The Kronos Quartet is in residence at Carnegie Hall this week from Mar. 11-14, presenting four concerts in Zankel Hall and mentoring emerging string quartets.
I’m writing about their 3/11 concert for Musical America. Devoted entirely to the music of Terry Riley, it featured a number of new works by one of the founding fathers of the minimalist school of composition.
On Sunday I’ll be attending Kronos’ Music Without Borders concert, which features guest performers Dohee Lee (Korea), rubâb master Homayoun Sakhi (Afghanistan), and Azerbaijani mugam performers Alim and Fargana Qasimov. The latter artists also perform on Kronos’ latest recording for Smithsonian Folkways, Music of Central Asia, Volume Eight (CD/DVD).
Making the classical aspects of the burgeoning indie classical movement abundantly clear, crossover albums are now crossover marketing musical scores. Via his website, composer Owen Pallett has released a limited edition score for the music on Heartland, his latest Domino recording.
Owen Pallett's Heartland
Joined by the Czech Symphony Orchestra and a host of guests (including composer Nico Muhly) Pallette has crafted his most consistently engaging music to date. In some critical circles, indie classical has, rightly or wrongly, been under the microscope for making pop into a ‘longhair’ genre, robbing it of its immediacy in favor of overt sophistication. I’d submit that this vantage point doesn’t give enough credit to indie audiences, who seem to be just fine grappling with orchestral arrangements by Pallett and electronic experiments by Animal Collective alike.
What’s more, recordings like Heartland amply demonstrate that one can, if they’re talented, craft sophisticated music that has just as many catchy hooks as a three-chord, three-minute anthemic single. A case in point is the loop-laden and jaunty “Lewis Takes off his Shirt;” the music, and the video below, suggest that pop can indeed combine sophistication with immediacy, and that its orchestral incarnation can be downright cheeky!
For those of your with a case of ‘artifact avarice,’ the full orchestra score for Heartland is $46 and has been printed in a limited run of 300. In addition to the music it also provides lyrics and a chart of diagrams of patches for the ARP 2600.
Owen Palett’s touring a bunch in support of Heartland. Here are some dates:
04-08 Toronto, Ontario – Queen Elizabeth Theatre
04-10 Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
04-11 Minneapolis, MN – Varsity Theater
04-12 Milwaukee, WI – Turner Hall
04-13 Columbus, OH – Wexner Center
04-14 Pittsburgh, PA – Andy Warhol Museum
04-15 Washington DC – Black Cat
04-18 Indio, CA – Coachella Festival
04-20 Boston, MA – Institute of Contemporary Art
04-22 New York, NY – Webster Hall
04-24 Baltimore, MD – Metro Gallery
04-25 Philadelphia, PA – First Unitarian Church
04-27 Atlanta, GA – The Earl
04-29 Dallas, TX – Granada Theater
04-30 Austin, TX – The Mohawk
05-05 San Francisco, CA – The Independent
05-08 Seattle, WA – The Crocodile
05-09 Vancouver, British Columbia – The Vogue Theatre
05-10 Victoria, British Columbia – Alix Goolden Hall
05-11 Portland, OR – Aladdin Theater
05-13 Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Court
05-14 Denver, CO – Larimer Lounge
Many Sequenza 21 readers will know Carlton Wilkinson best for his blog The And of Oneand for his work as a composer and presenter of contemporary concert music; but the man wears many hats. He’s also a college instructor (currently on the faculty at TCNJ) and a music critic for the Asbury Park Press.
Wilkinson recently shared another facet of his work: Three Rooms, a self-released album of avant pop songs. It’s currently for sale at CD Baby and iTunes. The recording primarily consists of spare piano-vocal tracks; but also includes percussion, guitars, and judicious, employment of synthesizers.
One can certainly hear influences of Carlton’s experimental compositions in the arranging touches such as flurries of noise and percussive adornments. But there’s a fair bit of prog sensibility here as well, no doubt abetted by Wilkinson’s singing voice bearing more than a passing resemblance to Adrian Belew.
Wilkinson has graciously shared an MP3 with us for previewing. Please don’t re-host and, if you like it, support grassroots music-making and buy the recording!
I met with composer Lou Karchin today to discuss his opera Romulus. A CD recording of this comic one act work is forthcoming on the Naxos imprint. I’ll be writing up the interview for the liner notes.
Composed in 1990, Romulus is a charming work. But like most contemporary operas, it took a while to find a company willing to produce it. In fact, Karchin waited seventeen years for a complete staging at the Guggenheim as part of its Works and Process series.
When I expressed surprise to Karchin at the length of time between composition and premiere, he replied,”Actually, a number of composers have had to wait seventeen years – or more- to see an opera to the stage.”
Opera composers have to be multi-talented, understanding both music and drama, and willing to multitask. But today, Lou reminded me of something else: they have to be patient too!
Jagjaguwar recording artists Besnard Lakes are releasing their next LP, The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night, this coming March. The band’s long been known for lovingly preparing their studio efforts with vintage gear. But this time out, their setup takes the cake. The band’s Breakglass Studio even includes a 1968 Neve germanium mixing console, used to record portions of Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti!
You can sample the results of their own blend of classic rocking meets spacey atmospherics on the teaser track “You Lied to Me,” available for download here.
Shearwater releases their third Matador LP, The Golden Archipelogo, on February 23rd. Matador’s posted a video premiering some of the tunes here. From these tantalizing glimpses, it sounds like the band’s adopting a more anthemic sound this time out.
Innova Records released Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble’s In C Remixed project this week. On paper the concept seems simple enough. GVSU’s performers present their own rendition of Terry Riley’s watershed minimalist work In C. The listener is then treated to a host of recreations by both contemporary composers and electronica artists.
Of course, this ’simple’ concept would have quickly gone awry if either GVSU faltered or its collection of remixers weren’t a creative bunch of talented genre-busters. Happily, the ensemble has their finger on the ‘pulse’ of Riley’s music. Happier still, they’ve enlisted some A-list collaborators.
Some, like DJ Spooky(In Sea of C), create beat-centric versions that seem ready-made for the IDM club. Others such as Nico Muhly (In C with Canons and Bass) and Phil Kline (In Cognito) take things in an experimental direction. Muhly even has the chutzpah to interpolate pitches from ‘outside’ the diatonic in order to spice things up — notably drone F#s. Kline further distresses the source material, adding layers of reverberation, chimes, and soundscaping. In his Simple Mix, David Lang similarly seeks to rework Riley’s piece towards a more atmospheric aesthetic; this time the proceedings heighten the affects of glissandos and de-emphasize metricity. The results in both the Kline and Lang remixes are eerily lovely.
As is more so the case in recent years, some remixers sit astride the pop and classical traditions. Yale-trained composer Dennis DeSantis leads something of a double musical life in concert music and electronica. His remix is a melange of beat overlays, synthetic additions, and restructuring that provides much to please both ear and intellect.
A remix project is always a hodgepodge of disparate approaches. But to this listener, it seems as if Innova has gotten it right, engaging artists who both enjoy Riley’s music and relish the chance to make In C in some way their own.
Pianist Borah Bergman’s signature style employs both hands with dizzying ambidexterity. Bergman’s rigorous practice routine creates what he calls ambi-ideation: “each hand can go in its own way when it wants to.†His ambitious improvisations are equally freed from technical and ideological constraints. Although steeped in bebop and post-bop traditional styles, Bergman can also let rip cacophonous free jazz with the best shredders out there.
Bergman is joined by violinist Stefano Pastor for a 2007 live date in Tortona, Italy. Three compositions by Bergman, and two duo improvisations, underline the pianist’s dualistic division of labor between honeyed bebop and frenetic free playing. Some passages of his composition “Spirit Song†adopt a balladic lyricism imparted with yearning, sostenuto beauty; elsewhere, he prefers dissonant runs and bellicose clusters. “Wellspring†incorporates the blindingly fast uptempo harmonic changes of bop with a hyperambidexterity that makes the listener apt to do a double take, checking the liner notes to see if this is for piano four-hands.
Pastor proves a worthy foil for Bergman. Apt to bend a pitch rather than leave it statically squared in the middle, he revels in microtones and attacks bravura passages with an acid-toned eschewal of neo-romanticism. Like the pianist, he is steeped in traditional jazz styles, but is able both to adopt and, in turn, parody their conventions with equal believability. A baldly triadic passage in “Spirit Song†finds Pastor lampooning simple major-chord arpeggios before setting off on a skittering chromatic solo – one envisions an impish grin on the violinist’s face. On “Wellspring,†he matches Bergman sixteenth note for sixteenth note down the breakneck home stretch of the piece’s climax. His violin keens cantorially on the effervescent set-closer the “Mighty Oak,†providing a sinuous pedal against Bergman’s cadenza-like riffs. One hopes that this is merely the beginning of a series of collaborations for this formidable pair.
Canadian duo Jordan McKenzie and Emi Honda are involved in a host of projects: video installations, visual art, music, and making a life together. Ringing for the Begin Again is a similarly versatile outing. Bilingual vocals – McKenzie sings in English and Honda in Japanese sit atop variegated instrumental arrangements.  Classical instruments ranging from glockenspiel and chimes to tuba and double bass(courtesy of guest Nathan Gage) join pop staples such as  acoustic guitar and ukulele.
Elfin Saddle tackles wide-ranging stylistic terrain while never sounding unfocused. The duo explores Japanese folk and drone-based experimental improvisations. A focal point is musical ritual, often evoked through use of chant and tintinnabuli and refrain-based structures (“The Procession,” Temple Daughter”). There are also a number of songs featuring fetching vocal melodies adorned with chamber pop arrangements and rustic contrapuntal elaborations; a signature examples is “Hammer Song.”
Elfin Saddle manages handily to combine unconventional and disparate sound worlds with a memorable appeal that seldom graces such polyglot experimentation.
Winged Contraption; Piano Concerto; Persistent Memory
Marilyn Nonken, piano; Boston Modern Orchestra Project; Gil Rose, conductor
BMOP Sound CD
Composer David Rakowski’s jocularity is well known. His many piano etudes (88 at last count) feature a number of sly allusions to other styles and works, as well as more overt zaniness; one even requires the performer to play pitches with their nose! His previous concerti have featured various subterfuges in which the soloist is upstaged by the orchestra. And, famously, goofiness abounds on his website. But alongside Rakowski’s penchant for light-hearted expression are consummate craftsmanship and music of considerable poignancy. BMOP’s recording features three ensemble works that highlight both Rakowski’s eloquence as an orchestrator and his ability to evoke a wide spectrum of emotions in music.
Persistent Memory was written while the composer was a fellow at the American Academy in Rome: a period in which the composer experienced adversity and loss on several fronts. Cast in two-movements, it features an elegy suffused with considerable melancholy and long arching melodies reminiscent, without overt homage, of the Copland “Americana school.†This is juxtaposed with rejoinders: tart brass punctuations and, in the second movement, a defiant scherzo – featuring tour de force writing for the winds – and a series of variations that refract the elegy’s material through a multi-colored prism.
The CD’s title work was composed as a sixtieth birthday tribute to Martin Boykan. The pre-compositional conceit for the piece is that it is exactly sixty pages long – again a glimmer of Rakowskian witticism. But composer imparts considerable gravitas here as well. The texture features angst-laden horn-writing and Bergian dissonant string verticals that belie any notions of Winged Contraption as an occasional bouquet. Amid these serious signatures lie percussive adornments and a propulsive clock: an ostinato that manifests variously as repeated note figures (a frequent Rakowski device) and burbling arpeggiations.
Marilyn Nonken has been one of several tireless champions of Rakowski’s solo piano works. It seems particularly fitting that he has fashioned a concerto for Nonken that references several of the etudes composer for her – resulting in a work of ambitious scope and a near-frenetic events structure. Easily one of Rakowski’s finest pieces to date, it features a host of playing techniques – thereby allowing Nonken to exercise both her conventional chops and explore some avant paths along the way.
The first movement’s opening is a master class in the “one-note†introduction. A-natural is treated to dampening, plucking inside the piano, various chordal harmonizations, and gradual haloing by the instruments of the orchestra until it is revealed in relentless repetition as an ostinato – a self-contained first theme group! Repeated single pitches once again provide a motoric canvas upon which a host of coloristic devices and harmonic divergences are imposed. The plucked A-natural returns at the beginning of each movement of the concerto as a centering and invocational device.
While the piano writing is tailor-made to Nonken’s abundant capabilities, she’s also given a chance to exercise a bit of whimsy in several asides for toy piano. The concerto also features a few other unconventional touches, such as the inclusion of a novelty percussion item called chatter-stones. And although one is glad for Rakowski’s occasional digressions into humor and his imaginative textural additions to the proceedings, the most striking moments in the concerto feature elegant writing for the conventional instruments in the band. Wind solos and keening string sostenuto passages accompany piquant, colorful verticals in the piano – and that irrepressible plucked A! – in a gorgeous slow movement.
The scherzo, on the other hand, focuses on short rhythmic cells and terse orchestral interjections. It also revels in adroitly jazzy piano-writing. The orchestra answers these swinging signatures with sassy horn blats and suavely articulate strings: hallmarks of a bygone era of cinematic music warmly recreated here.
The repeated note device reappears in the last movement, leading to a quote from Rakowski’s first piano etude, “E-Machines.†The quote references still another quote (a quote within quote!) of Beethoven’s Für Elise. Nonken records Rakowski’s cadenza for the CD, but it’s worth mentioning that the composer let her create her own for the premiere – such is the trust and close working relationship of creator and interpreter here.
The other interpreters on the scene, Gil Rose and the BMOP, are sterling in their preparation and superlatively musical. The disc is one of the orchestra’s best thus far, and the weightiest and most satisfying in Rakowski’s discography to date. Serious fun indeed!
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