Concert review

Concert review, Contemporary Classical, early music, File Under?, Miller Theater, New York

Stile Antico Returns to St. Mary’s

Photo: Eduardus Lee.

Stile Antico Returns to Sing at St. Mary’s

 

Church of Saint Mary the Virgin

November 9, 2025

Published in Sequenza 21

By Christian Carey

 

NEW YORK – The British choral group Stile Antico has been together for twenty years, and while they have premiered several new works, the ensemble specializes in repertoire from the Renaissance era. Indeed, this past Saturday on Miller Theatre’s Early Music series, at the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in midtown Manhattan, the theme of their program was “The Golden Renaissance.” At St. Mary’s, Stile Antico presented works by noteworthy composers of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. They may be lumped together in a historical pigeon hole, but Renaissance composers exemplify a plethora of approaches, and the music often is quite demanding to sing. Stile Antico took a versatile approach in their program, sometimes performing with their full complement of a dozen singers and at others with subgroups thereof. Thus, the concert afforded listeners intimate experiences as well as resounding anthems sung in full voice. 

 

Some of the selections were the usual suspects on choral programs, but there were also a few less familiar pieces that proved worthy companions to the hits of the Renaissance. One of those that might be considered a “deep cut” was  “A un niño llorando,” a villancico by Franciso Guerrero (1528-1599). Its subject was the story of the gifts given to the infant Jesus by the magi. Beginning with a solo by soprano Rebecca Hickey, its compound rhythms provided both the lilt of a cradle song and a framework for hocketing between parts. Two other Spanish composers were represented on the program, with Recessit pastor noster from the Tenebrae Responsories by Tomá Luís De Victoria (1548-1611) performed with dramatic declamation and cascading linear overlaps. Jubilate Deo by Cristóbal De Morales (1500-1553) is peppered with plangent dissonances. Apparently the composer took his jubilation quite seriously. All was well in the end, with the final cadence of both parts of the motet arriving to rest on a major chord. These works, as well as most of the other music on the program, have been recorded by Stile Antico. 

 

A more festive mood was captured in the performances of O clap your hands and Hosanna to the Son of David, both by Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625). Short phrases ricocheted between subsections of the choir, delivered in crisply animated fashion. Ein Kind geborn, by Michael Praetorius (1571-1599), subdivides the choir into various smaller units who engage in a kind of call and response, the resulting antiphony building to a thrilling tutti finale. 

Clemens non Papa (1510-1555) is a composer who is underserved by current ensembles. His best known piece, Ego flos campi, was sung in a luxuriantly legato rendition. Stile Antico’s interpretative approach has been enriched over the years, with more dynamic and articulative shadings and ever greater fluidity of pacing. Hearing them sing something again, such as Ego flos campi, underscores their evolving approach to this repertoire. In Manus Tuas, by Thomas Tallis (1505-1585) is another piece that shows Stile Antico to their best advantage, the ensemble making the most of plangent cross-relations to paint the aspects of devotion and surrender integral to its text. 

 

Included on the program was The Phoenix and The Turtle, commissioned nearly a decade ago from Huw Watkins. A setting of Shakespeare, various explanations of the poem’s meaning have been suggested, from symbolizing various lovers to eulogizing Christian martyrs.Watkins uses a polytonal framework that has a number of added note chords, corruscating motivic entrances, and much antiphony. The result sounded well in the reverberant acoustics of St. Mary’s.

 

This was the 500th anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594), and Stile Antico has recorded an entire album of his music as part of their trio of Golden Renaissance CDs, with the others representing Byrd and Josquin.  All are well worth seeking out. Two pieces by the composer William Byrd were featured in the concert. A recusant Catholic, Byrd vented his anger at the persecution of those of his faith in “Exsurge Domine,” the concert’s fiery opener. His late piece “Retire my soul” was of a mournful cast and sung with plaintive, sinuous legato lines. Josquin’s masterpiece of compositional architecture, Salve Regina, with two borrowed parts to thread between original  lines, was performed with seamless interweaving of its contrapuntal entrances. As for Palestrina, his Laudate Dominum couldn’t be done on the choir’s last visit to St. Mary’s, as baritone Gareth Thomas was too ill to perform, and the piece’s twelve-part divisi would not permit it. For an encore, they performed it here, and the rendition proved well worth the wait.

 

by Christian Carey
Choral Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Criticism

Estonians Play Their Pärt

Estonian Festival Orchestra, Credit Fadi Kheir
Carnegie Hall’s Arvo Pärt festival began with the Estonian Festival Orchestra, violin soloists Midori and Hans Christian Aavik and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. (Photo credit Fadi Kheir)

In listening to a three-hour concert of music by Arvo Pärt, the brilliance of the Estonian composer’s craft becomes clear. His use of percussion is a masterclass in orchestration, announcing the beginning of a piece with a chime, punctuating string passages with a ding or a gong, and clamorous timpani rolls in rare fortissimo moments.

This all-Pärt concert on October 23 was the first program in a season-long celebration of the 90-year old composer at Carnegie Hall. Pärt holds the Composer’s Chair at Carnegie this season (that’s the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair, to you). The occasion was also the American debut of the Estonian Festival Orchestra, founded in 2011 by Paavo Järvi, who conducted this performance.

Much of Pärt’s music is deceptively simple: descending scales, modest melodies repeated over and over, block chords and spare orchestration. He is a master of form as well, building a clear emotional arc in every composition, playing on extreme dynamic markings. This was deftly demonstrated by the Estonians, with pianissimo passages that were barely perceptible and subtle shades of softness, holding thunderous fortes for special moments. Another effective technique is his unabashed use of silence – in such a patient way that there is no compulsion to jump in and fill the void.

Only one work on this program reminded me why I have avoided listening to Pärt’s music for many years. The second movement of Tabula Rasa, one of the longest works on the program, was an exercise in restraint. Slow and repetitious without forward motion, it ultimately was tedious and boring. The way this music stopped time seemed to resonate with many in the audience, just not me. Besides that, the performance, which featured two violin soloists – veteran Midori and young upstart Hans Christian Aavik – was a remarkable and compelling work.

Some of the other works performed this evening surprised me with their varied sounds and compelling forward motion, both melodically and harmonically. This was not how I thought of Pärt’s compositional style.

The last piece on the program, Credo, was by far the most interesting and varied. Interspersing JS Bach’s Prelude No. 1 on solo piano (played by Nico Muhly) between Pärt-ian passages, some bellicose, some tender, was exciting.

The Estonians also brought along the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, who performed Adams Lament with the orchestra before being joined by the Trinity Choir for Credo. The combined choirs showed off their special sound in the encore, Pärt’s Estonian Lullaby.

WQXR-FM broadcast the concert on its Carnegie Hall Live series, and it is available for on demand listening at WQXR.org.

Carnegie Hall’s celebration of Arvo Pärt continues throughout the season. Upcoming events, beginning with tonight’s Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir are listed at this link.

by Gail Wein
Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Dance, File Under?, New York, Orchestras

Salonen Conducts New York Philharmonic (Concert Review)

Photo: Chris Lee.

The NY Philharmonic Celebrates Boulez’s Centenary
Works by Bartók, Boulez, Debussy, and Stravinsky
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
New York Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor
Saturday, October 4, 2025
Saturday, October 11, 2025

NEW YORK – In October, Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted the New York Philharmonic for two consecutive weeks. Both programs celebrated the centenary of the composer and conductor Pierre Boulez (1925-2016), who was Music Director of the New York Philharmonic from 1971-1977. Boulez was a key figure of the post-WWII avant-garde and a proponent of serial music, then in its early stages. By the 1970s, Boulez was an internationally renowned conductor of a wide range of repertoire, and his time with the NY Phil was distinguished by a high level of music-making. Still, his advocacy for increasing the number of contemporary works presented was not welcome in all corners. Balancing the programming of repertory staples with that of twentieth and twenty-first century music remains a much-debated topic at the NY Phil, both within the organization and among its listeners. This is true of most American orchestras, and had more than a bit to do with Salonen’s recent decision to end his directorship of the San Francisco Symphony. Thus, it was heartening to see Boulez’s music received so well by the audiences at well-attended concerts on October 4th and 11th.

Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was the other composer on the first concert, and it was a simpatico pairing. Boulez admired Debussy and frequently performed his music. In the concert’s first half, works by the two composers alternated. Debussy was represented by movements from the orchestral version of Images, which shared a point of inception with the programmed Boulez pieces: they are transcriptions of piano pieces. In the 1940s, Boulez wrote twelve piano miniatures called Notations, each twelve measures long but varied in tempo and character to create a group of pieces that helped prove his avant-garde bona fides. In succeeding decades, Boulez returned to some of them and remade them for orchestra. Three of these, in both their original and orchestrated forms, were performed. Pierre-Laurent Aimard played the movements from Notations in authoritative fashion, scrupulously observing the tempos conceived for their solo renditions. Frequently the orchestral version has been written to be played a bit more slowly, for the purposes of resonance and ensemble coordination; the latter at times is formidably challenging. It is to the NY Phil’s credit that their playing took into account the disparate nature of all the music in the first half, rendering each inflection, some quite nuanced, with sensitivity. Salonen abetted this effort with a clear approach that embodied the scores in a manner not dissimilar to Boulez’s conducting style.

Aimard would later be the piano soloist in Fantasie, an infrequently performed early piece by Debussy, started during his Prix de Rome days and only published posthumously. It is not one of Debussy’s finest pieces, and its spate of revisions shows seams in a number of places, sounding like a grand tour of the stylistic evolution throughout his career. The piano part is virtuosic, sometimes stepping into the spotlight and at others blending in with the orchestra in a demonstration of esprit de corps. If anyone can make Fantasie at all compelling it is Aimard, who distinguished himself with fleet-fingered runs and thoughtful turns of phrase.

Debussy’s La Mer, his beloved orchestral work, was the program’s finale. Water’s motion, environs, and the denizens dependent upon it are frequent touchstones for the composer, nowhere more so than here, although the grotto scene from his opera Pelleas et Melisande is a strong contender. The piece has had a somewhat quixotic afterlife as a shorthand trope for the sea in many films, from documentaries to Hollywood blockbusters. The real thing still trumps all of them. The NY Philharmonic played it pristinely under Salonen’s direction.

Photo: Brandon Patoc.

The concert on October 11th featured two more composers in Boulez’s orbit: Béla Bartók (1881-1945) and Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). The latter was represented by his Octet for Winds, a piece firmly rooted in the neoclassical tradition that pits a woodwind quartet of flute, clarinet, and two bassoons against two trumpets and two trombones. The music is filled with contrapuntal assertions and responses between winds and brass. This heterodox ensemble is difficult to balance and wasn’t perfect in this respect here, and the position of the group didn’t seem to be in an acoustically ideal spot onstage. Still, the interplay between performers was impressive.

Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra is among the masterpieces of the past century. Like the octet, it is filled with counterpoint, including some of the fugal variety. Both Stravinsky and Bartók were able to navigate the delicate balance between music of the past and innovation. In addition to baroque music, Bartók references folk music from Eastern Europe. There is also a jocular trope on a theme by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), poking fun at his Russian counterpart for toeing the cultural lines drawn by Stalin. Not the first concerto for orchestra, in which each section gets an opportunity to be highlighted, it remains the best yet composed. The NY Phil, especially with the dynamic gestures of Salonen, played it like few other orchestras can dream to match.

In the performance’s second half, a more extensive work than Notations was presented. Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna was composed in 1975, while Boulez was still conducting the NY Phil. Maderna was a close associate, and his death from lung cancer at 53 was a difficult loss to contemplate. Although its use of gongs and chorale-like chords in the brass is evocative of ceremony, Rituel does not explicitly reference any religious traditions. Rather, it is a postmodern, secular type of valediction, in which spatial deployment envelops the audience in a solemn, eloquent meditation on grief. With a cohort onstage, other members of the orchestra were arrayed throughout the hall, their parts reverberating in well-coordinated fashion. There is a plethora of percussion instruments, with the players deployed in an additive fashion, with each of Rituel’s eight sections supplying more percussionists. This was also true of the other players in the other sections of the orchestra, supporting a long, powerful crescendo, one that then subsides in a gradual denouement.

The LA Dance Project was on hand for Rituel, performing onstage in front of, and sometimes between, members of the orchestra. It featured six dancers, two principals who wore black and four others in various shades of color. The choreography captured both fluid musical lines and percussive gestures, representing the stages of grief encountered after a loss in a dance that was modern in character and well-executed. Given Maderna’s death after an illness, the physicalization of violence, with both symbolic crucifixion and stabbing, seemed in places more like Sacre du Printemps than the demeanor of Rituel. Still, it added a layer of emotionality to a compelling use of the entirety of Geffen Hall. One hopes that more spatial music is on offer in the future, and that Salonen remains a frequent visitor to New York to perform with the orchestra.

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
Chamber Music, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Percussion, Women composers

2025 Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood

2025 Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood – July 24 – July 28, 2025

Tanglewood Music Center in the cool green Berkshires of Massachusetts (credit Aram Boghosian)

Every summer since 1964, the Tanglewood Music Center presents its Festival of Contemporary Music. According to Tanglewood’s materials:

The Festival of Contemporary Music (FCM) is one of the world’s premier showcases for works from the current musical landscape and landmark pieces from the new music vanguard of the 20th century. FCM affords Tanglewood Music Center Fellows the opportunity to explore unfamiliar repertoire and experience the value of direct collaboration with living composers.

Over the four FCM concerts (of the total of six) I heard carefully honed performances by the Tanglewood Fellows, Fromme players and the Mexican percussion quartet Tambuco.

Gabriela Ortiz is the director of FCM this year, the latest in the many high notes that the Mexican composer is enjoying. In the past season, she was composer in residence at Carnegie Hall, Curtis Institute, and Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León; her commissioned works were premiered at New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, and she won three Grammy awards.

Ortiz’s FCM programming traced the lineage of Mexican composers from Chavez to Lavista to Ortiz herself and to her student Diana Syrse, showed off the versatile talents of the Mexico-based percussion ensemble Tambuco and the incredible capacity of the Tanglewood Fellows to learn and perfect carefully honed performances of a mountain of new music.

Two beefs: Each program ran at least 25% longer than its stated duration. Each was densely programmed, and the ultralong set changes between each piece (often involving dozens of percussion instruments) were not accounted for in the production schedule. Nor were the often-lengthy introductions by Ortiz.

And, rather than presenting a spectrum of works by a range of composers, Ortiz programmed a great deal of her own music with a smattering of other works to provide context. This was in contrast to previous years in which a broader survey of music was presented.

Ortiz’s music is high-quality and thoughtful, employing interesting sounds and techniques, rhythms and sonorities, often telling a story in vivid colors and gestures. But pretty much every piece wore out its welcome, going on long after I felt it should have ended, without bringing in new ideas or furthering the experience of the piece.

A member of Tambuco playing the marimbula at Tanglewood’s Festival of Contemporary Music 2025 (credit Gail Wein)

Which brought to mind a question that nags me from time to time – why don’t composers have editors? Authors of books have them. Journalists have them. But no one seems to be telling a composer, “Draw a double bar already, would ya?” Come to think of it, it may be the test of time that serves this purpose. There’s a lot of music written over the past 500 years that is justly neglected. Conversely, there’s good reason that many war horses in the canon have endured. It’s collective taste making, standing the test of time.

The program on July 25, “Mexico, Cuba, the U.S., and One Hundred Years of Percussion” featured, predictably, a barrage of percussion, and in every piece at least one unusual instrument was on stage. In Ortiz’s Rio de las Mariposas for two harps and steel drum, the disparate instruments blended surprisingly well. The glass harmonica gave Mario Lavista’s Musicas de Cristal a soundscape all its own. The soft slow music was enhanced by the ambient rustle of trees outside Ozawa Hall. Amadeo Roldán’s Rítmica V and Rítmica VI included a cascade of diverse instruments, the most unusual of which was a marimbula, a cross between a giant mbira (African thumb piano) and a cajón (a wooden box which the percussionist slaps with their hand). Hearing the mechanical sirens in Edgard Varese’s landmark Ionisation, was the peak of a memorable performance of that iconic 20th century work.

On July 26, the program “Music of Migration and Exile” included music by Ortiz and the Mexican-American composer Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon. This program, as all the others that I heard at the FCM, were marked by truly spectacular performances by the fellows. All around they play like much more seasoned pros, and with an enthusiasm and bravado that more experienced hands sometimes lack.

Zohn-Muldoon’s Suite from Comala is an extract of a larger work based on Pedro Páramo, a classic Mexican novella by Juan Rulfo. Zohn-Muldoon added guitar to this score for Pierrot ensemble plus percussion and guitar. The combination worked especially well in this alluring work, as the guitar sometimes aligned with the strings, and at other times with the percussion.

In addition to the programs I detailed above, the festival highlighted the talents of the American composers Ellen Reid and Gabriela Smith. It was great to hear some concert music from Mexico that doesn’t often get to U.S. stages. And there’s nothing like getting to revel in the sounds of contemporary concert music for four days, especially in the picturesque environs of the Tanglewood Music Center.

by Gail Wein
Composers, Concert review, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music: Orchestra Concert

Thomas Wilkins conducts TMC Orchestra.
Photo: Hilary Scott (courtesy of BSO).

 

2025 Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music

Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra

July 28, 2025

 

LENOX – This year’s Festival of Contemporary Music was curated by composer Gabriela Ortiz. Born in Mexico City, Ortiz is one of the most prominent Latinx figures in twenty-first century classical music. Among other honors, she is composer-in-residence at Carnegie Hall and the Curtis Institute. Revolucióndiamantina, a recording of her music by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, won three GRAMMY Awards in 2025. This year, FCM has spotlighted music from Mexico, as well as that of women composers. After four chamber ensemble programs, including one consisting entirely of music for percussion, the festival concluded with a concert performed by the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Wilkins and two fellows, Yiran Zhao and Leonard Weiss (Zhao is a former student of mine, so I will limit my remarks to saying that her teacher was proud). TMC is a student orchestra, but their talent and hard work abetted a high level of playing throughout. All of the concert’s music was written in the twenty-first century by living composers.

 

Bioluminescence Chaconne (2019), by Gabriella Smith (b. 1991), is built around overlapping ostinatos. String tremolandos are prominent in the beginning, and glissandos take on an increasingly important role. The piece has a gradual buildup to a powerful central section with brash tutti and stretches of syncopated percussion, followed by a return to its opening demeanor to conclude. Smith is a violinist, and it shows in the deft deployment of strings here. She has cited Bach’s D minor Chaconne as a touchstone, but its form repeats in a more symmetrical fashion than the shape of Bioluminescence Chaconne. The first word of the title may be more telling, as Smith has suggested that her experiences scuba diving, accompanying a team of researchers, was an inspiration for the piece. The piece works well, so well that next year the Boston Symphony Orchestra is playing it too.

 

Ellen Reid (b. 1983) won the Pulitzer Prize in 2019, and her piece When the World as You’ve Known It Doesn’t Exist (2019) was commissioned and premiered by the New York Philharmonic. In addition to a large orchestra, it features three sopranos in wide ranging wordless parts encompassing animated and sustained passages. Zoe McCormick, Kerrigan Bigelow, and Sarah Davis sang skilfully, blending well together and with the orchestra. Like Smith, Reid uses ostinatos, and these are contrasted with aching pitch slides and clusters. When the World… is likely her most dissonant piece, with both major and minor seconds featuring prominently in the motivic and harmonic material. Weiss brought out dynamic contrasts and imbued the legato sections with a strong sense of line.

 

Reid wrote When the World…  for the NY Phil’s Project 19, which celebrated a centenary of women’s suffrage in the United States. Her program note suggests that it doesn’t directly reflect this issue, and is instead focused on an emotional artistic journey, delineated in stages not dissimilar to those frequently found in grieving, moving from questioning to anger to acceptance.

 

Ortiz had two pieces on the program, one concluding the first half and the other played after intermission. Guest flutist Alejandro Escuer was the soloist on Altar de Viento (“Altar of the Wind,” 2015), a concerto specifically written for him. Escuer’s proficiency with extended techniques is comprehensive, and Ortiz makes good use of them in the piece. Escuer’s approach is also attuned to rhythm, and he even moves a bit during interludes where he isn’t playing, underlining the dance rhythms so often present in Altar de Viento. Indeed, the percussion section once again got a workout, playing traditional dances and new music gestures with equal aplomb. The rest of the orchestra was game to groove as well, and Wilkins led them through myriad metric shifts with suavity and clarity.

 

Hominum, Concerto for Orchestra (2017), is an imposing half-hour long piece. One of Ortiz’s finest, it was premiered in 2017 by another exemplary student ensemble, the Juilliard Orchestra. There’s nothing about the concerto that suggests it was sculpted with emerging artists in mind, as it is quite challenging. Composers who write a concerto for orchestra usually provide each cohort of the ensemble with music that spotlights their capacities and instruments’ essential characteristics. Ortiz revels in exploring the many textures that an orchestra can achieve in the twenty-first century. The virtuosity that talented musicians possess is explored as well. Hominum is at turns vivacious, brash, reflective, and powerful, and served as a rousing closer for FCM.

 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Piano

John Williams’ Piano Concerto at Tanglewood

John Williams takes a bow after world premiere of his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra w Emanuel Ax, Andris Nelsons and Boston Symphony at Tanglewood (credit Gabriel Scott)

The audience greeted John Williams like he was a rock star.

Indeed, this composer’s music for blockbuster films like Star Wars, Jaws and Jurassic Park is well known and loved by billions around the world. People, including those in attendance at Tanglewood on Saturday night, July 26, love him for his concert music as well. Williams appeared on stage after the crowd-pleasing premiere performance of his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with soloist Emanuel Ax and the Boston Symphony Orchestra led by Andris Nelsons.

Williams has been a mainstay at the BSO for decades, having been music director of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980 to 1993; and composed numerous scores especially for the venerable ensemble and some of its principal players. He began writing the newest work in his immense catalogue of concert music in 2022, at age 90, this one specifically for Ax and the BSO.

For this three-movement work, Williams drew his inspiration from jazz greats Art Tatum, Bill Evans, and Oscar Peterson. From the very start in the “Introduction – Colloquy (Art Tatum)”, the composition launched into bold jazz chords from the soloist. The rhythms went beyond ragtime, instantly recalling Tatum’s trademark stride piano style.  The textures, timbres and sonorities of the jazz-infused score were as vividly colorful as Williams’ film scores. The rich viola solo of the second movement “Listening (Bill Evans)” was straight and somber, infused with angular and dissonant sonorities. The clamorous timpani opening the work’s third movement (“Finale. Presto (Oscar Peterson)”) echoed the beginning of Gershwin’s majestic Piano Concerto in F. This movement was the most virtuosic of the already technically demanding piece, using the entire range of the keyboard. Thunderous ovations followed the final chord.

Concert-goers who departed the grounds after the triumphant world premiere missed a powerful reading of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. Any flaws early in the performance were brushed aside as the second movement unfolded with crisp execution, the rocksteady timpanist emphasized the foundations of the tonality for most of the third movement, and the confident swagger in the secondary theme. Nelsons brought it all to an exciting conclusion full of contrast in both dynamics and tempi.

The BSO brass deserve a medal. They were knockouts in both works on the program. From the colorful character of John William’s concerto to their mighty display in the Mahler, they shone in every which way. The entire horn section standing for the final section of the Mahler was emblematic of the section’s performance throughout.

by Gail Wein
Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

The Met Orchestra Plays Ortiz, Blanchard, and More at Carnegie Hall

Photo: Arthur Elgort.

 

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Music Director and Conductor

Angel Blue, Soprano

Carnegie Hall, April 18, 2025

Published on Sequenza 21 

By Christian Carey

 

NEW YORK – Virtually since its inception, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Met Orchestra for short, has given concerts alongside its main role accompanying operas. For over a hundred years, this has allowed the ensemble to stretch itself, performing vocal works, unstaged or semi-staged operas, repertoire staples, and several premieres. Yannick Nézet-Séguin has relished the opportunity to work with the musicians in this capacity. On Wednesday night, the Met Orchestra premiered a suite from Fire Up in My Bones, an opera staged at the Met by Terence Blanchard. They also performed pieces by Carnegie Hall’s current Debs Composer Chair Gabriela Ortiz, Leonard Bernstein, and Antonin Dvořák. 

 

Ortiz’s piece, Antrópolis (2018, revised 2019), was an ebullient opener, recalling the various nightclubs the composer had frequented during her youthful years in Mexico City. The piece is a showcase for percussion, with varied dance rhythms, ranging from mambo and rumba to incipient techno, articulated by timpani soloist Parker Lee and the rest of the percussion cohort.

 

Symphony No. 1, “Jeremiah,” (1942), was written when Bernstein was twenty-three. Its directness of expression betrays a bit of naivete that makes it somewhat less compelling than his musical theater pieces of the forties. Still, the orchestration demonstrates an impressive grasp of mid-twentieth century music, both the Americana style of Aaron Copland and Roy Harris, and the neoclassical music of Stravinsky, who seems to loom large over the piece. Mahler, a composer for whom Bernstein, throughout his career, advocated strongly, serves as another touchstone, particularly in the inclusion of a soprano soloist in the final movement of Jeremiah. The texts are taken from the Hebrew Bible book “The Lamentations of Jeremiah,” selected to analogize the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem with the plight of Jewish people in Europe under the Nazi regime. 

 

Soprano Angel Blue, standing on a platform in the midst of the orchestra, declaimed the music with an authoritative demeanor that underscored its mournful message, singing with flawless legato and rich tone. Here and elsewhere, Nézet-Séguin was a commanding presence, underscoring the rhythmic vitality of the piece’s earlier mixed meter sections only to build it to a stirring climax by the symphony’s conclusion. 

 

Terence Blanchard’s opera Fire Up in My Bones was staged with jazz musicians, including Blanchard, participating. He created a suite of music from the opera with the Met Orchestra’s forces, sans additional musicians, in mind. Apart from an interlude depicting the sounds of a chicken processing plant, which includes syncopated percussion in playful fashion, Blanchard instead presents the opera’s powerful thematic material depicting human struggle. Charles M. Blow’s memoir, in which, among other experiences, he discusses being abused as a child and coming to terms with his homosexuality, is a compelling story, and the arias from Fire Up in My Bones provide it with the gravitas it deserves. The suite presents selections from these set pieces in sweeping melodies that are romantic in scope. The harmony sits astride Mahlerian late tonality and a fluid use of jazz vocabulary, ending on a charged chord rife with dissonant extensions. Blanchard’s scoring is fluent in a variety of idioms, and even if the suite only tells part of Fire Up in My Bones’s musical story, it is replete with well-paced dramatic contrasts.

 

The concert concluded with one of the most beloved pieces by Dvořák, his Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.” It was written in 1893, during his extended visit to the United States. Dvořák advocated for composers from the United States to explore their own nation’s folk music, mining it for material, just as he did with vernacular Czech music. Viewing the music of native Americans and spirituals as the most consummately authentic folk music in the US, he recommended that their works be collected and employed by the predominantly white male students who were his composition pupils in New York. One can argue about the authenticity of this practice through a contemporary lens, but it certainly made an impression on US composers of that generation and successive ones. 

 

Musicologists love debating the derivation of the materials Dvořák used in the New World Symphony. He insisted that there were no direct quotations in the piece. Apart from the rhythm of a tom-tom drum, that is likely the case, although its most famous tune, the achingly beautiful theme from its second movement, was later used to create a spiritual-styled song. Much of the music sounds like it could just as easily have been written while Dvořák was in Europe. Whatever the pedigree of its sources, the Ninth Symphony is a fantastic piece and the Met Orchestra performed it gloriously. 

 

Nézet-Séguin approached the piece in energetic fashion, allowing it to speak for itself mostly in tempo rather than using too much rubato. This returned a sense of balance to the phrasal and rhythmic construction of a piece that can, upon occasion, seem  schmaltzy in its presentation. The sections of the aforementioned second movement that called for pliable moments seemed all the more noteworthy as a result. This was abetted by superlative playing from the winds and brass, particularly Pedro R. Díaz, who performed the English horn solo in eloquently beautiful fashion. The strings had many moments to shine as well, playing the theme of the scherzo, marked molto vivace, with rhythmically incisive élan. The blend in tutti sections was impressive as well. 

 

While there were no pains to overstate it, the program was nicely tied together by the Symphony “From the New World.” Each composer in their own way explored the cultural and musical traditions that resonated with them. Ortiz’s Latin dance, Bernstein’s Jewish liturgical references and tropes on folk music, and Blanchard’s jazz chords, however different they sounded, came from a place of deep cultural resonance for each respective composer. Thus, the Met Orchestra’s concert was both diverse in its offerings and well curated. A memorable evening of music.

 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles, Ojai

Ojai Music Festival – June 6 Evening Concert

The Friday evening concert was titled The Holy Liftoff, continuing the theme from the morning. There was a solo viola piece by Leilehua Lanzilotti, the USC Cello Ensemble led by Seth Parker Woods, with music by Sofia Gubaidulina, Julius Eastman and Terry Riley. The ever reliable Steven Schick conducted and the JACK Quartet joined with Clare Chase in the final work.

First up was ko‘u inoa by Leilehua Lanzilotti, a composer, violist and interdisciplinary artist based in Hawaii. “ko‘u inoa” means “my name” or “in my name” and is a Hawaiian term freighted with identity, ancestry and community. The piece was inspired by Hawai‘i Aloha, a traditional 19th century Hawaiian anthem. As Lanzilotti explains in the program notes: “Hawai‘i Aloha evokes not only a homesickness for place and sound, but this action of coming together — a homesickness that we’re all feeling right now, where music and human interaction are home.”

ko‘u inoa began with the composer/soloist walking in from offstage playing a low, repeating phrase that was soft and mysterious. Rising tones in this opening created a nice minimalist feel and the timbre of the viola seemed ideally suited to this warmly eloquent music. The texture thickened agreeably as Ms. Lanzilotti double stopped, sounding two notes at once. The piece proceeded as if a natural process was unfolding, understated and beautiful. Optimistic and expressive, the dynamics increased towards the finish without violating the intimate and reserved emotion in the music. The quiet ending was greeting with extended applause. ko‘u inoa and Leilehua Lanzilotti succeeded brilliantly in conveying the sweetness of Hawaiian sensibility in an elegant and intimate viola solo.

Mirage: The Dancing Sun, by Sofia Gubaidulina followed. This was performed by the eight massed strings that were the USC Cello Ensemble, all led Seth Parker Woods of the USC music faculty. The excellent program notes by Thomas May set out the ambitious intentions of the composer: “The late Sofia Gubaidulina’s Mirage: The Dancing Sun, scored for eight cellos, treats sound as spiritual metaphor, evoking the interplay of light and shadow, faith and uncertainty — an expression of her preoccupation with the sacred and the unseen.”

High, squeaky sounds from the upper register of the cello opened Mirage: The Dancing Sun along with some strident pizzicato. Seth Parker Woods played more sustained tones on top of the busy texture, and this established a contrasting and questioning feel. This was followed by lush tutti phrases, lovely in tone and harmony, but with a tinge of sadness that set a contrast with the active opening. Good ensemble playing was on display as the various cello lines began to diverge and intertwine. Woods stayed in a solo role, commenting on the complex phrases coming from the ensemble. The slower tutti passages returned and alternated with active and tense stretches. The cellos were not monolithic and they seemed to act in separate sections of two or three. Now very rapid and chaotic sounds with extremely high notes swirled in an around mid-registers. This was followed by a slower arco section full of warm expression, certainly a expressing a convincing contrast between the forces of light and dark. The dynamics and tempo increased as the cellos soared upward to another section of rapid and chaotic notes. A sudden decrescendo, followed by silence, completed Mirage: The Dancing Sun. Much applause followed, not least for the discipline and technique of the USC Cello Ensemble. This was a challenging piece, ably performed as part of an important music festival.

The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc, by Julius Eastman followed and the USC Cello Ensemble was augmented by two additional players. Julius Eastman grew up singing in church, attended the Curtis Institute and by the 1970s was a significant figure in the New York Minimalist scene. Sadly, Eastman died penniless and alone in 1990; he was just 49 years old. His music has enjoyed something of revival, sparked by the efforts of composer Mary Jane Leach, who has worked tirelessly to collect and organize his existing scores. Seth Parker Woods was instrumental in bringing Eastman’s Gay Guerilla to the 2022 Ojai Festival in a powerful and memorable performance.

The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc begins with a series of pulsing declarative tutti phrases from the cellos. There is an ominous feel to this and a single dramatic line of of sustained notes rises above the texture, adding further tension. There is a sense of danger and menace with the edgy, but controlled, playing from the ensemble. The many colors, emotions and contrasts conjured from ten identical cellos was impressive. More tension was added as the piece continued with dissonant and intertwined phrasing, all with that steady pulse underneath. A sudden, expressive cello solo was heard followed by faster tempo and more insistent passages. The pulsating and menacing sections seem to alternate and contend with slower, more reflective stretches. There is a brief Grand Pause, then a final cascade of more chaotic sounds. The piece concludes with a quietly gradual slowdown that leads to a long sustained tone at the finish. All of Eastman’s passion and intensity were on display and this seems the more remarkable as it came from just ten cellos. Much applause followed for the players and the music.

After the intermission, The Holy Lifoff by Terry Riley was the final work on the concert program. This was just one part of a large scale work, still in process. The JACK Quartet and Clare Chase were the performers. The program notes give a clue about what to expect: “Groovy, buoyantly irreverent, and transcendent, The Holy Liftoff reflects what Chase calls ‘a multi-modal way of making music,’ echoing the communal, DIY spirit of Riley’s In C (1964).” Terry Riley, one of the Mount Rushmore figures of American Minimalism, will turn 90 this month and composed this lively piece expressly for Clare Chase. Riley is now living in Japan and could not make the trip to Ojai, but he was connected to the concert by the magic of video streaming. Clare Chase called for the audience to shout out a greeting to him, and this was done with affectionate vigor.

The Holy Liftoff runs to almost a full hour in performance and is a playfully disparate collection of styles, timbres and emotions. There are sections with warm flute passages, stretches that are almost inaudible and parts where independent lines rapidly break out, diverge, then combine again. There are fast and frenetic tempos as well as comfortably placid stretches. One section featured a bright repeating line in the cello with an infectious flute melody joined by a violin in counterpoint. At one point a classic minimalism groove developed, sunny and optimistic. Clare Chase had three flutes at her stand and used them all. She seemed to be playing continuously throughout the entire piece. The JACK Quartet reliably produced lush harmonies as well as rough or squeaky tones, as required.

As the piece barreled to its conclusion, ragged and skittering sounds were heard from in the strings with a strong pulse from the flute. The sound of blowing wind from the sound system evoked a chaotic feel. This was followed by a return to conventional consonance and harmony, even as some chaotic phrases in the strings try to break through. A powerful cadenza full of sharp, spiky notes was issued by the flute and the piece came a sudden finish.

The applause was long and sincere, in no small part for the stamina and endurance of the performers, notably Clare Chase. The Holy Liftoff was a tour de force for the players, a triumph for Terry Riley and a spectacular treat for the Ojai audience.

Photo Credit: Timothy Teague

by Paul Muller
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles, Ojai

Ojai Music Festival 2025 – Morning Concert, June 6

Attending the Ojai Music Festival in person is one of the great musical experiences on the West Coast. The mountains, the town, Libbey Park and great music make Ojai the place to be in early June. One of the festival’s best kept secrets, however, is that the concerts in Libbey Bowl are live-streamed over the internet. Not only that, the sound system is exceptional and the camera work excellent. If you can’t get to the Ojai Festival in person, the next best thing is to watch the streamed video. This is what I did this year and it was a real convenience.

On Friday, June 6, the first piece up in the 10:30 AM concert program was Pulsing Lifters by Terry Riley, a world premiere arrangement by Alex Peh for a keyboard trio. Pulsing Lifters is just one segment from Riley’s larger work, The Holy Liftoff, parts of which were spread across concerts during the entire festival. As the program notes by Thomas May state: “Open-ended by design, The Holy Liftoff unfolds across a series of modular scores that invite myriad realizations and improvisational approaches.” The performers for Pulsing Lifters were Alex Peh, Corey Smythe and Craig Taborn, manning two pianos, a harpsichord and separate electronic keyboards.

Pulsing Lifters opens with a soft tinkling of electronic notes that evoke an unexpected combination of spacey and organic feelings. The acoustic pianos soon joined in with some leisurely additional notes. Slow, pulsing tones were heard rising up from deep lower registers. Strong harpsichord phrases occasionally added some energy and made for an interesting contrast to the surrounding electronic sounds. It was as if the listener was drifting along in the 21st century and was suddenly yanked backwards 300 years. Terry Riley is one of the founding fathers of late 20th century minimalism, but Pulsing Lifters was clearly something different. As the piece trailed off to its quiet conclusion, one got a sense of just how far Riley has evolved. Approaching his 90th birthday, Terry Riley is still a vital and creative force.

Impressions, by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, followed. This was a solo work for harpsichord performed by Alex Peh. This is a quiet, intimate piece that completely redefines the venerable harpsichord in a way that fully engages contemporary sensibilities. The program notes explain that: “Thorvaldsdottir develops a novel timbral vocabulary using six small superballs, a superball mallet, a small metal object for sliding along the strings, and two electronic bows (E-bows), which produce continuous, bowed-like tones without percussive attack.”

Impressions opens with softly plucked tones, followed by solitary keyed low notes. As the piece proceeds, Peh alternately struck notes directly from the strings or keyed conventional harpsichord tones. Small rubber superballs were rolled across the strings, sometimes singly or several at once. A small metal rod was also used to excite several adjacent strings together. Two electronic bows were deployed on the strings and these produced a lovely arco tone. Slow and deliberate, all of this produced a continuous series of unusual sounds that were completely alien to the normal harpsichord timbre, and this served to expand the listener’s aural palette. Notes struck from keyboard were used sparingly and Alex Peh was kept mostly busy with the strings inside the harpsichord. This piece is largely comprised of a mix of engaging and experimental effects produced directly on the strings. Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Impressions has gifted our old friend the harpsichord with a 21st century syntax for contemporary music.

Next was Cory Smythe performing Countdowns, a solo piano piece based on the music of John Coltrane. Smythe’s acoustic piano was fitted with a detuning mechanism which allowed the playing of quarter tones from two separate midi keyboards. The result is a seamless blend of conventional and present day sounds.

Countdowns begins with deep chords. Strumming on the piano strings produced dark clusters of tones and soon electronic sounds are heard underneath. There is a heavy feeling to all of this, broken occasionally by some light phrases in the higher registers. Smythe stays active attending to the keyboards, strings and electronics, all more or less simultaneously. The phrases in this mix are occasionally somewhat faster, but seem to come and go without any larger structure. Some of the rapid phrases seem to overlap, reminiscent of Coltrane’s ‘sheets of sound’ style. There was a dazzling flurry of notes at the finish. This piece was inspired by Giant Steps, but there are only flashes of the hard bebop style that we associate with Coltrane. Countdowns seems to be trying to connect directly with Coltrane’s deeper spirituality using 21st century musical syntax, a worthy – if daunting – effort.

The final work on the program was Duo Improvisation for Ojai, performed by Craig Taborn and Corey Smythe. This allowed the two performers to stretch their musical legs in an extended improvisational format. Corey Smythe was again stationed at his formidable array of piano and electronics with Craig Taborn at a second acoustic piano. As Thomas May explains in his Ojai program notes: “Taborn describes their approach as an ‘information-rich, improvisational process’ shaped by structural elements proposed in advance.”



Duo begins with low notes plucked directly from piano strings. Soon, some higher electronics and piano notes are heard, all at a deliberate pace. There is a very experimental feel to this with a variety of tones and timbres that are combined by extended techniques. Soon, a driving pulse is heard underneath with a series of complex phrases from each keyboard. These interleave between each other, occasionally producing a rapid blizzard of notes. At other times the tempo, dynamics and rhythms are more restrained and the feeling is more ominous. Towards the finish, an active and complex texture is heard, with individual notes pouring out of each piano. The dynamics and tempo quickly moderate and the piece quietly drifts along, ending on a deep piano note in the low register. Duo Improvisation for Ojai, is an impressive piece performed by two outstanding talents and was a lively conclusion to a concert filled mostly with introspective music.

The June 6 Friday Morning concert was a polished and innovative start for the day, and included lots of unusual keyboard techniques that were both memorable and impressive.

Photo Credits: Timothy Teague

by Paul Muller
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, early music, Festivals, File Under?, New York

Alisa Weilerstein’s Fragments 3 Program at Zankel Hall (Concert review)

 

Photo: Richard Termine

Fragments 3: Alisa Weilerstein at Zankel Hall

May 20th, 2025

Published in Sequenza 21

By Christian Carey

 

NEW YORK – Alisa Weilerstein is a supremely gifted cellist, and it is hard to imagine being anything less than riveted by her playing. At Zankel Hall last Tuesday, she made decisions for her Fragments project that seemed to be needlessly distracting. 

There are six Fragments programs all told, each based on one of the Bach Suites, joined by new pieces commissioned for the project. Fragments 3 featured the third cello suite alongside pieces by Joseph Hallman, Thomas Larcher, Jeffrey Mumford, and Carlos Simon. A design team helped to bring Weilerstein’s concept to life. The set, by Seth Reiser was elegantly simple, a multi-sided screen behind Weilerstein, and costume designer Molly Irelan did a fine job creating a chic yet downtown look for the cellist. The effective lighting, also by Reiser, included various spotlights as well as a moving magic lamp that accompanied moments of intensity. Director Elkanah Pulitzer did not seem to overtly interfere with Weilerstein’s usual performing demeanor. Perhaps ordering and pacing were part of her remit. 

 

The fragmenting of the pieces themselves is where things got challenging for listeners. Instead of presenting each of them in toto, individual movements of all of the pieces, Bach included, were excerpted out of order. In addition, audience members weren’t given a listing of the ordering of these sections, having to wait until after the concert to download a program, using a QR code found in the booklet. In remarks that were printed for consumption beforehand, Weilerstein exhorted the audience to “just listen.” This, by the way, is every reviewer’s nightmare – playing “name that tune” with pieces that you have never yet heard. 

 

It is laudable that so many new works for solo cello have come from this project. However, one feels for the composers, who, instead of being given a bow, were represented by the fragmenting of their pieces into a mix without metadata. It can be said with confidence that all four of the commissioned composers know cello writing authoritatively, including a catalog of extended techniques that featured Weilerstein’s adventurous streak and admirable facility to excellent advantage. Indeed, Simon and Hallmark seemed to invigorate their writing with extra doses of well-integrated 21st century virtuosity.

 

It was a bit disorienting to hear the Allemande, the second movement of Bach’s suite, appear as the penultimate fragment. Out of order though its movements may have been, the performance of the Bach suite was engaging, played with consummate care and thoughtful phrasing. Most of the program relied on the juxtaposition of old and new music. Only Mumford, with a few ostinatos in an otherwise dazzlingly modernist endeavor, provided a hat tip to Bach. Weilerstein finished the recital with the third movement of Thomas Larcher’s now here, which culminated with a rocket-fueled flourish, dazzling lamplight included. 

Photo: Richard Termine

In the bygone times of analog mixtapes, curation seemed a prerequisite. Playlisting mixes has now become the way that many people usually listen on digital platforms, often passively and without worrying about the aforementioned metadata. When it comes to music consumption, an encroaching facelessness of content seems to be what’s trending. Revising the recital is a welcome endeavor, and annotating program booklets needn’t be an ossified affair. When engaged, just listening is fine, and may be preferable to constantly rifling through the program notes instead of fully attending to the performance. Perhaps supertitles briefly listing who is being played could be a compromise, a mix without undue preconceptual baggage. 

 

All six installations of Fragments will be presented this week at the Spoleto Festival  over four nights: May 26, 28, 29, and 31. Bring your cell phone and click on those QR codes as soon as the applause concludes. 

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey