Boccaccio Project

The Boccaccio Project

A Series of Musical Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

In the mid-14th century Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) wrote the Decameron, a collection of 100 stories shared between a group of 10 acquaintances who had removed themselves from society during the darkest period of a plague. This early artistic response to an outbreak provided context and a means of expression, and the parallels to the quarantine and social distancing phenomena we experienced worldwide in the difficult early days of the pandemic resonated with us.

We drew on Boccaccio’s example to offer some musical responses. We asked 10 pairs of composers and performers to write and perform brief solo works, premiered over the course of 10 weekdays in June 2020. Below you can access all of the videos of The Boccaccio Project.

• Sequestered Thoughts
  Jeremy Jordan (piano) and Damien Sneed (composer)
• shadow of a difference | falling
  Andrew Nogal (oboe) of the Grossman Ensemble and Richard Drehoff, Jr. (composer)
• Intuit (a way to stay in this world)
  Kathryn Bates (cello) of the Del Sol String Quartet and Miya Masaoka (composer)
• Bridges
  Jenny Lin (piano) and Cliff Eidelman (composer)
• Hello World
  Erin Lesser (flute) of the Wet Ink Ensemble and Erin Rogers (composer)
• 1462 Willard Street
  Charlton Lee (viola) of the Del Sol String Quartet and Luciano Chessa (composer)
• Olcott Park
  Daniel Pesca (piano) of the Grossman Ensemble and Aaron Travers (composer)
• Lobelia
  Mariel Roberts (cello) of the Wet Ink Ensemble and Ashkan Behzadi (composer)
• A Shared Solitary
  Jannina Norpoth (violin) of PUBLIQuartet and Niloufar Nourbakhsh (composer)
• Have and Hold
  Nathalie Joachim (flute) and Allison Loggins-Hull (composer), both of Flutronix