Saturday, January 29, 2005
Cioran on music

A few musical aphorisms by E. M. Cioran (1911-1995):
What music appeals to in us it is difficult to know; what we do know is that music reaches a zone so deep that madness itself cannot penetrate there.
A passion for music is in itself an avowal. We know more about a stranger who yields himself up to it than about someone who is deaf to music and whom we see every day.
Musical Offering, Art of the Fugue, Goldberg Variations: I love in music, as in philosophy and in everything, what pains by insistence, by recurrence, by that interminable return which reaches the ultimate depths of being and provokes there a barely endurable delectation.
The first two are from The Trouble with Being Born, the last one from Drawn and Quartered. Both volumes are translated from the French by Richard Howard and published by Arcade.
posted by Brian Sacawa 10:31 PM

Thursday, January 27, 2005
It can't happen here

There was bad news for Eric Owen Moss on Wednesday. The Los Angeles architect, who in 2001 won a competition to redesign the Queens Museum of Art, found out that he was out of a job. While we may never know exactly why the museum chose to cancel Mr. Moss' project--already three years in the works--it probably had something to do with the change in the museum's administration. The new suits came in with a different set of priorities than their predescesors, didn't see eye to eye Mr. Moss' original plan, and instead of attempting to rectify the situation with the architect--who was more than willing to compromise on the aspects of design in question--decided to seek a new architectural direction from a preapproved list of eight firms.

It's too bad that the Queens Museum of Art won't be able to boast the work of a true architectural visionary, a man whose importance is often discussed in the company of names like Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Richard Meier, and Frank Gehry. Instead, just like Daniel Libeskind and the World Trade Center site, artistic vision is supplanted by a political agenda. At least that never happens in music.
posted by Brian Sacawa 10:33 PM

Wednesday, January 26, 2005
AV log: 1/26

I mentioned in a previous post that I'll be presenting American Voices, a New York debut recital on February 16 at Columbia University's Miller Theater. As the date nears, I thought I'd give periodic updates on my progress and also provide some insights on the planning and thought process that went into the show.

First, why play a New York Debut? I've heard some people refer to the tradition as a dinosaur. Well, I think that for many of us, a New York debut is still an important rite of passage. It's a way of saying, "Here I am and this is what I do."

Even if the tradition is somewhat archaic, I've tried to choose a program that is fresh and adventurous. The music I play is the most important component of the recital. My choice of repertoire could mean the difference between piquing a critic's interest or simply having them toss my letter of invitation, press release, and months of planning and work into an anonymous pile. There's a lot of music that saxophonists like to perform and understand the difficulty of that probably wouldn't attract anyone else's attention but the saxophone cognoscenti. I didn't want to fall into that trap.

So what am I playing? I picked music by American composers whose voices have helped define and shape America's new music landscape. The composers are: Michael Gordon, Lee Hyla, Alvin Lucier, Charles Wuorinen, Philip Glass, Martin Bresnick, Chris Theofanidis, and Derek Hurst. In addition to being dynamic musical voices, a number of them have been featured in recent years as part of the Miller Theater's "Composer Portrait" series. The music runs the sonic gamut from the traditional saxophone and piano duo to saxophone alone, with electronics, pre-recorded saxophones, and even amplified electric light. You can find more information about the program here.

My goal is for the recital to represent both the vibrancy and diversity of new American music for saxophone.
posted by Brian Sacawa 11:26 AM

Tuesday, January 25, 2005
New music vigilante

This quote from an article by Anne Midgette in Sunday's New York Times raised my eyebrows:

Kathryn Gould, a venture capitalist who lives in the Menlo Park area in California, had a different motivation: having heard a lot of new music that she didn't like, she wanted to help create a repertory that she could enjoy. She plunged into commissioning with a vengeance.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that people with the financial resources to do so want to spend their money commissioning new works. And certainly it's their decision on who to commission. But to do it simply to try and "clean up" and reform the new music repertory so that they can enjoy it more? That both bothers and scares me.
posted by Brian Sacawa 11:10 AM

Sunday, January 23, 2005
sub-zero

Today I returned from Miami and the warm 70 degree tempertures to the bitter freezing cold of Ann Arbor. It could be worse though--I could be stranded at the Fort Lauderdale airport like so many unfortunate travelers trying to get home to New York, Boston, or anyplace around New England. In addition to leaving behind a more desirable climate, I also left Miami after having put in 125 pre-season miles on the bike and a wonderful week of rehearsing with H.K. Gruber and the New World Symphony. As promised, here's the report from last night's concert.

The show was part of the NWS "Sounds of the Times" new music series. The theme of this program was "A Night in New Vienna" and featured an eclectic mix of four composers all associated with the Second Viennese musical tradition. First up was the U.S. Premiere of Johannes Maria Staud's (b. 1974) A map is not the territory (2001) an intense and uncompromising three-movement work based loosely on Alfred Habdank Korzybski's (1880-1950) premises of "General Sematics," a theory that exists somewhere between linguistics and sociology. Transformation Music (1983) by Kurt Schwertsik (b. 1935), an example of his MOB ART, was next and couldn't have provided a more stark contrast to the Staud. It's a smaller chamber piece with ten compact movemtents and is really quite charming. Violinist Piotr Szewczyk's playing was wonderfully sensitive. Unfortunately I was in the green room during the U.S. Premiere of Friedrich Cerha's Impulses (1992-93) and only happened to catch the final bombastic chord as the orchestra manager opened the door to let those of us waiting in the wings know that we were on next.

I played on H.K. Gruber's Aerial (1999), a concerto written for the Swedish trumpet virtuoso Håkan Hardenberger, who was simply amazing. His range, flexibility, and sensitivity were stunning. The piece opens with the soloist playing and singing at the same time--a perfect fifth in this case, which then sounds the resultant major third above. There's something very intimate and introspective about this technique. You become one with the instrument--the voice and the machine. It creates such a wonderful atmosphere, which I had never experienced while performing this technique myself. Hearing Håkan do it made me reconsider the technique and the effect it can have, something I'll take to heart as I continue digging into Martin Bresnick's Tent of Miracles (1984) for baritone saxophone and 3 pre-recorded saxophones.

There was a decent crowd in the modestly sized Lincoln Theater--an audience that was definitely up for the evening's challenge. As far as I could tell not one person abandoned after the first half.

Ironically, on the way home from the Detroit airport today, there was a report by Ari Shapiro on NPR's Weekend Edition about the New World Symphony. The report focuses on the training, both musical and extra-musical, that NWS fellows receive during their tenure, emphasizing the importance of the entrepreneurial, outreach, and music business skills that they are encouraged to develop. I think this is a great thing. And an area often neglected by teachers and music schools in the United States. There are two sides to music-making, the artistic side and the business side. But that's a topic for another day.
posted by Brian Sacawa 1:14 PM


Praised by The New York Times as "an inventive musician . . . fresh and surprising," saxophonist Brian Sacawa has firmly established himself as an important contemporary voice for his instrument. He is active as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician throughout the United States and is the co-founder of the new music duo Non-Zero with percussionist Timothy Feeney.

He has given premieres of over thirty works by both established and emerging composers, including Michael Gordon, Bright Sheng, Andrew Mead, Oliver Schneller, Ken Ueno, Beata Moon, Hillary Zipper, and Scott McAllister, among many others. Named the Baltimore CITYPAPER’s Critic’s Choice for Classical Music in 2002, he is the recipient of awards for solo performance from both national and international competitions.

Sacawa's versatile career has led to appearances with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the New World Symphony, Harvard Group for New Music, New Music Brandeis, Bargemusic, and at meetings of the ISU Contemporary Music Festival, World Saxophone Congress, North American Saxophone Alliance, and New England Saxophone Symposium.

Brian holds degrees from the University of Michigan, the Peabody Conservatory, and the University of Massachusetts – Amherst, where he studied with Donald Sinta, Gary Louie, and Lynn Klock. He has recorded for the Equililbrium, Naxos, and BiBimBop recording labels.

See Brian's other blog
Sounds Like Now