Master of rare instrument dazzles at Disney Concert Hall

Posted Tue, 06/16/2009 - 8:21am by Matt Itelson

Alumna Mary Chun, conductor of the Earplay new music ensemble, recently showcased her unique skills playing a rarely used electric instrument called the ondes martenot.

As one of two professional ondistes living in the U.S., Chun (B.A., Music, ’74; M.A., Music, ’78) was asked to perform with the Los Angeles Master Chorale at the Disney Concert Hall in May. The sounds of the ondes range from otherworldly darkness to celestial lightness. A concert review in the Los Angeles Times stated the ondes martenot’s “interplanetary whoops and vibrations were playfully controlled by Mary Chun,” in the chorale’s performance of Olivier Messiaen’s “Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine.”