Potes’ Best Works Stir the Senses

In its inaugural season, the Music of Changes series is taking a risk with its format of devoting entire concerts to one composer, chosen via competition. But at least you do get a chance to sample a wide spectrum of a composer’s chamber music and get a feeling for his or her style.

This was certainly the case in Wednesday night’s encounter at the Colburn School’s Zipper Hall with Colombian-born Alba Potes, now a U.S. citizen who teaches in Philadelphia. Her program covered a decade of work, including a number of solo pieces, two tiny song cycles, and the world premiere of a chamber quintet commissioned by Music of Changes.

In her preconcert talk, Potes said that she didn’t feel obligated to write Colombian music per se, and the results suggested that, indeed, musical nationalism is not her main agenda. Her work is mostly atonal, often fragmented in flow and spare in gesture, with not much of a role for strong rhythm and, in “Touches” for solo cello, it contains only the barest wisps of folk flavor.

Potes can stimulate the senses when she gets a palette of unusual timbres to play with. The most evocative piece happened to be the world premiere of “ ... and the breeze carries a scent of Cadmias,” in which you could feel the sultry heat of her native city, Cali, augmented by imaginative washes of percussion and plunks from the piano strings. Also “Everyone Sings a Song of Peace at Least Once,” a workout for the hands and voice of percussionist Brian Bartel, had some verve and vivacity.

Otherwise, many of these pieces did not live up to the appetite-whetting descriptions in the program notes.