This weekend, Ann Arbor’s University Musical Society is putting on its most ambitious project since I’ve been in town: Philip Glass‘s legendary opera Einstein On The Beach.
The production is directed by Robert Wilson with choreography by Lucinda Childs and includes a stunning cast hand-picked by Mrs. Wilson and Glass for the revival. Performances are this Friday (7 PM), Saturday (7 PM) and Sunday (2 PM) at the downtown Power Center performance space.
Alas, the shows are sold out at this point, but if you are a diehard fan, or just an interested individual in the area, there is always “second-acting” or last-minute availabilities to hope for (I’ve got my fingers crossed!).
ETHEL will soon be reunited with our dear friend and collaborator Ayelet Rose Gottlieb at the 2012 Winter Jazz Fest (January 7th @ Zinc Bar). Ayelet has composed a deeply heartfelt piece for ETHEL and percussionist Satoshi Takeishi entitled Shiv’a . We’ve been developing Shiv’a for over a year now, and recently recorded it. This January’s concert marks the beginning of a series of live performances of the piece.
Ayelet’s style combines tuneful folk influences with moments of abstract improvisation. Her tone color choices are unusual and interesting. In this interview she discusses her music, her projects, and the fascinating relationship between her music and her dreams.
Dufallo: Can you discuss Shiv’a – your inspiration for the piece, and how it came together?
Rose Gottlieb: Shiv’a is a meditation on the process of mourning. It referneces Jewish and Buddhist mourning rituals. I composed it following several deaths, including that of my good friend, drummer and percussionist Take Toriyama. It took a while to piece together the seven movements of Shiv’a, and to find the right “language” for it (the movements vary from graphic scores to traditional scores, with improvisation sections). It’s a very special piece for me, as it’s my first long instrumental composition.
Being a vocalist, I’m used to working with text, and in this case the composition process was very different from anything I had done before. Since there were no words, the way in for me was visual. Each movement in the piece is like a sketch that draws an image with sounds and textures. The titles of the seven movements reflect upon a quotation from the book of Kings:
There was a great and mighty wind, splitting mountains and shattering rocks [...] but the Great Spirit was not in the wind. After the wind — earthquake. But the Great Spirit was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake — fire. But the Great Spirit was not in the fire. And after the fire — a voice of thin silence.
The movement titles also reflect the four elements of nature, being slightly jolted and out of place — Geshem (rain), Ra’ash (earthquake), and Esh (fire). Air is referenced through the use of a unique instrument that was made specifically for Shiv’a by installation artist Michelle Jaffe: the “Blanket with 49 Bells (BW49B).” My dream life is at least as “real” to me as my waking reality… When I started composing Shiv’a I had an incredible, powerful dream of a blanket with bells on it, that was moved by the wind. Michelle took on the task of bringing this sound-sculpture into physical reality, and the BW49B is now an integral part of Shiv’a. The bells signify a soul that keeps ringing in the world after the body has passed…
Dufallo: Can you tell a little bit about your musical history?
Rose Gottlieb: From childhood through the end of high school I studied to be a classical flautist. When I was about 14 I started “flirting” with improvisation — first as a flautist, then as a vocalist. Saxophonist Arnie Lawrence moved to Israel in the 1990′s, and performing with him solidified my direction into the realm of vocal jazz and improvised music… About a year before I started singing I started having a recurring dream of swirling colors — a large, intricate orchestral piece would be playing, causing the colors to move. Every time I awoke from that dream I experienced a great frustration about not having the skill to “transcribe” this sub-concious composition… I decided to start writing music, in order to be able one day to write that piece that was asking to be born… Of course, once I started composing, the dream stopped. I’m still hopeful this piece will come to visit me again some day…
Dufallo: What are some exciting upcoming projects?
Rose Gottlieb: With Shiv’a – I’m very much hoping it will now have life as a performed piece. I feel that the combination of ETHEL, Satoshi Takeishi, and Michelle’s BW49B will be a real treat to see on stage. We’re starting this journey on the night between the 7th and 8th of January at Winter Jazz Fest (Zinc Bar, 12:15 AM). The album is in the mixing stages, and will be released toward the end of 2012/early 2013.
Ayelet Rose Gottlieb, ETHEL, and Satoshi Takeishi rehearse Shiv'a
Aside from Shiv’a I have a few exciting projects in the works. On March 28th my composition for trombone and piano, Carry On — Check In, will be premiered at Carnegie Hall by pianist Vered Reznik and trombonist Haim Avitzur.
In Israel I recently recorded Betzidei Drachim / On the Roadside — a project that features my settings of Israeli and Palestinian poetry. The music is a cross-over of jazz, prog-rock, and middle-eastern music… This project features my long standing collaborator, pianist Anat Fort, as well as Ihad Nimer on oud and violin, and several other leading Israeli musicians.
With Mycale — John Zorn’s a capella vocal quartet — we’re touring the US and Europe, and working on new materials. We’re also gearing up for an exciting 2013 — Zorn’s 60th birthday year!
Outside my musical life — I recently shifted my base (once again) to London, where my husband works as an animator. I am grateful every day that music is my life and I have such incredible people to share it with…
The positive aspect of having too much of a good thing is that you’ve consumed something good. For me in the last week, the object of my over-consumption has been new works by student composers, not only created by colleagues of mine at the University of Michigan, but the representatives of the University of Iowa, Indiana University and the University of Cincinnati who attended the 2011 Midwest Composers Symposium. Topping off the weekend-long buffet of freshly baked music was Monday evening’s second student composers’ concert of the year here at Michigan (which I will cover in the next installment in this pair of reviews). Suffice it to say, I heard a lot of music in those four days, so I will do my best to cover what passed by my ears.
Midwest (as the event will be dubbed from now on) is an annually occurring conference of student composers held at one of the four member institutions (UM, UI, IU and CCM) on a rotating basis. For more background information check out last year’s post on the symposium. I participated in the Michigan delegation this year and traveled to Bloomington, Indiana (IU was the host this time ’round) with my work for two marimbas “Dark Spiral” (here’s a video). There were four concerts altogether, one Friday evening and three on Saturday offering over 30 individual works to an audience of composers, performers and professors. Intervening between the morning and afternoon concert Saturday was a very thought-provoking discussion session wherein each school elected students to give a brief presentation on a musical topic of their choice. I really enjoyed the interactions spawned by this feature of the event and I hope it is retained and, perhaps, expanded in the future.
I apologize in advance to all those performers and composers I am unable to devote much time to in the forthcoming paragraphs. The extreme volume of music presented to me forces me – understandably I hope – to be uncomfortably brief. Before getting specific I want to emphasize that every school represented themselves extremely well, in my opinion. Each offered a variety of styles and ensembles making the slate of proffered works as diverse as it was ample.
Now to the music.
Friday’s concert featured the “large ensemble” works, including performances by the Indiana University Chamber Orchestra, Contemporary Vocal Ensemble and New Music Ensemble. There were many remarkably beautiful moments in the first two works, Natalie Williams‘ Les Chant du Malador (2011) and Stas Omelchenko‘s Musings… (2011), particularly the third movement of Ms. Williams’ piece, which alludes to tonality in a very refracted way that is convincing and engaging without being too on-the-nose. These chamber orchestra works were followed by two very well-received (at least with my crew) choral pieces: Lindsey Jacob‘s Continue to Exist (2006) and Ji Young Kim‘s Reflections on Waiting for Mama (2011). Ms. Kim’s work is particularly striking in how it uses onomatopoeia to imitate the native language of her text’s subject, Korean. The piece balances the choir’s texture wonderfully, using precisely located solos to convey and magnify the work’s narrative backbone. The final two works on the evening’s program were Paul Dooley‘s Point Blank (which I already reviewed) and Justin Grossman‘s At Last the Secret is Out (2010), pairing very nicely together to conclude the first evening and set the bar very high for Saturday’s music.
For those of you in the area, the highly-lauded chamber ensemble Brave New Works is returning to their old stomping grounds in Ann Arbor for two performances this weekend.
The second concert is the following evening (Nov. 19) at 8 PM in the McIntosh theater at the UM School of Music, and features an all-Michigan program of Erik Santos, Michael Daugherty, Kristin Kuster and Paul Schoenfield. This concert is free.
Grand Dragon (excerpt from Speedvisions) … Rob Deemer Slumber Music … Jay Batzner Steal Away (excerpt from O Sapentia) … Hayes Biggs
Intermission –
Linea Negra … Laurie San Martin Refuge … Sam Nichols Sixteen Lines … Robert E. Thomas
How it Will Go … Dale Trumbore Oracle Night … James Stephenson Nostos-Algea … James Holt
This concert was made possible by the generous support of Manhattan New Music Project (www.mnmp.org), and Sequenza 21 (www.sequenza21.com) publisher Jerry Bowles
Program committee: Clarice Jensen, Hayes Biggs, and Christian Carey
ACME Management: Bernstein Artists, Inc.
ACME Publicist: Christina Jensen
Thanks: Nancy Kleaver & Max Freedman of MNMP, Jerry Bowles, Steve Layton, Sue Renée Bernstein, Christina Jensen, Canelle Boughton, Glenn Freeman, Justin Monsen; the staff at Joe’s Pub: Shanta Thake, Sara Beesley, Michele Renkovski, & Patricia Bradby.
Special thanks: to the musicians for their dedicated work preparing the program; to the featured composers for their beautiful music; and to all the members of the Sequenza 21 and Manhattan New Music Project communities, without whom this event would not be possible.
Clarice: So, ahem, Nadia it was pretty remarkable when we switched from reading from the score to parts when we were working on Hayes’ piece (ed.: Steal Away by Hayes Biggs). It’s like the music took on a different meaning.
Nadia: I know!! I find that stuff so incredible. Sometimes I forget that a massive portion of our jobs as musicians (especially of the new music persuasion) is essentially translating visual material into sound. We’re kind of like professional map-readers. Do you have any notational pet peeves?
Clarice: Page turns of course… But other than that, just spacing in general. If notes look all bunched up, then it’s hard not to make them sound that way! What about you?
Nadia: My super-dork pet peeve is spelling; I hate it when chords are spelled out in ways that have little regard for traditional chord structures. It’s sometimes really hard to wrap your brain around a whole bunch of sharps and flats living together all higgledy-piggledy without regard for implied harmony. I know I know: super-dork. That having been said, I kind of love how notation is a kind of personal, no two alike sort of thing. It gives the performer so much insight as to how the composer may be thinking. Oh! And I can get kinda frustrated with things that are notated with very small durations (64th and 128th notes) which are then in a super-slow tempo. I understand a kind of freneticism may be what the composer is going for, but it just seems to add so much time to the rehearsal/parsing process.
Clarice: Totally agree on that one. Pretty amazing how this abstract system of symbols and lines and dots can be subject to so much scrutiny and discussion regarding interpretation. And how dots and lines paired with scrutiny and discussion results in beautiful music! Amazing!
Nadia: Yay! So, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the type of music and programming that translates well live vs. that which is great to listen to on the radio or on a recording. There are so many types of gestures which are fascinating to watch people achieve, which cannot be really understood in a recording. Like even a pregnant pause, for example.
Clarice: For sure – the physicality of achieving a musical gesture just can’t be heard in a recording, and sometimes seeing that gesture is what makes the music translate to the audience. However, would you say that there is any music that makes more sense recorded rather than live? What about music in the rock/pop world?
Nadia: Oh decidedly. Stylistically that’s an idea Classical peeps kind of “borrowed” from the pop world to begin with, even going so far back as Musique Concrète territory. Like, think about how many times we’ve heard the exact same performance of a song like “Louie Louie.” That performance IS the work itself. Everything else is a “cover.” This can seem like a weird, alien counterpart to the Classical model (like, do I only do covers???), but yeah, there’s a lot more of that type of thinking these days, from things like John AdamsLight Over Water to Nico Muhly’s The Only Tune, a piece I’ve performed a lot. When that piece was conceived it was as a recorded collage. When we play it, we are trying our damnedest to approximate the recording. It’s sort of the opposite type of problem from what we were talking about above, the “why does this music lack the visceral impact it had live on this record” type of problem.
Well, I’m super into the diversity of voices on this program. I get to wear a lot of different hats! (Jagged hat, lyrical hat.)
Clarice: Yes, I think the variety of pieces we ended up with is pretty emblematic of the wide range of excellent writing and composition that’s happening now. And as a performer, it really is rewarding to wear all of these hats! I mean, I’ve always considered lyrical playing to be a personal strength of mine, but over the years I’ve worked so hard on rhythmic accuracy through playing intricate music, and now I consider that to be a strength as well. It’s amazing how all of this diverse writing is in fact shaping the performers who are often playing music in the contemporary world. Do you think your focus on new music has changed you intrinsically as a performer?
Nadia: Oh, totally. Whenever you work on some weird skill, it changes the kind of mental space in which you think about everything else, really. The rhythmic idea you bring up is super apropos; I also kind of came from a lyrical place as a kind of a default, but the more I work on concepts of groove and flow, the more these ideas end up creeping their way into even the most lyrical stuff. Knowing more things as time goes on rules.
Well, lovely to chat with you, C, I can’t wait for the show!!
Clarice: Yep yep, it’s gonna be a good one!
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Tickets to the Sequenza 21 Concert are free (the venue charges a $12 food/drink minimum).
“Magical” is a pretty cheesy way to describe anything, particularly one’s time at a music festival. Yet, something – at least – special happened during yesterday’s Aspen Festival Orchestra performance of Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony no. 5. Gentle rolls of thunder began to accompany violinist Robert McDuffie’s dramatic journey through the first two movements of the Barber, growing louder as the orchestra approached the thrilling conclusion of the work. It seemed as if the weather was a presage to the ominous clamor of the Mahler, and more amazing was its harmonious transition from thunder clouds to a soothing light rain right as Festival Music Director Robert Spano reached the downbeat of the symphony’s yearning Adagietto movement.
I’ve seen many such examples of concert music and nature coming together in my first week as a student at the Aspen Music Festival. It is an honor for me to be among the accomplished, ambitious and talented musicians – professionals and students – who, every year, congregate in this mountain town to showcase and expand their abilities in music performance, conducting and composition. Though I won’t bore you all with grandiloquent, Thoreau-esque meditations on the “vibratory hum” uniting music and nature, I am excited to report on the many wonderful performances of contemporary music I will attend over the next four weeks.
The first event I went to was a recital by the superb pianist Jeremy Denk, which featured an unusual pairing of Ligeti’s Etudes for Piano and Bach’s Goldberg Variations, in that order. Almost all the other student composers here came to the concert, and we wondered if these two heavy, complex and extremely contrasting works could complement each other. Mr. Denk’s reasoning behind the program was clear enough: he said he wanted to feature what he thought were the earliest and latest “titanic” masterpieces for solo piano. Yet, we were still a little intimidated by what lay before us. To his credit, Mr. Denk’s charisma was infectious and he did a wonderful job warming up the audience to the material he was about to present.
Once upon a time in 2000, there was a brand-new underground music collective in the San Francisco Bay Area, presenting a monthly concert series named “Static Illusion/Methodical Madness”. The SIMM series is still going strong today, and its parent organization, Outsound Presents,now additionally puts on the weekly Luggage Store Gallery concert seriesand the Outsound New Music Summit.
Outsound acquired a Board of Directors and incorporated its bad self in 2009. Now with a 501(c)(3) IRS determination in hand, it’s a stalwart provider of experimental music, sound art, found sounds, improvisation, noise, musique concrete, minimalism, and any other kind of sound that is too weird for a mainstream gig in the Bay Area.
The upcoming 2011 Outsound New Music Summit is the 10th annual, running from July 17-23, 2011. All events will take place at the San Francisco Community Music Center, 344 Capp Street, San Francisco. Eager listeners can purchase advance tickets online.
Sunday July 17: Touch the Gear Exposition
Outsound’s free opening event allows the public to roam among the Summit’s musicians and sound artists and their sonic inventions, asking questions, making noise and learning how these darn things work.
Monday July 18: Discussion Panel: Elements of non-idiomatic compositional strategies
Another free public event in which composers Krys Bobrowski, Andrew Raffo Dewar, Kanoko Nishi and Gino Robair will discuss the joys and pains of creating new works some of which to be premiered in The Art of Composition. The public is invited to participate in a Q&A session.
Wednesday July 20: FACE MUSIC
This concert is devoted to the voice, the world’s oldest instrument, and artists who expand its horizons: Theresa Wong, Joseph Rosenzweig, Aurora Josephson, and Bran…(POS).
Thursday July 21: The Freedom of Sound A night of operatic free expression, and power of spontaneous sound from Tri-Cornered Tent Show featuring guest vocalist Dina Emerson, Oluyemi and Ijeoma Thomas’ Positive Knowledge, and Tom Djll’s “lowercase big band”, Grosse Abfahrt with special guest Alfred Harth (A23H).
Friday July 22: The Art of Composition
Gino Robair premieres his Aguascalientes suite based on scenes captured by Jose Guadalupe Posada, Andrew Raffo Dewar’s Interactions Quartet performs Strata (2011) dedicated to Eduardo Serón, Kanoko Nishi premieres her graphic scores along with bassist Tony Dryer, and Krys Bobrowski offers Lift, Loft and Lull, a series of short pieces exploring the sonic properties of metal pipes and plates and the use of balloons as resonators.
Saturday July 23: Sonic Foundry Too!
In a sequel to the first Sonic Foundry performance in 2006, 10 musical instrument inventors are paired up in 5 collaborations: Tom Nunn, Steven Baker, Bob Marsh, Dan Ake, Sung Kim, Walter Funk, Brenda Hutchinson, Sasha Leitman, Bart Hopkins, and Terry Berlier.
I’m looking forward to hearing violinist Miranda Cuckson premiere a new chamber concerto by Jeffrey Mumford tonight at Symphony Space.
Cuckson is a tremendous talent. Her recent CDs of music by Ralph Shapey, Donald Martino, and Michael Hersch are required listening for anyone interested in post-tonal chamber music.
The concert also includes works by Harold Meltzer, Victoria Bond, and Brian Ferneyhough. Cuckson is joined by the Argento Ensemble; the Da Capo Chamber Players will also perform (details below).
Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival Program
Monday, April 11, 2011, 7:30 pm; $20/Seniors $15
Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater in Peter Norton Symphony Space
Ticket information here
Jeffrey Mumford: through a stillness brightening (world premiere)
Argento Ensemble
Commissioned by the Argento New Music Project through the generosity of Marianna Bettman (in memory of Judge Gilbert Bettman) and Sonia Rothschild.
Brian Ferneyhough: La Chute D’Icare
Argento Ensemble
Harold Meltzer: Exiles
Da Capo Chamber Players, Mary Nessinger, mezzo soprano
Victoria Bond: Instruments of Revelation (NY premiere)
Da Capo Chamber Players
(Visual Abstract, First Movement, Music by Pierre Jalbert, Film by Jean Detheux)
On January 8th, 2011, at 7:30 p.m. in Zilkha Hall of The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, the Houston TX new music group Musiqa presents Real and Imagined – a concert collaboration with Aurora Picture Show featuring Theo Loevendie’s Six Turkish Folk Songs as well as music by Eve Beglarian, Paul Frehner, and Evan Chambers. Houston-based composer Pierre Jalbert’sVisual Abstract for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion will be performed live to a film created by Jean Detheux. The concert will be conducted by Houston Symphony Assistant Conductor Brett Mitchell.
Led by five composers (including founding member Pierre Jalbert) Musiqa is receiving a great deal of notice for its innovative multi-disciplinary concert events (dance, visual art, and theater are always integrated into Musiqa performances) as well as its educational programming that annually reaches thousands of Houston area students. Next season, Musiqa will celebrate its ten-year anniversary.
Pierre Jalbert graciously responded to a few questions about Visual Abstract:
Chris Becker: Did Jean Detheux create his film before, after, or during the composition of Visual Abstract?
Pierre Jalbert: He created the film after the piece was written. The music was commissioned and premiered by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble a few years back. Jean and I worked on a project last year in which he created a film first and I wrote the music to the film. That work was entitled L’œil écoute (The Eye Listens), and was also premiered by PNME. This time around, we decided that we would reverse the process, and he would do his film to the already existing music.
Chris Becker: In performance with the film, is the conductor watching the film for the timing of some of your musical events? I’m thinking of the third movement where rhythmic hits coincide with abrupt changes in the film.
Pierre Jalbert: Yes, the conductor is looking at the film for cues from time to time, and we rehearse many times through to get the timing down. As you can imagine, it’s very difficult as each performance is slightly different. But Jean made the film to not have too many abrupt changes. But still, there are a a few that make it challenging.
Chris Becker: The layers of images in Detheux’s film are very rich and tactile. They remind me of natural phenomena, weather, or even what we “see” when we close our eyes and listen to the sounds around us. Speaking as a composer, what do you think makes an “abstract” work of visual art successful?
Pierre Jalbert: I think when one looks at the film and hears the music as a single entity, and one does not dominate over the other, but each enhances the other, then we have something interesting.
Chris Becker: Next season, Musiqa will celebrate its ten-year anniversary. As one of the people who founded the organization, how does it feel to look back on all Musiqa has accomplished?
Pierre Jalbert: It’s amazing to look back and see how the organization has grown. I remember a few of us meeting at Tony Brandt’s house 10 years ago and brain-storming about what the organization could be. We wanted to get new music out into the community and into downtown and offer up repertoire that wasn’t being heard in Houston. All of the composers on the Artistic Board work really well together (Anthony Brandt, Karim Al-Zand, Rob Smith, Marcus Maroney, and myself), and that has been crucial in keeping things going through the years.
Tickets for Real and Imagined – including discounted tickets for seniors and students – are available for purchase on the Musiqa website.
Once upon a time in 2000, there was a brand-new underground music collective in the San Francisco Bay Area, presenting a monthly concert series named “Static Illusion/Methodical Madness”. The 
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