Most notably for new music fans, the concert features the world premiere of Harold Meltzer’s Kreisleriana, for violin and piano, commissioned by the Library of Congress’ McKim fund.  The concert also features Meltzer’s Pulitzer-Prize finalist work Brion, commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for the Cygnus Ensemble.

The concert begins at 8:00 p.m. at the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium.  There will be a pre-concert discussion by Mr. Meltzer and Cygnus founder William Anderson at 6:15 p.m. at the Library’s Whitall Pavillion.  No tickets are required for the pre-concert talk.  Tickets to the main concert are free but require reservations and may be obtained by contacting Ticketmaster online or at 202.397.7328.

Sketches for an untitled orchestral work dating from the time Sibelius was writing his Eighth Symphony

Big news from Finland: Sketches of what appear to be Sibelius’s Eighth Symphony (long thought destroyed by Sibelius) have emerged. Here’s a clunky Google translation of the Finnish web site announcing this incredible discovery, along with an orchestral reading of those sketches. At the original Finnish link, you can access a video and hear the realization of the sketches. Those of you who don’t speak Finnish will want to jump ahead to ca. 2:00, where the music actually begins. Yes, it sounds like Sibelius, but a more chromatic and fragmented Sibelius than we’re accustomed to.

A more comfortably written article on the discovery and the musicology supporting the claim can be found here.

And a great big Thank You to Sibelius booster Alex Ross, who hipped me to this at his web site.

DZ4: Alicia Lee, Brad Balliett, Alma Liebrecht, Arthur Sato

Watching the beginning of a new ensemble is always exciting.  But there’s a difference between a group that sets up camp in known territory — say, in the mineral-rich lands of string quartet literature, or in the breadbasket of Pierrot — and a group that strikes out for the wilderness, to make a repertoire where there had been none.

In the last year, I’ve seen the launch of two groups with this mission.   The Deviant Septet went to that place Stravinsky discovered in “L’histoire du Soldat” but that was never settled by others — clarinet, trumpet, trombone, bass, bassoon, violin, percussion.  They added two new pieces, by Ruben Naeff and Sefan Freund, at their incredibly fun inaugural concert in May.  By next May there will 12 more by 12 new composers, all based on Stockhausen’s Tierkreis.

The DZ4 wind quartet (that’s oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn) has a similar mission, to build a repertoire from scratch through projects that involve many composers tackling similar projects.  Their debut concert, “One Hot Minute,” featured 20 one-minute compositions by 20 different composers (I got to be one, and was much rewarded by their terrific musicianship and heartfelt enthusiasm).  This Friday they’ll perform their second project, “The Well-Tempered DZ4,” in which 24 composers each take on a different minor or major key.

These groups are doing something that I, especially as a composer, find really inspiring — they’re committing to an unknown music.  Composers, go write for them!  They’re stellar players, great to work with; check out the concert and say hi.

The Well-Tempered DZ4
Friday October 21st, 2011
10:15pm
Greenwich House
46 Barrow Street, New York
C Major- Jacob Garchik
A Minor- Bradley Detrick
G Major- Karl Kramer
E Minor- Lauren Winterbottom
D Major- Pauline Kim
B Minor- Jonathan Russell
A Major- Evan Premo
F# Minor- Gareth Flowers
E Major- Eric Wubbels
C# Minor- Jane Antonia Cornish
B Major- James Blachly
G# Minor- Ted Hearne
F# Major- Mohammed Fairouz
Eb Minor- Caleb Burhans
Db Major- Mike Block
Bb Minor- David Byrd-Marrow
Ab Major- Charlie Porter
F Minor- Glenn Cornett
Eb Major- Nathan Burke
C Minor- Matt McBane
Bb Major- Ryan Carter
G Minor- Ken Thomson
F Major- Zachary Detrick
D Minor- Ryan Francis

Kanoko is classically trained on piano and received a BA in music performance from Mills College in 2006.  Her recent interest has primarily been in performing 20th century and contemporary music on piano and koto, and free improvisation in a variety of contexts. SF Bay Area contrabassist Tony Dryer and guitarist IOIOI, visiting from Italy, will perform Kanoko’s graphic scores as a duo.

S21: How has your classical piano training prepared you – or not prepared you – for improvisation and composition?

I think that one very important element that is particular to musical improvisation as opposed to improvisation in other fields is the role of the musical instruments one performs and interacts with, and classical training for me was just a very deep way of building a relationship with my instruments. What has been helpful is not so much the technique, vocabulary or repertoire, but the time, energy and thoughts spent in the process of acquiring these more concrete skills and knowledge. For me, every improvisation I do is like a battle with the instrument I’m playing, in my case, either the piano or koto, and though I cannot really practice improvising by its definition, it’s only by practicing regularly that I feel I can enrich myself as a person, build my stamina and confidence enough to be a suitable match for my instrument to bring out its full potential.

S21: Despite its disappearance from Western classical music training, sometimes improvisation tries to “burst through” all of a player’s mechanisms of control. What do you see as the meaning and inspiration around that?

I’m not so sure that improvisation has disappeared from Western classical music training.  It’s certainly not the focus because of many reasons, but any classical musician, whether a composer or a performer, probably also knows and feels that when the actual music happens there is always an element of improvisation, of ideas that are completely beyond one’s conception coming spontaneously, completely out of the blue, which is the ultimate goal for any technical training that one can get. Perhaps to be able to do that is the only meaning in making music at all.

S21: What directions are embedded in your own graphic scores?  You’ve shared with me that they go beyond telling the performers to generate sounds.

The score itself indicates nothing about the sounds, so if I am directing the performers with the scores at all, I am working with their mental state more than the sound. The sound will be more of just a byproduct. But I don’t know if I can really say comfortably that I am giving any directions.  I want the performers to see what they are getting from me as just something to keep in mind as they determine their own direction.

S21: Does the player then need a lot of background and coaching from you to deliver the realization you’re looking for?

I’m really not looking for any realization in particular, so I cannot coach them but the background I have with each of the performers is important for me so that I trust their musical choices whatever they might be. My choice of the performers, based on my personal experience with them, being familiar with their aesthetics and thought processes, is perhaps my biggest compositional contribution to the pieces.  I did give them this one text by William Morris to consider:

“I…ask you to extend the word art, beyond those matters which are consciously works of art, to take in not only painting and sculpture, and architecture, but the shapes and colours of all household goods, nay, even the arrangement of the fields or tillage and pasture, the management of towns and of our highways of all kinds; in a word, to extend it to the aspect of all the externals of our life.”

S21: When you originally joined the Summit lineup your pieces were to be dedicated to your friend, the Italian guitarist IOIOI, far away and unable to attend.  Now she’s able not only to attend the concert, but to join Tony Dryer onstage in the performance!  How has this changed your compositions?

It hasn’t changed them yet, but I am sure it will once she is on stage playing the music!  There is no way for me to know how it will change, but I am very very excited.

Krys is a sound artist, composer and musician living in Oakland, California. In addition to French horn she plays acoustic and electronic instruments of her own design. Her collection of original instruments includes prepared amplified rocking chairs, bull kelp horns, Leaf Speakers, Gliss Glass (pictured at left) and the Harmonic Slide.  Krys received her M.F.A. in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College and her B.A. in Computers and Music from Dartmouth College.  In addition to performing her own work, Bobrowski plays with the Bay Area-based improvisation ensemble Vorticella.

Her new work, Lift, Loft, Lull, is a series of short pieces exploring the sonic properties of metal pipes and plates and the use of balloons as resonators, performed by the composer and Gino Robair. The compositions have their origins in Bobrowski’s recent instrument prototyping work for the Exploratorium.

S21: Do your pipes, metal plates, and balloons come with any sound-generating history? Is there any “tradition” behind their use in music?

During my artist residency at the Exploratorium, I began experimenting with alternative resonators for musical instruments. I wanted to create an experience that would allow the listener to hear the ‘sonic bloom,’ the moment a resonator comes in tune and couples to a vibrating object.

As part of this project I started researching resonators in traditional and experimental instruments. I came across an interesting photo from the 1950s of someone playing an instrument made of glass rods attached to a series of inflated plastic cushions. The cushions were acting as the resonators for the glass. Later, I learned that the Baschet brothers, Francois and Bernard Baschet, invented this instrument along with dozens of other beautiful sound sculptures, including an inflatable guitar!

This started my exploration of using balloons as resonators, mostly for instruments made out of various kinds of metal: plates, pipes, bars, odd-shaped scraps. I also came across references to Tom Nunn’s and Prent Rodgers’ work with balloons and balloon resonators in a book by Bart Hopkin, ‘Musical Instrument Design.’ This led me to make a version of the ‘balloon gong’ instrument shown in the book.

The results of my sonic explorations and the ‘balloon gong’ will be featured in my composition, Lift Loft Lull.

S21:  Do invented instruments and found objects, with their newness, make different demands on the composer than orchestral instruments, whose capabilities are already well known?

Whether I’m composing for traditional instruments, invented instruments, found objects or any combination of the above, I’m organizing elements of sound. The only difference is what I’m organizing. A lot of my found objects and invented instruments can’t ‘carry a tune’ so I’m not going to use lots of melodic and harmonic structures. Instead I’m going to organize the sounds and the variations of sounds that the instruments can make. This requires some exploration, and, for me, it’s the really fun part: playing and experimenting with the sonic abilities and limitations of each instrument and object. It’s definitely a continuous process; I’m still finding new and interesting sounds to make with my kelp horn–and I’ve been blowing into kelp for over twenty years!

S21:  In writing for these sound-generating items, how do you get beyond just showing what the instrument can do, to its next level of musicality?

I design and build my own instruments because I want to expand the sonic palette in my compositions, improvisations and installations; not simply for the sake of making a new instrument. I’ve had the opportunity to demonstrate my instruments at pre and post concert talks, at the Maker Faire and the Exploratorium. People are always curious. ‘How does it work?’ ‘What does it sound like?’ These events are very enjoyable, and I try to show everything the instrument can do. However, there is a big difference between demonstration and composition.

My main goal in designing instruments is creating interesting music and I always have a musical concept behind the instruments I build. These concepts may be concrete or abstract. With the Gliss Glass it was a bit of both. I was looking for an acoustic system where I could create very long slow glissandos. At the same time I was interested in the social and musical interaction of the performers. A system where the performers depended on each other to change pitches – if no one raised or lowered their part of the instrument the pitches would never change.

S21: Do invented instruments and found objects lend themselves, more than familiar Western instruments, to improvisation than composed music?

In the improvised music ensemble, Vorticella, I play French horn, funnel horn, kelp horn, Gliss Glass and other found and invented instruments. I like having the whole range of sound worlds to draw from. I find that the traditional and experimental instruments in the group often meet in an ambiguous auditory middle ground where it is hard to tell by listening which instrument is which.

With the French horn I can use traditional techniques, even blow the occasional horn call; but, I can also sing into the horn, modify the instrument by pulling out slides, use a pie plate as a mute, etc. The resulting sounds and textures bring the instrument closer to found objects and invented instruments played by other members of the group. At the same time, while I can’t play a major scale on the kelp or Gliss Glass, I can find and hold certain pitches and often try to match a note on the cello or a harmonic emanating from one of the gongs.

S21:  You’ve recruited Gino Robair to be your duo partner in the Summit performance. (He’s also premiering a piece on the same concert.) How did you come to choose him in particular?

I’ve always admired Gino’s abilities as a percussionist and his musicality in any genre. Since meeting at Mills College in 1989, we’ve collaborated on a number of projects over the years including his opera ‘I Norton,’ my ‘Gliss Glass’ ensemble pieces, and many improvisation duo performances in the Bay Area and Europe.

Gino and I first performed together in the Mills gamelan ensemble directed by Jody Diamond. The group played both traditional and experimental pieces on the wonderful American gamelan built by Lou Harrison and Bill Colvig. Shortly after Mills, in the early 90s, Gino asked me to write a piece for him and one of my favorite gamelan instruments, the slenthem. I ended up writing a duo work, “Yellow Flower Burial”. The composition is a set of three ‘game’ pieces loosely drawing on elements found in traditional gamelan music. We’ve performed this piece together on a number of occasions including the premiere at the University of Redlands.

When Gino agreed to perform with me at the Outsound Summit, I took the opportunity to revisit some of the same compositional ideas from over fifteen years ago. Lift Loft Lull picks up on both the ‘game’ theme and some of the gamelan concepts, including abstractions of kotekan (fast, interlocking parts) and balungan (core melody). There is also plenty of room for structured improvisation. I’m excited to be premiering this work with Gino.

Andrew Raffo Dewar (b.1975 Rosario, Argentina) is an Assistant Professor in New College at the University of Alabama.  He’s a composer, improviser, soprano saxophonist and ethnomusicologist. He’s studied and/or performed with Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton, Bill Dixon, Alvin Lucier, and Milo Fine. He has also had a long involvement with Indonesian traditional and experimental music. His work has been performed by the Flux Quartet, the Koto Phase ensemble and Sekar Anu. As an improviser and performer Andrew has shared the stage with a plethora of musicians worldwide, both the celebrated and the little-known.

As a member of his own Interactions Quartet, Andrew will premiere “Strata” (2011), dedicated to Eduardo Serón and inspired by the Argentine artist’s 2008 series of paintings, “La Libertad Es Redonda” (“Freedom is Round”).  His description tells us that “Through a combination of improvisation and notation, performers negotiate several “layers” of written material, mixing and matching components that are eventually assembled into nested counterpoint.”

S21:  You’re traveling quite a distance to premiere your piece at the Outsound Summit but it’s certainly not the first time you’ve been here.  How did you become associated with the San Francisco Bay Area new music community?

I lived in Oakland for roughly two years (2000-2002) before heading off to graduate school at Wesleyan University in Connecticut to study with people like Anthony Braxton and Alvin Lucier. My first exposure to the Bay Area community was, if I remember correctly, a two-day workshop with legendary bassist/composer Alan Silva organized by Damon Smith at pianist Scott Looney’s performance space in West Oakland in 2000, which was an excellent experience.  After that, I worked regularly — I think it was weekly — in a “guided improvisation” workshop ensemble at Looney’s organized by clarinetist Jacob Lindsay and guitarist Ernesto Diaz-Infante, and separate improvisation sessions with violist/composer Jorge Boehringer, which were both situations where I had the opportunity to play with many great Bay Area folks, like trumpeter Liz Albee and many others, which was wonderful. Around that time I was walking by guitarist/composer John Shiurba’s house with my horn, and he happened to be outside watering his garden. He asked me what kind of music I played, and I think the combination of the perplexed look on my face and my inability to answer his question easily is why we connected that day — he invited me in to chat, and when I saw a framed photo of Anthony Braxton on his mantle (whose work I’ve appreciated since my late teens, and who I’ve had the great opportunity to study and perform with) I knew I was “home.”

S21:  What is it about our community, and the Bay Area members of your Interactions Quartet, which keeps you coming back?

For me, some of the most interesting and truly experimental music being made today is happening in the Bay Area, and I think it’s because there are so many artists doing their own thing, who don’t feel particularly bound to specific scenes, idioms, historical baggage, etc. I think Tim Perkis’s documentary, “Noisy People,” highlights that quirky and eclectic — but deep — community. Of course there is Mills College, which has been a magnet for decades, but there are also many inventor-types out there that are not only creating new instruments and technologies, but new ways of putting sounds together. I dont know, maybe it’s the open skies of that Old West “pioneer spirit” floating over the hills (or the haze of “manifest destiny”).

As far as this particular quartet of musicians I’ve assembled twice now, which includes percussionist/composer Gino Robair, guitarist/composer John Shiurba, and oboist/composer Kyle Bruckmann, we’re talking about young masters — who wouldn’t want to work with them?! Beyond my enjoyment in the strange and interesting timbral combinations possible with this group, each of those artists are singular in their approach to their instruments, and their mastery of music-making encourages me to work harder.  As one of my other mentors, the great soprano saxophonist/composer Steve Lacy told me, the best way to continue to learn and grow is to work with people who are stronger musicians than you are, and that push you into new areas of exploration. This quartet has allowed me to take aesthetic chances, which is where I want to be.

S21: You’re going to be playing in your own ensemble.  When you write your own part, does its future playability, by somebody other than you, become a consideration?

To be honest, 90% of my compositions at this point are only performed once, and those are usually the works I play on, so it’s not an issue. The other 10% that have been performed more than once are “future-proof,” written for anyone to play, typically in through-composed standard notation. I think I communicate a lot in rehearsals that isn’t on the page, and in the more graphically-oriented works I have “performance instruction” pages, so things are fairly clearly documented should anyone in the future want to work with the material — but I definitely compose for “now” and not “then.”

S21: I have been to hear your pieces before and looking over the players’ shoulders, I’ve always found some curious graphic on the music stand.  And I know there is a visual art inspiration for your new work.  How will you incorporate this element this time around?

I do have a fair number of pieces that use alternative or invented notation in different ways, sometimes on its own, sometimes in combination with traditional notation. I’ve also used photographs as structural devices a couple times. In my 2007-08 piece, “Six Lines of Transformation,” I used the visual idea of a palimpsest to create a compositional structure that is layered, erased, and transformed, but which has echoes of the previously sounded materials, and in 2004′s “Music for Eight Bamboo Flutes,” which was recorded in Bali, I used the imagery of dissonant crashing waves on Lake Maninjau in West Sumatra as the conceptual departure point to compose the piece — so there is something for me, I guess, in the use of visual/aural combinations for inspiration.

In this new work, entitled “Strata,” inspired by Argentine painter Eduardo Serón’s series of paintings “Libertad es Redonda” (“freedom is round”), I don’t use any graphic notation or images, it’s all standard notation, but I use his painting (number six in the series) as the organizing structure and inspiration for the piece, though not the image itself. The painting is a piece of concrete art that looks like an off-center, oblong bullseye with four rings, all using wonderful color composition. So, in a somewhat obvious act of translation, I’ve composed a series of 32 “loops” (4×2=8, 8×4=32) divided into four “layers” the four performers choose from, with each layer’s materials being introduced one at a time, until all four layers are in play simultaneously. Because of the bold, clear, and deceptively “simple” materials used in Serón’s painting, I’ve also decided to use “simple” elements — a diatonic scale, consonant harmonies, a somewhat consistent and regular rhythmic pulse, etc.

S21:  I’m intrigued by the thought of “nested counterpoint” created from improvisation with written material.  What system have you created to make the music resolve into that texture?

The neologic term (I think it is, anyway) I’m using here — “nested counterpoint” — is the way I’m conceptualizing the interactions between the four “layers” of composed material, beginning from a “center” layer and moving outward. You might also call it “indeterminate” or “stochastic” counterpoint, but in this piece, I think “nested” makes the most sense. Because the final form will be different each time it is performed, the structure is what Stockhausen called a “polyvalent” form — Earle Brown’s “Available Forms” being another example in this same tradition. Conceived of as four concentric circles like Seron’s painting, each layer encompasses materials from the previous layers, and all the loops have a formal relationship to one another. So, beginning with the smallest circle in the center, as you move outward, the lines become longer, and the earlier layers’ materials are “nested” within them.

After core members of NOISE, the resident ensemble of San Diego New Music, dispersed across the continent (flutist/director Lisa Cella to Baltimore; percussionist Morris Palter to Fairbanks), it became more and more expensive and time-consuming to do an entire season with the ensemble in San Diego. The ingenious solution NOISE came up with was to do an annual festival in June.

This year’s installment is the 5th year of San Diego New Music’s festival, soundON. From the beginning, it’s been impressive for the wide range of musical styles represented on the festival and for the high caliber of their commissions and score submitted through a semi-annual call. Unlike other competitions, there’s no entry fee. The musicians themselves wade through the entries and determine which scores they want to play on the festival.

Last night, the first of the festival, had impressive commissions and nice finds through the calls for scores. Several of the composers in attendance this year have been composers with whom NOISE has developed a relationship over the years: Christopher Adler (who doubles as the Executive Director of San Diego New Music), Stuart Sanders Smith, Matthew Burtner, Madelyn Byrne, and Sidney Marquez Boquiren.

Madelyn Byrne is represented by a video installation by Lily Glass, to which Byrne supplied a soundtrack. I can’t comment on it now, as I spent most of the last night catching up with old friends, but the lovely sounds I did manage to overhear and the colorful still or slow-moving abstractions on the screen invite further exploration tonight and tomorrow. (Update: turns out I heard this two years ago at a new music conference. It’s included on a DVD of works by lesbian composers, Sounding Out. Yes, it is worth experiencing again.).

Time Comes Full Circle, for violin and cello, struck me as completely unique in the output of Stuart Saunders Smith. Framed by an opening and closing spoken dialogue between the instruments the work begins with a mournful modal lament for both instruments, a prismatic minor key duet somewhat reminiscent of Pärt or Schnittke; I’ve never heard anything like this before in Smith’s music. This first section continues exploring this haunting music, only to abandon it for an extensive middle section which is in a vein more typical for Smith: independent, thorny harmonic and rhythmic counterpoint, marked by striking moments where the violin and cello come together in unisons—one, an A 5 spaces above the treble clef. It’s not a perfect unison—at times one instrument drops out and the other takes over, or a heterophonic melody splinters away. The minor-key lament returns in the final section, splintered in new combinations.

Any critic describing Smith’s music is in trouble searching for an easy category in which to pigeonhole him. If he belongs to any school, it’s probably the individualist, intuitive New England branch of experimentalism begun by Ives and Ruggles, later branching off in an intellectually rigorous way by Elliott Carter. Smith’s music, though, strikes me as highly intuitive, seasoned with the acceptance of sounds and free forms of the New York School composers Cage and Brown. Invoking any of these names tells you, only in the vaguest, broadest sense, what his music resembles. He is sui generis. What I can report is that this is an expansive work, a significant contribution to the infrequently explored combination of violin and cello. It was given a wonderful performance by cellist Franklin Cox and violinist Mark Menzies, and Smith seemed genuinely delighted with their interpretation.

A recent solo flute work by Nicolas Tzortzis, Incompatibles III, was dropped from the concert. The program notes are intriguing: “The whole work is based on the idea of ‘going towards something else,’ coming back each time, leaving again, and so on, before reaching the moment of the revelation.” Tzortzis was represented by a frenetic ensemble piece last year which appeared to ring some new changes on the New Complexity style (a distinguishing feature was the amount of repetition and return in the work). I hadn’t encountered his music at all before the Festival last year, and I was looking forward to hearing more. Alas, in its place was Berio’s Sequenza I, given a sharply delineated reading by Lisa Cella. I know it’s a major landmark in flute repertory, and yet taken in the context of all of Berio’s Sequenzas, it is the most dated, the least interesting to 21st century ears. The later Sequenzas developed a modern manner of prolonging dissonant harmonies through a solo instrument; today Sequenza I seems more caught up in the rapid turnover of all 12 tones, as many European composers strove to do in the 1950s.

Christopher Adler is my favorite San Diego composer after Chinary Ung. Aeneas in the Underworld, Act I: The Caves of Cumae suggests a new direction in his music—a music theatre work for reciting guitarist. Chris has two consistent strains in his music, the ethnomusicological (he’s an expert on Thai music) and the mathematical, and Aeneas appears to lean towards the latter. In four “scenes,” guitarist Colin McAllister recites Virgil’s poetry in Latin, while playing a prepared guitar. Like Cage’s prepared piano music, the guitar is more of a percussion instrument here than a melodic/harmonic device, so the focus in the music is on expanding and contracting rhythmic patterns. Over these regimented rhythms, McAllister orates with what I assume is a more natural spoken delivery.

I heard the premiere a month or two back, and was frustrated by the inability to read the text in the dimly lit hall. The music, in general terms, delineates the broad themes of the poetry. Last night’s performance was far more assured, the rhythms crisper, the declamation more confident, and it was greatly helpful to be able to read a translation of Virgil’s text as McAllister recited.

You may have seen this cartoon going around—it’s pretty much an inside joke by Christopher Adler part describing the work to an incredulous guitarist, although in broader terms the interaction between composer and performer is rather true, if cloaked in humorous exaggeration.

A surprise event had been announced for the festival, and after a brief intermission Frank Cox was plunked down in a chair front and center facing the performance area, and serenaded with seven compositions dedicated to him by Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, Stuart Saunders Smith, Colin Holter, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, Sidney Corbett, John Fonville, and Brian Ferneyhough. The real surprise was Ferneyhough’s piece, titled Paraphrase on Antonin Artaud’s “Les Cenci,” unusual for being the only purely electronic work by Ferneyhough anyone present could recall. It appeared to be constructed entirely from samples, and yet the densities and microtones distinguished it from the average MIDI composition.

SoundON in the past has done “Chill-Out” concerts, which are what you might expect them to be: performances of more meditative, quiet, and/or serene works. Tension Studies I by Samuel Carl Adams, a West Coast composer still in his 20s generating lots of buzz, was scheduled for a Chill-Out performance, yet was withdrawn. In its place was a lovely electroacoustic composition by Matthew Burtner, whose title I do not now recall, composed for Colin McAllister. McAllister is a mountaineer, and recorded sounds of his ascent up the tallest volcano in Mexico; Burtner used these sounds and slowly-changing diatonic harmonies to supply an acoustic foundation over which McAllister played gently oscillating notes, ringing harmonics, and melodies which sounded quasi-improvised. Many folks commented later on how beautiful this work was, and I agree. I had heard it previously, and hearing it for a second time was a pleasant experience.

David Toub will be known to Sequenza21 readers. He submitted a trio for violin, cello, and vibraphone to the call for scores. Christopher Adler, in a preconcert talk, described how Toub’s score—dharmachakramudra—leapt out from all the others, in its being a more austere form of minimalism, a style Adler did not see at all in any of the other 400+ submissions. It is a quiet piece, featuring chords in the violin and cello rocking back and forth with four-note vibraphone chords. If you can imagine Morton Feldman writing a rhythmically regular and shorter piece, or Steve Reich writing a dissonant, slow work, that might give you an idea of the piece.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The concert ended with the ocean inside by Frances White, another composer new to San Diegans. Her work was composed for Eighth Blackbird, and incorporated a tape part. It was consonant, lyrical, and a lovely way to end the evening.

And the performances? First class, throughout the night. These performers take their commitment to the music of our time extremely seriously. Doing this festival is a labor of love, and the concern and passion is always evident in everything they play.

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.

One of the most exciting areas for new music in recent years has been in the field of choral music. In the next two weeks, two choirs devoted to new music—one a veteran organization, the other an exciting, young rookie—will be presenting important programs of new choral works in both coasts.

The rookie is Baltimore’s Anima Nova Chamber Choir, which will present a concert of works by Eric Whitacre, Tarik O’Regan, Michael Rickelston, Sean Doyle, and Anima Nova founder and director, Jake Runestad. The concert, at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 8 at St. Ignatius Church, 740 North Calvert Street in Baltimore, will benefit the Peabody Preparatory’s “Jr. Bach” scholarship, which provides opportunities for underprivileged students to attend the Peabody Prep.

The veteran ensemble is San Francisco’s Volti, which for the past 32 years has been at the vanguard of new choral music in the United States under the direction of its founder, Robert Geary. Their season finale will be presented three times (Friday, May 13 at 8:00 p.m. at the Berkley City Club; Saturday, May 14 at 8:00 p.m. at First Lutheran Church in Palo Alto; and Sunday, May 15 at 4:00 p.m. at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco’s Presidio) and features works commissioned by Volti, two of which, Matthew Barnson’s Genesis and Elliot Gyger’s voice (and nothing more), are world premieres.

Barnson composed his Genesis, a re-interpretation of the biblical story of creation through poetry, at Volti’s Choral Arts Laboratory, its annual commissioning and residency program where composers under 35 work with Volti’s singers, Artistic Director Robert Geary and Composer in Residence Mark Winges to create a new work for choir in a workshop setting, culminating in its premiere at the end of a given season. Barnson describes Genesis as “three tableaux that are independent of one another but dependent upon the Book of Genesis to give them meaning. Each is a subversive exegesis upon the original story of creation and posits a slight, but vital alternative in the narrative, affecting the outcome of the myth in ways that are sometimes insignificant (but poignant) and sometimes darkly different. Each of the poets whose work I set refracted my original intentions. For instance, the outer movements of the triptych actually retell stories from the book of Genesis. In the second, middle movement I set Richard Siken, a poet whose ecstatic and anxious book, Crush is replete with Biblical images. Beyond the images of apples (knowledge but death) is the feature that the last two poems share: death deferred.”

Elliot Gyger’s voice (and nothing more) reflects the composer’s interest in “language and communication in their own right.” The original germ for what would become voice (and nothing more) was planted ten years ago, when Gyger was a graduate student at Harvard University, where he heard a lecture by musicologist Mauro Calcagno. “Occasionally as a composer,” one encounters by chance a piece of text (or other extra-musical stimulus) for which one may have no immediate use, but which makes such a strong impact that one files it away for future reference. Among the many fascinating sources which Calcagno discussed was a passionate diatribe on the transience of the voice from Emanuele Tesauro’s La metafisica del niente (The Metaphysics of Nothing).

“When Bob approached me to write a piece for Volti’s 2010-2011 season, I decided that the time was ripe for Tesauro’s words, which demanded a similarly flamboyant treatment. I considered a setting in two or even more languages, but decided that the original Italian was powerful and direct enough on its own – as well as being far more naturally vocal than any English rendering could be. The piece is, however, elaborately layered in purely musical terms. The voices are divided into three
groups: a solo quartet is flanked by two SATB choirs, allowing for subtle variations in weight and emphasis, as well as antiphonal and spatial effects.

“At least on face value, Tesauro’s polemic is vehemently anti-voice -nothing is more worthless, more vile, more imperfect. I originally thought that I needed to pair it with something else that saw the voice in a more positive light. However, I eventually realized that this was unnecessary: one of the delightful paradoxes about the text is the way it exploits so powerfully that which it claims to despise, i.e. the power of the voice. Tesauro’s rhetoric is not merely literary, but demands to be spoken aloud, with its compelling use of imagery, alliteration, and above all rhythm (repetition and acceleration).

“The title is similarly ambiguous. The phrase is a rough translation of the Latin saying “Vox praetereaque nihil”, which is normally used to mean “all style and no substance” – but it can also be read as an expression of amazement at the ability of a great orator (or indeed a great choir!) to achieve so much with voice (and nothing more).”

(Houston, TX) Houston based opera singer Misha Penton opens her unique performance space Divergence Vocal Theater this Friday, April 15th. Located at Spring Street Studios, home to many of Houston’s finest visual and mixed media artists. Divergence Vocal Theater will bring together Ms. Penton’s team of singers, musicians, composers, dancers, and lighting and costume designers to present new chamber opera repertoire. Klytemnestra, a collaborative opera dance theater work featuring music by composer Dominick DiOrio, sung text by Misha Penton, spoken text by John Harvey, and choreography by Meg Brooker, is receiving a great deal of positive press in advance of its premier April 15th and 16th at Divergence Vocal Theater.

Ms. Penton’s mission is to subvert the social mores and business paradigms preventing singers from creating their own works. In the wake of reality after graduate school, more and more classical instrumentalists are creating their own business and career models, going further and further out into what is, for many musicians, uncharted territory. Violinist Todd Reynolds, the ensemble Alarm Will Sound, and Houston based pianists Jade Simmons and Kris Becker are a few examples of musicians who are each developing a sustainable means for commissioning, performing, and deriving an income from playing contemporary classical music. Their approaches are as varied as their personalities, and there is much to discuss when it comes to what is actually working for one musician as opposed to another. But in the near future, these intrepid instrumentalists are going to find that more and more singers, including Misha Penton, are “out there” with them.

Misha and I met shortly after my relocating to Houston and I quickly recognized a kindred spirit. This interview took place via email in advance of the premier of Kyltemnestra.

Chris Becker: In a recent interview you said: “One of the things I want to do…is restructure the way people think about who does opera, how it’s done, who makes it, and who performs it…What I do with Divergence is…create my own works and I sing in them. It’s very much something actors and dancers do, but singers are not encouraged to create their own products.” Do you think this model that you’re describing is the future of classically trained musicians?

Misha Penton: Actually, I do – but it’s already happening. And it really isn’t anything new…instrumentalists in particular have been savvy to this model for a long time – the success of independent ensembles like Eighth Blackbird comes to mind immediately. Some conservatories are starting to take entrepreneurship seriously. Opera America has a great feature about entrepreneurship in its spring magazine and about singer-led initiatives, and entrepreneurship is the theme for the conference this year as well. Obviously rock and jazz musicians work this way and always have. I’m seeing more classically trained singers take on their own projects, but it doesn’t seem to be as encouraged by the vocal teaching tradition as it could be…but again, that is all changing. The more opportunities we, as artists create, the better we’ll be able to define success for ourselves. As a singer, I’m only partly an interpretive artist. I’m a theater artist and writer too, so I’ve always done creative work. I think of myself as an independent artist who happens to create work collaboratively.

Opera Singer Misha Penton (photo by Kerry Beyer)

CB: Who are some of your peers among singers that are doing something similarly subversive?

MP There are more and more small opera companies popping up that singers are joining forces to create – that’s absolutely fantastic. And classically trained singers are branching out into all sorts of music projects. I meet singers all the time who say, “Hey I have this idea for a project” – I just love that. Go do it!

In general, I question the traditional company and nonprofit structure – so I’m not sure that’s the best survival tactic nor the best creative model. There are so many options for funding work now without forming a nonprofit (fiscal sponsorship, crowdfunding, etc). The last thing I want on my back is an “organization”. I work project-to-project and I’m aspiring to a Robert Fripp-ian model – a “small mobile intelligent unit”.

CB: You now have a dedicated space for your work as Divergence Vocal Theater. Before this, where and how did you produce your work?

MP: In the past, I primarily used alternative dance spaces – and the acoustics are dreadful in those spaces, so it makes it very difficult to hear anything. I used a church for one piece – because I thought of the work there as artistically site specific, I didn’t feel that I could continue to create work in churches (which are not as easy to access as one might think!). I have very strong ideas about what types of venues are conducive to my vision, and although I love alternative spaces, they need to be acoustically and physically friendly to the art form. I don’t want to spend my time and energy competing over rehearsal space, performance dates, and juggling the schedules of artists. A very serendipitous opportunity arose for me to create an intimate chamber music and multi-performing arts space in a new art studio building in Houston – Spring Street Studios – so that’s what I’ve done. I have to brag of its beautiful reclaimed wood floors, 20-foot ceilings – and we just treated it acoustically and it sounds amazing. I don’t know of any place else like it. This is all very new to me and I think of it as a grand experiment. Who knows what the future holds?

CB: You’ve worked with two excellent Houston composers. Elliot Cole (now studying at Princeton) and Dominick DiOrio. How did you meet these two? And what drew you to their writing for the voice?

MP: Through the grapevine, really. I love new music and I love working with composers. I started up conversations with both Elliot and Dominick about collaborating and that led to the creation of two new opera theater works, both settings of my words (Selkie with Elliot and Klytemnestra with Dominick). For me, this is exactly the type of work I want to do. I’m completely in my element collaborating to create new works and bringing them to life.

Dominick is a singer also, so he has a wonderful grasp of the voice as an instrument – and I sang for him a good deal before he started writing – so he became very familiar with my voice, with my specific instrument. Dominick’s music has a dramatic complexity and depth that really resonates with me. Klytemnestra’s music has an interwoven quality – web-like, veiled, cyclical, a masterful interplay between the parts. The music is deeply psychological and reflective of a Greek heroine.

Elliot writes in a broad range of styles and he has this particularly delightful avant-chamber-pop thing going on in a lot of his writing – I just really love that about his music – it’s intense, intelligent, and accessible. For Selkie, I think Elliot wrote specific to what my text evoked for him as a composer – so that was really special, I think. The style of the composition was influenced by the text. Selkie has this big, lush, swirling sea-ness about it that makes me weak in the knees. I admit, I nurture collaborative relationships with amazing people – Elliot and Dominick are fun to work with, it’s not more complicated than that.

CB: Klytemnestra will include sung text that you’ve created as opposed to spoken text created by playwright director John Harvey. What is the difference between the two texts? Was either of the texts inspired by the other? How do they interrelate in the opera?

MP: About a year ago, John Harvey asked me to portray Klytemnestra in his new translation of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon – and I thought, “Oh, God – I have to memorize lines!” It’s funny, but in response to that, I thought, “Well, if I have to deal with memorizing lines, then I want to create an opera companion piece”. Like that’s easier! And so, during the process, John asked me to write from Klytemnestra’s point of view… and my writing became the libretto for the opera. Actress, Miranda Herbert, is also performing in the opera as another facet of Klytemnestra. Her lines are John’s words, so the sung words are mine and the spoken words are his. Meg Brooker, a brilliant dancer, is the third aspect. The work is set for viola, piano, soprano, actress, and dancer. I think of the piece as an original collaborative work in its totality: the way a choreographer might think of their work. The theatrical vision for the piece is neither separate nor superimposed over the music, it’s part of it. Agamemnon and Klytemnestra run on consecutive weekends in April as a Dionysia Festival.

CB: How does choreography and dance come into play into this performance? Is your movement onstage choreographed to some degree?

MP: I work very compositionally in a visual sense and every piece I’ve done has had a dance element. I continue to move closer, with each successive piece, to the entire work having an overall physical stylized feel. Visually, I keep working with the idea that the piece in its staging shifts from painting to painting. That’s how it feels to me. Klytemnestra has a complete movement score. Meg is a highly skilled dancer and Miranda and I both have dance and physical theater backgrounds, so the three of us created a collaborative movement world. Ultimately, it is up to me to shape the work and to keep true to my concept for the piece, so I sift through video and assess what we do in rehearsal… but it is all highly collaborative. I’ve worked with Meg and Miranda several times before – that’s another key to making work with a strong theatrical identity – and they both very much understand my aesthetic. It’s kind of like having two more versions of me with different skill sets, but that feed a common vision. And that’s a very, very big deal.

Klytemnestra premiers April 15 & 16, 2011, 8pm, at Divergence Music & Arts at Spring Street Studios, 1824 Spring St, Houston, TX 77007. To purchase tickets, visit the Divergence Vocal Theater website.