Cello

Cello, Chicago, Interviews, Performers, Podcasts

My Ears Are Open, Chicago. Part II.

nicholas_photinosLast week on the podcast: Cliff Colnot (download Cliff’s interview here).  This week: Nicholas Photinos, cellist in eighth blackbird (download Nick’s interview here).

Turns out that 8bb was just finishing up some studio sessions at the end of last month for Reich’s Double Sextet.  Unfortunately, we will need to wait over a year until we actually get to hear it.  (Incidentally, Galen has some commentary about how frustrating it is that we have to wait so long for these recordings here.)  Anyway, I don’t know how many ensembles think about their programming in terms of a five-course meal, but these guys do, and Nick tells us a little bit about that process.  More beer!

Check-in next week for the first of two interviews with members of the Chicago based new music ensemble, dal niente.

As always, you can subscribe in iTunes here, on the web here, or just click here to download Nick’s episode.

by James Holt
Cello, Chamber Music, Concerts, Electro-Acoustic, Exhibitions, Experimental Music, Music Events, San Francisco

Good herb!

redwall

That’s what early settlers said about the wild mint growing all over the peaceful hills and oceanside that would one day be paved over and known as San Francisco.  In fact, for many years starting in 1835, that’s what the settlement was called, only in Spanish: Yerba Buena.

History lives on in the name of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, located on 3rd Street between Mission and Howard. YBCA’s New Frequencies performance series, curated by Performing Arts Manager Isabel Yrigoyen, is well underway, and offers a couple of intriguing choices in coming days.

First on Saturday evening, August 22, we have local avant-cabaret luminary Amy X Neuburg, backed up by the Cello ChiXtet of Jessica Ivry, Elaine Kreston and Elizabeth Vandervennet.  Their set consists of selections from The Secret Language of Subways, a song cycle for voice, cello trio, electronic percussion and live electronic processing which Neuburg conceived of while riding New York City subways.  It begins promptly at 8:00 p.m. in the YBCA Forum, and serves as an opener for Argentine singer/composer Juana Molina, who’ll take the stage at 9:05.  Tickets are $25 general and $20 for YBCA members, students, seniors, and teachers.

If visual art is your thing, you can have that plus contemporary music on the same evening on Thursday, August 27. Gallery visitors will find that’s one of the nights musicians have been called in to respond directly to the work of the eight visual artists commissioned for the Wallworks exhibition.  The August 27th contingent will be composer, pianist, and electronic musician Chris Brown, Mason Bates (as DJ Masonic), and upright bassist David Arend. Their sounds are free with gallery admission: $7 regular, or $5 for seniors, students, and teachers. (And non-profit employees, KQED members, and folks carrying a valid public transportation pass or a public library card.)

by Polly Moller
Bass, Cello, Concerts, Experimental Music, Improv, jazz, Percussion, San Francisco, Violin

Rova Saxophone Quartet and friends channel Buckminster Fuller

Rova Saxophone QuartetSan Francisco is famous for its innovations, its open minds, and its spirit of protest.  In 2005, according to Rova Saxophone Quartet member Larry Ochs, “our government was committing all sorts of crimes against humanity in all of our names. I wanted to create some art that flew in the face of those acts – but not overtly political because that’s not what we do.”

Rova dreamed up an international collaborative work in honor of the visionary genius of Buckminster Fuller and his “Spaceship Earth” global perspective.  “Good works by people brought together from different countries – if only to point out that it was possible for people to meet for the very first time and in a week of collaboration, create something positive for the spirit, and something that was more than any one of the collaborators could create on his/her own,” Ochs explains.  Berlin-based multimedia artist Lillevan, Swedish-born percussionist Kjell Nordeson, Canadian contrabassist Lisle Ellis, cellist and Kronos Quartet alumna Joan Jeanrenaud, and violinist rock star Carla Kihlstedt make up the international dream team that will join Rova in presenting Fissures, Fixtures: for Buckminster Fuller.

The set of pieces combines live music and digital animation in a continuous feedback loop, with the music influencing the creation of the film in real time, and the film images inspiring the music.  Improvisation, as Larry Ochs declares, will ensure that the piece transcends the individuals involved and becomes more than the sum of its parts.  Rova and friends offer up the piece to honor “someone who over 40 years ago was stating categorically that mankind had to find a way to work together to create a one world-system that benefitted everyone.”

Since both performances will be recorded for future DVD release, this is your chance to immortalize your own applause for contemporary music posterity.  The concert happens twice, on May 22 and 23 in Kanbar Hall at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco located at 3200 California Street.  Tickets are $24.00 general, $21.00 for JCCSF members, and $16.00 for students.  Get them online at www.jccsf.org, and by phone at (415) 292-1233.

by Polly Moller
Cello, Chamber Music, Click Picks, Contemporary Classical, Video

Dakujem!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqwsCoO1zxQ[/youtube]

After the split, there’s been plenty of attention paid to Prague and the Czech Republic; far fewer take notice of Slovakia and its capital, Bratislava. Strange, when you consider that the city is less than 40 miles from Vienna. That should tip you off that there just might be some serious music-making happening in Bratislava, and thanks to a young web-savvy musician we can confirm it with our eyes and ears.

Andrej Gál is a cellist in Bratislava, member of the Slovak Chamber Orchestra, Zwiebel String Quartet, Veni Ensemble, Melos-Ethos Ensemble, Ostravská banda and newly established Quasars ensemble (whew!). Luckily for us, he’s also a happy YouTube user. Gál has made available a number of performance videos that happen to include him as a member, and the collection features a unusually choice selection of contemporary composers and stellar performances: Bartók, Grisey, Murail, Lachenmann… and this great piece by a Slovak composer I’d never heard before, Vladimír Godár (b. 1956 / The embedded video is part one; you’ll find part two at the link above to the whole collection). Bravo Andrej — not only for your fine playing, but for taking the simple step of using the web to bring us the news half a world away.

by Steve Layton
Cello, Chamber Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Fire in July Gig on Nov. 12

This just in from singing cellist Jody Redhage:

Hi friends, I’m excited to announce that my new website is up and running!  Please visit www.jodyredhage.com.

Also, Fire in July is playing a really fun show this Wednesday, Nov. 12 at the Players Theatre in the Village. We’re sharing the night with fellow chamber pop band alice. Please see the details below. Hope everyone is well!

All best, Jody


FIRE IN JULY
Wed., Nov. 12, 2008
8:00 pm alice
9:00pm Fire in July
Music on MacDougal Series
The Players Theatre
115 MacDougal St. (between W 3rd and Bleeker)
New York, NY  10012
212-475-1449 / Tickets $20; in advance: 212-352-3101
www.myspace.com/fireinjuly

FIRE IN JULY

Jody Redhage, voice/cello/compositions
Ken Thomson, clarinets
Alan Ferber, trombones
Fred Kennedy, drums/percussion
with special guest Tim Collins, vibraphone

by Christian Carey
Cello, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical

Chilly Scenes of Winter

The Boston Symphony premiered Elliot Carter’s Horn Concerto over the weekend and will debut a piano concerto (already completed) next year.  And, there’s a five-day festival planned for Tanglewood this summer.  At 98, Carter is proving that the key to a glorious career is to live a very long time, hold onto to your chops, and be friends with James Levine.

Which is not to imply that Carter is not very good; he’s just very good in a way that I find a bit too abstract and cold to love.

My favorite old dude these days is Ned Rorem, who is often overshadowed by more famous contemporaries and dismissed as a writer of charming art songs.  Naxos has been churning out a stream of wonderful Rorem recordings over the past couple of years that have convinced me, at least, that he is terribly underrated. Listen to the recordings of Symphonies 1-3; the violin and flute concertos, and the just released Piano Concerto No. 2 and Cello Concerto and tell me he isn’t a major talent.

UPDATE:  Forgot to mention that Miller Theater is doing the New York premiere of What Next?, Carter’s only opera, on December 7, 8, 9 and 11–which happens to be Carter’s 99th birthday.

by Jerry Bowles
Cello, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical

Andromeda’s Strains

bio-page-photo.jpgReview in yesterday’s NYT of a novel called The Spanish Bow by a Chicago-born, Alaska-domiciled writer with the unlikely name of Andromeda Romano-Law.  The teaser is this:  “In a dusty, turn-of-the-century Catalan village, the bequest of a cello bow sets young Feliu Delargo on the unlikely path of becoming a musician.”

Reminds me that I don’t think we’ve done a list of novels in which music, or musical instruments, have played a key role.  I’ll start the list with the distinctly unfriendly to the little people Annie Proulx’s Accordian Crimes.  Who’s next?

by Jerry Bowles
Cello, Contemporary Classical, Lost and Found

Lost and Found

Music by Nicolas Flagello
National Radio Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine
John McLaughlin Williams, conductor
Elmar Oliviera, violin 
Susan Gonzalez, soprano
Artek 0036-2

Nicolas Flagello (1928-1994) was born in New York City, earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music and, upon graduation, taught there until 1977.

Flagello’s music is romantic and firmly built on 19th century models with lush orchestrations and long melodic phrases. The Symphonic Aria from 1951 is moving, but sometimes too rich. Mirra (1955) concludes with an exciting “Dance” that allows the orchestra to show a lot of meat.

Many of the works were orchestrated post facto by Anthony Sbordoni, including a Violin Concerto, and several songs for soprano, featuring Susan Gonzalez. Flagello is a good writer for the voice, and sensitive to the text in his prosody and harmonic textures. The CD concludes with two songs, Polo and Polo II, and the liner notes indicate that the “polo is a genre of flamenco song of Arabian origin.” Both draw heavily on folk elements.

 

 

The Return

Andrey Dergatchev

ECM 1923

There are few film scores that stand alone as “concert” works. I’ve often felt that the best film music should either go unnoticed to the average viewer or play a prominent role in the film (The Red Violin). Music in film should enhance the overall experience, which combines with visual artistry and dialogue/monologue.

That said, the music by Andrey Dergatchev needs the film to be fully appreciated. I suppose if any composer were to peddle their notes before a film, we all might have a different opinion of the music. In this case, I’ve never seen the film, so I was absorbing this ECM release as an electro-acoustic composition (sans movie).

Several tracks use spoken word from the picture, and it’s in Russian, so I didn’t understand anything. If you’ve seen The Return, this CD will make a nice souvenir.

Nostalghia – Song for Tarkovsky

François Couturier, with

Anja Lechner

Jean-Marc Marché

Jean-Louis Matinier

ECM 1979

Moving from music for film, to music inspired by film, we have François Couturier’s tribute album to Russian film-maverick Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986).

According to the composer, Tarkovsky felt that film does not require music (I usually agree), and so Nostalghia has very little music. This CD is inspired by all of Tarkovsky’s films, with each movement representing “a specific emotion linked to the universe of this director.” (As a side note, Tarkovsky produced a successful Boris Godunov in 1984 for Covent Garden.)

The performing ensemble consists of the composer, François Couturier at the piano, Anja Lechner, cello; Jean-Marc Larché, soprano saxophone; and Jean-Louis Matinier, accordion. The scores are bare and thin, slow and melancholic, and the instrumental textures can be exciting, on occasion. Couturier makes reference to two of Tarkovsky’s favorite composers: Bach and Pergolesi, and also throws in Schnittke for good measure.

 

by Daniel Gilliam