The Nevada Encounters of New Music Festival (NEON) returns to UNLV Sept. 13-17.
The first performance is Both Eyes Open, an experimental multidisciplinary chamber opera by Brooklyn-based composer Max Giteck Duykers and renowned playwright Philip Kan Gotanda, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13, at the Winchester Cultural Center. The opera explores psychological abuse suffered by Japanese-Americans forced into internment camps during WWII and suggests paths to heal pain. Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the door. For tickets, call 702-455-7340.
The Mivos Quartet performs as the ensemble-in-residence at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 15, 16, and 17 in the Doc Rando Recital Hall of the Beam Music Center. The Mivos Quartet, “one of America’s most daring and ferocious new-music ensembles” (The Chicago Reader), is devoted to performing the works of contemporary composers, presenting new music to diverse audiences. Since the quartet's beginnings in 2008, they have performed and closely collaborated with an ever-expanding group of international composers who represent multiple aesthetics of contemporary classical composition. The concerts are free and open to the public.
Also featured is well-known Ukrainian guest composer-in-residence Valentin Silvestrov.
The program is as follows:
Thursday, Sept. 15
Mivos Quartet performs Jorge Villavicencio Grossman's "Da Lantana" for string quartet; Valentin Silvestrov's String Quartet No. 3; and Georg Friedrich Haas' String Quartet No. 3.
Friday, Sept. 16
Mivos Quartet and Timothy Hoft perform Maxwell R. Lafontant's String Quartet No. 1; Stephen Bachicha's "Until Someone Loses an Eye! Fun and Games" for String Quartet; Silvestrov's Sonata for piano No. 3; Bryan Curt Kostors' "Imaginary Dances"; and the Diego Vega Piano Quartet.
Saturday, Sept. 17
Mivos Quartet & Friends featuring Charles Halka's "Rupture"; Jennifer Bellor's "Songs in the Dark"; Jason Thorpe Buchanan's "Asymptotic Flux: First Study of Entropy"; Cynthia Lee Wong's Piano Quartet; Virko Baley's Nocturnal No. 7, "Introitus"; and Felipe Lara's "Corde Vocale."