Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

David Hanlon at Banglewood

NB: David Hanlon is a pianist and composer living in New York City. A true Renaissance man, he graduated from Wesleyan with a degree in Classics and Music and received his MM in Piano Performance from Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Constance Keene and Miyoko Lotto. He's also a devotee of James Joyce and knows how to play the oud -- which makes him much cooler than me. David files this dispatch about his experiences at last month's Bang on a Can Institute. -- D.S.

You gotta love a place whose outreach efforts include playing the seventh inning stretch of a local baseball game in 7/8 (naturally) with instruments made of hula hoops and PVC pipes that sound like a chorus of squawking dinosaurs.

This was the Bang on a Can Summer Institute of Music, aka Banglewood. The two and a half week festival took place on the grounds of Mass MoCa, a contemporary art museum in the Berkshires. Instrument maker, guitarist, and faculty member Mark Stewart best summed up the festival�s energy in his description of his instruments. He likes to call his creations �soundmakers,� �feral� and �undomesticated� instruments on which one plays, in both the musical and childish senses of the word. Banglewood is a place where we�re encouraged at every turn to harness such adventurous glee to disciplined music making.

Every day began with a seminar in �unwritten music.� This included Mark�s class in making original instruments as well as conducted improvisation, Balinese chants, and raga. Not only was it fascinating to get a taste of these various disciplines, it was an excellent way to start a musical day. By divorcing us from our instruments and standard areas of expertise, we began the day as neither pianists, violists, nor composers but as soundmakers ourselves.

The rest of the day was devoted to rehearsals of pieces, most of which were destined for performance on the six-hour Marathon concert to take place the last day of the festival. The ensembles played everything from masterpieces by guest composer Steve Reich, to works hot off the presses by the institute�s composition fellows. In each of the groups, there was at least one faculty member playing in the ensemble. I would have learned plenty just by playing alongside such musicians, but the faculty often took the initiative to contribute even more. At one point Ethel and Steve Reich Ensemble violinist Todd Reynolds passed by a room where I was practicing Reich�s Eight Lines. Todd took it upon himself to wander in and give me an impromptu lesson on playing Reich idiomatically.

Mass MoCa proved an inspiring place to make music. We not only used their performance and rehearsal spaces but invaded the galleries themselves. The faculty gives gallery recitals in the late afternoon, while lunch is open to the fellows to do crazy things wherever they like. So in addition to more straightforward performances, we had a flutist performing Sciarrino among the denizens of a giant birdcage, a clarinetist under an upside-down car suspended from the ceiling, and so on. I was particularly thrilled when we performed a spatial piece throughout a warehouse-like space and our audience included a gaggle of young day-campers who had wandered in. That kind of audience you�re not going to get in a concert hall too easily.

I�m back in New York now and I feel more energized, creative, and musically open than I have in a long time. It�s been a good summer.

posted by David Salvage 8/08/2005