In the current economy – particularly in the recording industry – expediency can sometimes trump artistry. All too often, classical artists with a recent CD release can’t afford to worry too much about the curatorial vision of a concert series on which they appear: they’ve got to make their album’s program fit somehow in order to promote the product. Happily, there are times when an artist’s work and a venue’s vision come together seamlessly.
The Rubin Museum’sResonating Light music series continues tonight with a concert by cellist Maya Beiser. Her recording Provenance, released last year on Innova, explored music from disparate faith traditions, reflecting cultures that coexisted during the Middle Ages on the Iberian Peninsula.
Her program tonight takes a similar approach, bringing together music inspired by different religious traditions. But rather than just featuring music from Provenance in a “close enough” curatorial approach, Beiser studied the artworks in a recent exhibit at the Rubin entitled Embodying the Holy.
In response to the pieces on display, Bhe has programmed together works reflective of Orthodox Christianity (Arvo Pärt’s Fratres and John Tavener’s Lament To Phaedra) as well as Tibetan Buddism and other Easter philosophies (Even Ziporyn’s Kabya Maya and Douglas Cuomo’s Only Breath). Beiser’s arrangement of Max Bruch’s Kol Nidre represents Judaism. Rounding things out, Beiser is joined by accordionist Guy Klucevsek for Sofia Gubaidulina’s In Croce, arranged for cello and bajan.
Galactic Diamonds
Steve Hudson Chamber Ensemble
Groovaholic Music CD
New York based composer and pianist Steve Hudson performs his compositions with several groups. He’s currently working in a quartet setting with violinist Zack Brock, singing cellist Jody Redhage, and percussionist Martin Urbach. The group just released their debut CD and will be touring in Europe in March 2011.
All of the members of the Steve Hudson Chamber Ensemble are skilled genre benders and genre blenders, able to adroitly move between styles such as jazz, tango, and avant classical – and many points in between. “Tune with Tango” (video below) is a signature example of their simpatico sense of ensemble and deftly phrased, gently articulated, yet still zesty sense of rhythm.
A more eclectic offering is the title tune, which moves from fusion tinged modern jazz to a lushly harmonized neoromantic coda. There are tender stretches too, like the ballad “Song for John Lennon.” It’s one of Hudson’s most affecting solo turns; he combines impressionist post-bop chord voicings with wistful waltzing.
Galactic Diamonds is indeed a versatile outing; and by no means does it only showcase its leader. Brock lends a bluegrass fiddle’s inflections and gentle swing to “Keep it Simple.” Redhage crafts a cantabile, double-stop laden solo on “Moving On” and doubles her cello line with supple vocalise on “PG.” Urbach never swamps the acoustic instruments, but still makes his presence felt in fulsome grooves, as on the effusively syncopated “Speak Out.”
Meanwhile, Hudson doesn’t restrict himself to just playing piano. He plays cafe jazz solos on melodica on the lilting “Para.” On “Funky Hobbit,” he tears it up on a Fender Rhodes electric piano, moving the ensemble closer to ‘out improv.’ Both Brock and Redhage are encouraged to shred a bit in response to Hudson’s enthusiastic acid jazz riffing.
Whether pushing the envelope with energetic improvisatory exertions or crafting more gradually developing essays, the Steve Hudson Ensemble is consistently engaging. Galactic Diamonds is a thoroughly enjoyable recording.
Syracuse, NY’s Ra Ra Riot is a chamber pop band in the most organic sense of the word. In addition to the usual rock instrumentation – guitar, bass, drums, & keyboards – they also include a violinist and cellist in their complement. While their debut The Rhumb Line demonstrated that RRR’s brand of chamber pop was able to summon both the delicacy of indie classical with the heft that rock requires, their latest recording, The Orchard, further synthesizes these various elements into a potent musical concoction.
Recorded near a peach orchard in Upstate New York (hence the album title), this recording documents a band just hitting its stride, in effusive polyglot fashion. Ra Ra Riot marries both lilting pastoral pop, as on the lovely “Keep it Quiet,” with supple rhythms. Indeed, the syncopated beats and pan-ethnic grooves that populate their leadoff single “Boy” would likely make Vampire Weekend jealous!
The title tune’s efficacious amalgam of minor-key string ostinati, soaring vocals, and a loping pop groove makes for a convenient snapshot of Ra Ra Riot’s music circa 2010: catchy, clever, multihued, and memorable.
“From the 9th to the 15th centuries, the area which is now modern Spain was home to the greatest peaceful agglomeration of cultures ever known in the post-literate world…Even more remarkable than the flowering of art itself was the confluence of cultures that produced it: under the rule of Islam, Muslims, Jews and Christians lived and worked together in relative harmony.”
-Maya Beiser, Provenance liner notes essay
Cellist Maya Beiser’s latest CD for the Innova imprint seeks to craft music that celebrates the rich multiculturalism of the Iberian peninsula. Using medieval Spain as a jumping off point, Beiser has commissioned a collection of works that celebrate Christian, Jewish, and Muslim musical traditions. The participants frequently interweave stylistic and ethnic boundaries. The results are frequently engaging musical hybrids.
Iranian kamancheh composer and master Kalyan Kalhor’s “I Was There” features Beiser alongside oud performer Bassam Saba and percussionists Jamey Haddad and Shane Shanahan. This rhapsodic piece allows cello and oud each to negotiate long-breathed melismatic cadenzas. Eventually, Beiser and Saba come together, duetting in supple, then increasingly rhythmically incisive phrases.
Armenian dudukahar Djivan Gasparian’s “Memories” is a haunting and evocative piece. While Gasparian is not necessarily a household name, his performances on duduk (a double reed instrument) have populated a number of Hollywood films, including Blood Diamond and Gladiator. “Memories” captures the essential flavor of Armenian folk music, all the while bearing in mind the cello’s proclivities for generous-toned lyricism. Above an omnipresent drone, Beiser unleashes keening, ardent modal melodies.
Israeli composer Tamar Muskal took Ladino folksong as the basis for “Mar de Leche,” her collaboration with Beiser. Sung by Sephardic Jews in Spain, Ladino is a linguistic hybrid of Spanish and Hebrew. Muskal’s piece, a work for chamber ensemble that features the same musicians as the Kalhor work, abetted by the dynamic vocalist Etty Ben-Zaken. Beiser and Saba once again exhibit considerable musical chemistry. Beiser also incorporates some of the undulating vibrato and pitch-bends of Ben-Zaken’s vocal style, creating an organic set of timbral ensemble interactions.
In the summer of 2009, Beiser travelled with composer Douglas J. Cuomo to Cordoba and Granada: a field trip to do research that would abet the composition of his contribution to Provenance: “Only Breath.”
Inspired by the work of Sufi poet Jellaludin Rumi (one of my favorites!), the piece finds Beiser in collaboration with sound designer Shahrokh Yadegari. Seeking to evoke the sound of wind passing through the prevalent minarets in Andalusia, Cuomo has crafted a work that plays with mobile filigrees and reverberant echoes. It makes good use of looping technology too; rather than using it to fashion a pad of repeated utterances, the loops instead allow for slow-building counterpoint of phantom cello Doppelgängers. The final result is a series of dovetailing, angst-filled melodic lines amid ghostly, floating verticals. I’ve heard many vocal settings of Rumi that have had much less to say than this more abstracted, yet tremendously thoughtful, instrumental meditation on his work.
Evan Ziporyn’s arrangement of the Led Zeppelin song “Kashmir,” for Beiser and prog-rock luminary drummer Jerry Marotta, closes out the disc. While its clear that this is the piece with the most accessible crossover appeal on the CD, that awareness takes nothing away from its inclusion. It points up another kind of hybridized music-making – the influence of Eastern signatures on Led Zep’s rock-oriented sound. What’s more, Beiser and Marotta just plain tear it up!
Sometimes, a concept album contains a creative inspiration that is far better than the reality it imagines. In my view, Provenance extolls a wonderful collaborative atmosphere: a model for many future cross-cultural projects. Alas, this type of music-making is a relatively recent innovation and, in many venues, is still far from prevalent. One wishes Maya Beiser were able to make multicultural music without extolling the virtues of dhimmi under Muslim rule. During the Middle Ages, dhimmi – “people of the book” (Christians and Jews) – were sporadically allowed limited religious freedom in Iberia. But there were significant legal and cultural restrictions placed upon non-Muslim citizens; these were terms of surrender, not of collaboration or accommodation. Thus, my reading of history doesn’t allow me to share Beiser’s utopian view of medieval multiculturalism. I’d rather listen to Provenance as a hopeful and tantalizing glimpse at what music-making and, indeed, cultural coexistence, may increasingly look like in the future than to revise or rewrite our spotty attempts at getting along in the past.
For those of us who didn’t make the pilgrimage to SXSW last week, it’s always nice to live vicariously. I saw various tweets about cellos and violins at the festival, and am curious if any readers who attended saw evidence of Indie Classical music at the various showcases. Feel free to share you stories in the comments section below.
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