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Ann Southam

Pond Life

Centrediscs CMCCD 14109

On Pond Life, Canadian pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico presents a double disc dose of solo music by fellow Toronto resident, composer Ann Southam. Southam takes the image of a pond scene, with its Impressionist associations, to heart. Thus, the music emphasizes delicate shadings of harmony and soft dynamics in a group of placid, slowly evolving pieces.

The harmonic language of these pieces gravitates toward pandiatonicism. But Southam’s brand of harmony eschews a thoroughly straightforward trajectory. Often, she uses artfully placed “wrong notes” to dispel familiarity, sending a well-trod progression into unfamiliar territory. Indeed, the occasional judiciously-introduced dissonance acts like a raindrop disturbing the surface of a pond, creating a restructuring ripple effect.

Occasional moments of greater rhythmic activity, such as the considerably charming pair of “Fidget Creek” pieces, are welcome respites from the prevailing stillness. Petrowska Quilico is sensitive to the delicate balance of Southam’s compositional ecosystem, playing with assured pacing and nuanced phrasing.

Pond Life is a recording that, while primarily gentle on the surface, is consistently attention-grabbing.

Wednesday night was the debut of the Orchestra of the League of Composers/ISCM “” an improbable eighty-five years after the organization’s founding. As Jerry pointed out earlier, the NY Times included strangely sweeping and sadly misinformed coverage leading up to the concert. However, this did little to dissuade an enthusiastic audience from attending the performance. They were treated to quite an evening. Below are a few highlights:

-Lou Karchin: An excellent choice as conductor. Lou did a fine job leading the orchestra in a varied and challenging program.

-Musicians: Anyone acquainted with new music in New York was apt to recognize a number of the area’s finest participating. It showed.

-John Schaeffer: Despite appearing a bit rumpled onstage, the radio host lent star power, a sense of flow, and good-natured humor to the proceedings. His interviews with composers before each of their pieces were played combined user-friendly setups of the music with questions designed to let the audience get to know a bit about each composer’s approach and personality.

-Elliott Carter: Having one of the venerable co-chairs of League of Composers/ISCM’s represented on the concert was a classy move. The evening included a stunning performance of In the Distances of Sleep, Carter’s first settings of Wallace Stevens for mezzo-soprano and small orchestra. Soloist Kate Lindsey shined in these songs at the Tanglewood Carterfest last summer. If anything, her performance here was even more lovely; assured, nuanced, and tremendously attentive to every detail of diction and dynamic.   Schaeffer interviewed Carter before the performance. In response to a query about his continued productivity, Carter replied, “I’ve become fanatic about it. I don’t have any jobs to do any more. I can sit in a room and write music all day, and there’s nothing that pleases me more!”

-Gharra: Christopher Dietz’s sheepish admission that he knew little about ISCM prior to winning their composition competition(!) demonstrated that the organization still needs to do more to get out the word during this time of revitalization and re-branding. Still, Dietz’s captivating music is likely to have made the audience forget the gaffe rather quickly. He came up with the title (meaning “desert storm”) after composing the piece – with the help of Google and in consultation with an Egyptian-American cab driver. But Gharra’s strikingly dramatic formal design and fluidly varied pitch language – which encompassed everything from extended minor-key passages to supple microtonal bends – was worthy of the appellation.

-Alvin Singleton’s After Choice was simpler in design, but eloquently so. A string orchestra piece, it consisted of intertwining arco melodies and pizzicati, often in two-part counterpoint or – even starker – played in unisons or octaves. Written in homage to jazz violinist Leroy Jenkins, it didn’t feature anything so overt as jazz inflections. Rather, Singleton based the piece on string parts from a previous orchestral work that Jenkins had admired.

-Julia Wolfe’s The Vermeer Room is filled with beautifully sculpted, imaginatively scored verticals. The harmonic language and orchestration proved quite persuasive. I’m not sure I ‘grok’ the piece’s pacing just yet; I want to give it a second hearing before weighing in.

-Charles Wuorinen’s Synaxis featured four soloists in a sinfonia concertante that draws on the Orpheus myths as loose touchstones, Schaeffer was eager for Wuorinen to more precisely describe the connections between musical and extramusical inspiration; but the composer made it clear that this was no piece of program music.   Instead, the audience was treated to a showcase for four superlative soloists: oboist Robert Ingliss, clarinetist Alan Kay, French horn-player Patrick Pridemore, and double bassist Timothy Cobb. Cast in four movements, Synaxis gave each a chance to play with abundant virtuosity. The bass part displayed particular flair, and required more than a bit of courage: jaunty leaps, high-lying passages, and fleet bowed flurries. With its combination of careful ensemble coordination and bravura showmanship, Synaxis seemed an apt – and appropriately ambitious – way to end the 85th season of League of Composers/ISCM. Let’s hope for more orchestra concerts during their 86th year!

Seems like just yesterday Kay and I were celebrating Carter’s 100th birthday at a conference in Paris.

But today is Elliott Carter’s half birthday. My feeling is that anyone who hits the century mark should celebrate the half birthdays with equal enthusiasm!

ISCM agrees with me. Last night, the debut of the Orchestra of the League of Composers/ISCM — an improbable eighty-five years after the organization’s founding — included a stunning performance of In the Distances of Sleep, Carter’s first settings of Wallace Stevens for mezzo and small orchestra. Soloist Kate Lindsey shined in these songs at the Tanglewood Carterfest last summer. If anything, her performance here was even more lovely; assured, nuanced, and tremendously attentive to every detail of diction and dynamic.

WNYC’s John Schaeffer interviewed Carter before the performance. In response to a query about his continued productivity, Carter replied, “I’ve become fanatic about it. I don’t have any jobs to do any more. I can sit in a room and write music all day, and there’s nothing that pleases me more!”

Should  Providence be so kind, I’d be glad to say the same when I turn 100 1/2!

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Phoenix

Glassnote

Phoenix has been creating music since the mid-nineties and made their debut recording in 2000; but Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, their fourth LP, displays them at their best to date. The release’s powerful, intricate modern pop may not resemble either of the classical composers it references – Mozart in its title and Liszt on the song “Lisztomania;” the video for the latter was even filmed at Bayreuth! But the audacity and exuberance of these gestures to such luminous predecessors, in their own way, ring true.

Certainly, synth pop signatures remain a fixture of Phoenix’s sound, as is abundantly evident on songs like the aforementioned “Lisztomania” and “1901;” “Rome” is even more New Wave-inflected than is their usual wont. But on “Love Like a Sunset, Pt. 1,” the group strays into solidly art rock territory, creating a memorable, occasionally prog-influenced, instrumental. The piece is a synthetic tone poem that is considerably attractive. When its short coda, “Love Like a Sunset, Pt. 2,” reintroduces Thomas Mars’ vocals, the effect is dislocating; the music seems to have traveled so far away from the single-ready fare one’s already heard him sing.

Range, subtlety, memorable tunes, and name-dropping Franz and Wolfie in Richard’s playground; what’s not to like?

Steven Ricks

Mild Violence

Bridge Records CD 9256