I heard the world premiere of Absolute Ocean by Augusta Read Thomas in Houston Thursday night at Jones Hall.
1. Thomas spoke before the concert about her compositional process and specifically about Absolute Ocean. Her talk was engaging, direct and charming; Thomas included showing the audience some of the manuscript score, and explained how 15 seconds of music might take five hours to score by hand!
2. Absolute Ocean is a work for Soprano, Harp and Orchestra in three movements from poetry by ee cummings commissioned by the Houston Symphony. The soloists, soprano Twyla Robinson and harpist Paula Page, performed with conviction and panache – putting the music first without extraneous movement or distractions. The texts were projected (not always coordinated, but hey, they were there!) on each side of the stage and added to the performance.
3. The opening “Graceful” movement was pointilistic and bright. Robinson pulled pitches from nowhere and was matched beautifully by Thomas’ instrumental colors and combinations. Page was often backed by four percussionists and divisi solo strings.
4. Perhaps the most charming of all was the second movement, “Playful, spry and jazzy.” Hans Graf was direct and precise with the orchestra, making it easy for the musicians to move in and out of the lines deftly. Again Robinson caught the feeling perfectly of cummings text and Thomas’ frolicsome and vivacious score. Page was purely color for the most part, but had a chance to shine with a cadenza between this movement and the finale. Evidently this cadenza was added later at Page’s request – which certainly went more to weigh the harp part…I would not call Absolute Ocean a double concerto, but rather an orchestral work for soprano with a prominent harp part. I had heard it referred to as a concerto – and would be disappointed as such – luckily it is such a wonderful work, the nomenclature is not important.
5. “Resonant and elegant” finished the 18 minute work and the short first half (the second half was Mahler’s Fourth Symphony) of the concert. The finale paints the words with creative combinations, and has a satisfying and direct ending. Absolute Ocean is a complete success for the Houston Symphony, and kudos to Graf for adding such a gorgeous work to the symphonic world.
There are two more performances of Absolute Ocean, Saturday night at 8pm and Sunday afternoon at 2:30pm. There is another pre-concert talk Saturday at 7:10pm open to all ticket holders. The 2009-10 season has just been announced for the HSO, and includes another Houston Symphony Commission, for chorus and orchestra by Kevin Puts.
Maybe it’s all that cold, dark and ice; stuck inside with nothing else to do for a lot of days must be conducive to composition. At least it feels that way with regard to Canada, since this huge but relatively sparsely-populated space has what seems a disproportionate number of composers that I just love.
And now the Canadian Music Centre has made it awfully easy for YOU to love them as well; at their site you’ll now find a service called CentreStreams, which offers streaming access to the Ann Southam Audio Archive. This comprises a huge number of concert and radio recordings made by the CBC, of Canadian composers A to Zed. Not only that: where else could you find 41 (!) archival recordings of seminal Canadian composer Claude Vivier‘s music — with no less than 6 (!!) different versions of Pulau dewata — all at your computer’s beck and call? They also have a nifty feature that can give you a random paylist by genre (piano, orchestra, vocal, etc.), so your listening experience is never the same twice. Many composers even have the scores of works freely available as PDF files.
You do have to register (free) to get the streams, but it’s quick and painless. CentreStreams is accessible from the CMC homepage, but even easier is heading to the “find a composer” section and browsing the alphabet. Besides the established names there’s also a fair collection of the young guns as well, so you can be right expert on contemporary Canadian music in no time! Personal favorites old and new, that I can pretty well guarantee for excellence, are John Rea, Claude Vivier, Emily Hall, Aaron Gervais (all four pictured above), José Evangelista, R. Murray Schafer, Melissa Hui, John Mark Sherlock, Linda Catlin Smith, Allison Cameron, Rodney Sharman, Monique Jean, Gyula Csapo, Louis Dufort, Gilles Tremblay, John Kosrud, Chiyoko Szlavnics… the list goes on and on. What better way to pass a little of your own closed-in winter days, than discovering some new favorite piece or composer?
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, Electro-Acoustic, Experimental Music, Music Events, New York, Opera
Interpretations continues its twentieth season of provocative programming in New York City. Founded and curated by baritone Thomas Buckner in 1989, Interpretations focuses on the relationship between contemporary composers from both jazz and classical backgrounds and their interpreters, whether the composers themselves or performers who specialize in new music. To celebrate, Jerry Bowles has invited the artists involved in this season’s concerts to blog about their Interpretations experiences. Produced in tandem with La Mama ETC and Performing Artservices, the centerpiece of the series this year is a two-week, three opera, 10 performance, mini-retrospective of the recent works of Robert Ashley: Dust, Celestial Excursions, and Made out of Concrete.
Robert Ashley’s operas will be at La Mama ETC from 15-25 January 2009.
For more information:
S21 Calendar
Interpretations
Mr. Ashley has been kind enough to take some time from his busy rehearsing schedule to write about the ensemble he’s gathered over the past thirty years or so, as a sort of self-interview:
WHO ARE THE ENSEMBLE MEMBERS?
The ensemble now is (alphabetical order in singers / in slight order of importance in technical)
ROBERT ASHLEY: voice
SAM ASHLEY: voice
THOMAS BUCKNER: voice
JACQUELINE HUMBERT: voice
JOAN LA BARBARA: voice
TOM HAMILTON does audio engineering in all stages of the opera, assists me in realizing the composition in the electronic studio prior to performance; he’s the mixing engineer and advisor in rehearsals; he does performance sound processing and mixing of the performance; he’s in charge of recording of the performance and mixing the sounds from the performance for the CD recording.
CAS BOUMANS is the performance sound designer (audience loudspeaker placement and sound monitor arrangements for the performers. Microphone placement.)
DAVID MOODEY does stage and light design.
MELANIE LIPKA is the production stage manager (off-stage timing of what goes into the performance.)
“BLUE” GENE TYRANNY is the synthesizer performer in Dust and Celestial Excursions
JOAN JONAS is the dancer/performance artist in Celestial Excursions
WHEN DID YOU START WORKING WITH THEM?
It’s various, but compared to the life of most ensembles I’ve been working with all of them for a long time, not only in their jobs now with the ensemble, but as musicians and designers.
A little palette-cleanser to shift our focus away from stimulating discussions of academe – after all, school is only out for a short while – what ‘holiday’ music do you admire?
This week, I’ve been listening to Anonymous 4’s Wolcum Yule around the house, enjoying both the Renaissance pieces and Maxwell Davies’ “A Calendar of Kings.” A ‘guilty pleasure’ is Vaughan Williams’ Hodie.
The King’s Singers are celebrating 40 years of performances and alot of new music for voices! They’ll perform holiday music this Friday and Saturday with the NY Pops and are nominated for a Grammy Award for their Simple Gifts album. Coming up is a new release of Valentines including composers like Libby Larsen.
I spoke with two members about their outreach in schools as well as premering new works by Larsen, Eric Whitacre and Paul Patterson.
Interview with David Hurley
Yep, Elliott Carter has gotten (and is getting) his proper due, so time to jump ahead and perpare for some 2009 action… Though it’s a little sparse for 100th-year blockbusters, there’s always Elie Siegmeister, Grazyna Bacewicz, Harald Genzmer, Rodolfo Cornejo, Robin Orr, John Raynor, Thorleif Aamodt, Paul Constantinescu, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Georgi Aleksandrovich Mushel, Sergius Kagen, Arwel Hughes, Ādolfs Skulte, Henk Bijvanck, and Vagn Holmboe. And the one I want to give a little shout out for, Jean Berger. One eventful (and as nearly long) life, that touched a lot of places and people. I’m pretty sure almost every kid in middle or high school choir remembers singing his “The Eyes of All Wait Upon Thee“. But far fewer tackled something like his “The Good of Contentment”, and far, far fewer still as part of such a stellar high school choir as the 1962 kids at Sanford H. Calhoun High in New York, under S. Talbot Thayer’s direction. Not a bad piece at all, for somebody to plan working up for next fall…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3LDrMYXLfw[/youtube]
This week the Next Wave Festival 2008 is raging at BAM, and there are several chances next week to hear Lightning at our feet, the latest from Ridge Theater and Michael Gordon at the Harvey Theater. (Dec 9, 11-13)
Gordon and I spoke on the phone about the new work that premiered in Houston. Listen to our conversation here – Lightning Interview with Gordon and Clare.
Here’s an added bonus, Gordon has a new EP coming out Tuesday, a fascinating “Purgatorio: Popera” on Canteloupe. We talked about it, as well as being married to a composer (Julia Wolfe) and everyone’s favorite 100 year old on Thursday, Elliott Carter! mp3 file
The Manhattan edition of the Sequenza21/Lost Dog Ensemble concert–as seen in the New York Times–is happening tonight at 8 pm at the Good Shepherd Church, 152 West 66tth Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam). Admission is free, as in you don’t have to pay to get in. This is your last chance to see a Sequenza21 concert until we save up enough money to have another one so don’t miss it.
Our friends at Other Minds in San Francisco invented the New Music Séance in 2005, and after two sold-out editions, they’re back with a third. The event will feature three concerts of hypnotic, spiritual and rarely-heard musical gems spanning the past 100 years, offered in the intimate candlelit surroundings of Bernard Maybeck’s 1895 Arts and Crafts-style Swedenborgian Church in San Francisco. Performers Sarah Cahill (piano) (you go girl) , Kate Stenberg (violin), and Eva-Maria Zimmermann (piano) will channel new music’s progenitors alongside composers of today, in works for solo piano and violin piano duet.
The marathon features three distinct concerts tomorrow, December 6, 2008: Concert I, “Birds in Warped Time” at 1pm; Concert II, “Deep River Dreams” at 4pm; and Concert III, “Ruth Crawford and Her Milieu” at 8pm. The final concert will be preceded by a special discussion of Ruth Crawford by Professor Judith Tick of Northeastern University, Crawford’s biographer. All events take place at Swedenborgian Church, 2107 Lyon Street, San Francisco. Tickets are on a sliding scale (individual concerts / 3-concert series): SEER ($25 / $65), MEDIUM ($40 / $110), PSYCHIC ($60 / $170). (Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.) Complimentary refreshments are provided for all ticket-holders, and series tickets at the PSYCHIC level include 6pm buffet dinner with the artists. The first two editions of the New Music Séance were sold out, and seating is limited to 100 persons per show, so early ticket purchase is recommended. Tickets are on sale now, at www.BrownPaperTickets.com or by calling (800) 838-3006. For information, visit otherminds.org or call (415) 934-8134.
And Lower East Side Performing Arts, Inc. will present Zendora Dance Company and the music of the lovely and gifted Elodie Lauten in a special Holiday Benefit on Tuesday, December 9 – 7:30 PM at Lafayette Bar & Grill, 54 Franklin Street (between Broadway and Lafayette) in Manhattan.
The program will be a special avant-premiere with improvisations from the Zendora Dance Company based on the second act of The Two-Cents Opera, Elodie Lauten’s semi-autobiographical fantasy about writing an opera where real, surreal and supernatural co-exist. Hmmm…. looks like a pattern developing here. Suggested donation for this benefit event is $10. For reservations or more information, please call 212-388-0202 or visit http://www.geocities.com/lesperformingarts for program information.
Google‘s latest coup is the digitization and online offering of essentially the entire photo archive of Life magazine. They’re currently up to around 20% of the entire ten-million picture archive, so there’s lots more to keep looking for in the future. Of course you can search to your heart’s content for just about any subject matter; but a quick search for “composer” returns some really truly spiffy photos of various and sundry greats (and a few “who dat?”‘s), many I’ve never seen before and all wonderful images… Like this one, from 1955, of Alan Hovhaness buried in his work. The images on Google are all much larger than this, and quite vivid.
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, Experimental Music, Improv, Music Events, New York, Piano
This Fall marks the twentieth season of provocative programming in New York City brought to you by Interpretations. Founded and curated by baritone Thomas Buckner in 1989, Interpretations focuses on the relationship between contemporary composers from both jazz and classical backgrounds and their interpreters, whether the composers themselves or performers who specialize in new music. To celebrate, Jerry Bowles has invited the artists involved in this season’s concerts to blog about their Interpretations experiences. Our fourth concert this season, on 20 November, features composer-performers JB Floyd and Raphael Mostel at Roulette.
JB Floyd:
My concert on the Interpretations Series on November 20th will mark the third time that I have presented my compositions on this prestigious series. These concerts have featured my works for flute and piano, vocal pieces for Thomas Buckner and the Yamaha Disklavier™ and keyboard works that combine the unique features of the Yamaha Disklavier™ as a concert piano and as a controller keyboard.
Though my music is mostly notated there are usually opportunities for improvisation within each composition. Having worked on many occasions with Thomas Buckner I am particularly looking forward to our work together on a new piece of mine, In Crossing The Busy Street for baritone voice and Yamaha Disklavier™. The poem is by Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore a poet whose works inspire musical representation.
Other compositions are for the Yamaha Disklavier™ and will be performed by my talented protégé, Liana Pailodze who is an Artist Diploma candidate at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. It is an honor to be included on this celebrated series that is celebrating its 20th Anniversary.
Raphael Mostel:
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Bela
I am haunted by Bela Bartok. He composed certain musical ideas which pursue me, and unbidden keep coming back to mind. My Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Bela is an attempt to exorcise this musical “possession” using one particularly searing turn from Bartok’s Piano Sonata. I’ve enlisted help from John Cage, Morton Feldman, Leonard Bernstein, Gyorgy Kurtag and many others. Wallace Stevens’ poem seemed to bless this exorcism. My apologies to triskadecaphobes.
A Letter to Benoit Mandelbrot, or, Authenticity
I’d written to Benoit Mandelbrot, the father of fractal geometry, asking if he’d never wondered why — since visual representations of fractals are so beautiful — the supposed musical representations of fractals are not? I offered to explicate mathematically. He wrote back inviting elaboration, which I did. But my explanation, he said, “mystified” him. My Letter to Benoit Mandelbrot is a further meditation on music, self-similarity and cheating.