arabic Percussion. One day he asked his young daughter Faith Clarke if she could learn to play as a sub on the darbukka for an upcoming event. Faith Clarke, who was about 12 at the time, learned the drum in a week and gave a brilliant performance. This was the beginning of the Callen Clarke Group, which Clarke has shared with his daughters, Faith, Hope, Elizabeth and Grace. The CCG has performed at numerous festivals, university concerts and cultural events across Oklahoma, Texas and in Massachusetts, as well as many private events for the Middle Eastern community in Oklahoma. Works premiered by the CCG include 'Sama'i Hijaz,' 'Longa Shadd-Araban,' from Works for Takht, Opus 2, and the Andalusi Suite and Dasht Suite from his forthcoming album For Better Times, (Opus 24) the debut album of the Callen Clarke Group, to be released in 2025.

Clarke has recently begun study on the Renaissance Lute and the Baroque Lute. Upcoming works include Project Tres, Op. 23, a suite of three scenic concertos for Middle Eastern ensemble and Chamber Orchestra, The Observations of Copernicus, Op. 27, for Renaissance Lute, and Selkirk Concerto, Op 28, for Baroque Lute and Chamber Orchestra, as well as the Piano Concerto Op. 29, for renowned Taiwanese virtuoso Chih-Long Hu. Callen Clarke is also planning a 3rd symphony to be composed in 2025.