Dinosaur Annex music ensemble explores mind, body and environment in Waltham concert

Despite its primordial name, Dinosaur Annex is resolutely future-facing. The acclaimed ensemble of Boston-area musicians specializes in the work of living composers. Next Friday, April 17, it will bring its 51st season to Waltham with a program titled “Insect-Water-Heart”, exploring the connections between mind, body and environment. The concert is from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Clark Government Building Auditorium, 119 School St., and is supported by a grant from the Waltham Cultural Council and the Alice M. Ditson Fund.

The program centers on “Menagerie of Spectacular Creatures: Insecta,” a nearly 30-minute, multi-movement work by composer Luke Blackburn. The piece uses a “docu-composition” approach inspired by Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Le Carnaval des Animaux,” portraying insects such as monarch butterflies, Hercules beetles and fireflies through both human and insect perspectives. 

Blackburn was fascinated by insects as a child. Having abandoned an ambition to become an entomologist in favor of life as a modern composer, he was drawn back to insects because “there is such a wide variety” and they provided “a perfect topic to explore different compositional techniques,” he said in a recent interview with Dinosaur Annex’s artistic director, Hubert Ho. Blackburn’s composition draws attention to endangered species and the fragility of ecosystems in decline. 

The program also features “Walk on Water” by Dorothy Chang and two works by Australian composer Keyna Wilkins, “A Glimpse into Eternity” and “Scorched Earth.” Chang’s piece uses water as a metaphor for the passage of time, while Wilkins’ works reflect on climate change and the “endless expansiveness of the cosmology of the human heart,” according to the ensemble’s press release.

Performers include flutist Sue-Ellen Hershman-Tcherepnin, clarinetist Diane Heffner, baritone saxophonist Seychelle Dunn-Corbin, pianist Christopher Oldfather, violinist Lilit Hartunian and cellist Rafael Popper-Keizer.

Dinosaur Annex was founded in 1975 as the musical “annex” for the New England Dinosaur Dance Theater. The dance company went extinct, but the musicians carried on, surviving economic downturns, drastic changes in the arts scene, technological revolutions and a pandemic. “The fact that this group … operates to this day speaks volumes to its value to the Boston scene,” Ian Wiese wrote in The Boston Musical Intelligencer.