Concerts

Concerts, File Under?, New York

Chris Thile: Bach, Bluegrass and Radiohead at the Y

Photo: Joseph Sinnott

Chris Thile at 92nd Street Y

Kauffmann Concert Hall

October 19, 2025

 

NEW YORK – Chris Thile is one of the best mandolinists around, and he has established himself as a singer, songwriter, and storyteller as well. On Sunday, he performed a solo concert at the 92nd Street Y that brought together these various activities. From 2016 to 2020, Thile hosted Live from Here, a variety show for public radio modeled on its predecessor A Prairie Home Companion. The pandemic made continuing the show impractical but he has since returned to the concept via podcasting, and his performance at the Y was not dissimilar from its format. The audience was regaled with stories as well as songs (and instrumentals), and in between with bits of banter.

 

The program included three substantial works by Bach, the Partitas in E major and

D minor, and the C major Sonata. They are included on Thile’s latest Nonesuch recording, the second volume of his traversal of the solo violin pieces. Interspersing the main movements of these pieces were renditions of songs from Thile’s solo work and groups Punch Brothers and Nickel Creek.

 

Such variety sometimes yielded unusual sequencing. In a brief monologue, Thile shared that he had discovered Bach at a young age and only belatedly learned to read music in order to be able to learn the solo violin pieces on mandolin. Thile reminded the audience that Bach said that music was both “To the glory of God and for the refreshment of the soul,” the mandolinist suggesting that he had started his own music making due to the former and now favored the latter part of the motto. In the early days of Nickel Creek, when Thile was a teenager, Toad the Wet Sprocket’s frontman Glen Phillips toured with them. Awed by his musicianship but concerned for his soul, the mandolinist made an attempt to convert Phillips to Christianity, only to be politely rebuffed. Nickel Creek would later record a song, “Goddamned Saint,” that explored the connotations of this meeting, especially as seen through a vantage point that was more secular and less proselytizing. 

 

The song was followed by the Chaconne from the D minor Partita, a piece that Bach wrote shortly after the death of his first wife. Musicologist Helga Thoene and others have likened it to the funerary violin tradition of the eighteenth century, and Thoene has made a convincing case that chorales traditionally used in Lutheran services for the dead are embedded in the Chaconne. Despite following the considerably less somber Nickel Creek song, it served as the concert’s emotional centerpiece. An extended meditation on a ground bass, it moves through a series of melancholic variations, ever more technically challenging, until a section in D major in which the mood seems more hopeful. When playing this portion of the Chaconne, Thile, in a moving intimate gesture, stepped away from his mandolin’s microphone, playing unplugged at the lip of the stage. The piece eventually returns to minor, with a formidable conclusion that was performed with a gravity one doesn’t often associate with the mandolin.

 

After this, Thile lightened the mood considerably by asking the audience to call a few fiddle tunes that he then fashioned into an improvised medley. His playing knit together the disparate melodies fluidly in an ebulliently virtuosic display. Once again, the mood changed, as Thile shifted to a monologue about his grandmother, a medium with a famous reputation for her seances. This was followed by a performance of the C major Sonata. Between the third and fourth movements, Thile convened a moment of silence, in which he invited the audience to remember people whom they loved who had passed away. The set’s conclusion was the fast finale of the sonata which ended in a flurried flourish of passagework. Even those who might be skeptical of the prospect of Bach translating well to mandolin would be hard pressed to dismiss Thile’s commitment and musicianship out of hand, as the performances at the 92nd Street Y and the Nonesuch recording well attest. 

 

Ever the tightrope walker, Thile offered for the audience to select his encore. Knowing his fondness for Radiohead, a number of songs from their catalog were shouted out. Thile decided to take on the challenge of playing one that he hadn’t done live before, “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi,” from the album In Rainbows. There was one caveat: an audience member had to share a screen-locked phone with the lyrics. With “Weird Fishes’” motoric riff, its tangy suspended harmonies, and a display of muted string percussion, Thile’s rendition resembled the energy of the original, while his voice navigated its sinuous melody, lyrics intact. As he quipped, “This has been a lot of mandolin,” to which the audience roared back in approval.

 

-Christian Carey



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
Classical Music, Commissions, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Microtonalism, Piano, Review

Georg Friedrich Haas’ 11,000 Strings At Park Avenue Armory

11,000 Strings at Park Ave Armory
“11,000 Strings” by Georg Friedrich Haas at Park Ave Armory in NYC (credit: Stephanie Berger)

At first glance, it seems like a stunt: 50 pianos and pianists, plus 25 other instrumentalists, all arranged in a circle around the perimeter of the vast Drill Hall of the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. They were there to perform 11,000 Strings, a 66 minute composition by Georg Friedrich Haas, commissioned and performed by the Austrian new music ensemble Klangforum Wien. Performances began September 30 and run through October 7, 2025 (I attended on October 2).

At the onset, I was ready to condemn this work as B.S., a party trick, but it’s definitely more than that. Each of the 50 pianos were tuned differently from one another, in 50 steps of microtones. The carefully constructed piece began quietly, on a major chord. One would think it would be difficult to create dynamics any softer than forte, but this performance exhibited a great range of dynamic and timbral nuances.

Almost from the start I recognized that this was a visceral experience for me, similar to the way out-of-tune chords can sometimes invoke a queasy feeling. But this was not nausea. Instead, it was a pleasant vibration deep in my chest, bringing a sense of anticipation and occasionally excitement.

The overall aural effect was cinematic and evoked visual images like a swarm of cicadas, the spookiness of a horror film, mysterious anticipation and thunderous cacophony. As the piece wore on, I caught a glimpse of the digital readout in front of one of the pianists: 21:38. I was discouraged to realize that it indicated 21 minutes elapsed, therefore 45 more to go. At that moment, I was ready for a coda, a fermata and a big finish.

The fact that the Armory could create so much buzz around this avant-garde novelty piece and attract thousands to come experience it is impressive. It does seem like a lot of effort for an hour of music. You won’t leave the venue humming a tune, that’s for sure. But the molecules in your body may be permanently rearranged.

by Gail Wein
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
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Concerts, File Under?, New York

Bell-Isserlis-Denk Trio and Friends

Photo: Michael Priest.

Bell-Isserlis-Denk Trio and Friends

Midsummer Musicfest at Kaufmann Concert Hall, 92nd Street Y

July 9, 2025

 

NEW YORK – July often finds New York-based musicians playing in summer festivals well outside the city. The 92nd Street Y’s Midsummer MusicFest enticed a small handful of luminaries back to town to play chamber music at the venue’s Kaufmann Concert Hall. Violinist Joshua Bell, cellist Steven Isserlis, and pianist Jeremy Denk have joined forces before, but not for a while in New York. In 2024, to commemorate the one hundredth year of his passing, they toured programs of music by the French composer Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924). They revisited these works at the Y on Wednesday, July 9 and Saturday, July 12. 

 

As Isserlis pointed out in remarks from the stage, Fauré isn’t usually mentioned in the same breath as Debussy and Ravel, but he probably should be. The likely reason is that relatively little of his music was large-scale, and of these only the orchestral arrangement of the Pavane and the Requiem are regularly programmed. On the other hand, his songs and chamber music are a rich repertoire demonstrating abundant compositional gifts; memorable melodies, vivid harmonies, and consummate craftsmanship. Isserlis’s case for Fauré was eloquent, and the playing by the trio, joined by violinist Irène Duval and violist Blythe Teh Engstroem, even more so. 

 

One of the most challenging aspects of playing Fauré’s music is the issue of tempo, namely how much rubato one should use. Reports of the composer’s frequent performances as a pianist suggest that he preferred steady tempos, with flexibility where indicated, seldom admitting extravagances. This became even more true in his late performances, where profound hearing loss meant that coordination with collaborators became all the more important. 

 

In their renditions of the Violin Sonata No. 1 in A Major, Opus 13, Bell and Denk proved that one can be amply expressive without excessive rubato. Their version of the sonata presented its many beautiful tunes and intricate phrasing with both detailed attention and luminous warmth. Its soaring first theme is tempting to exaggerate in the aforementioned manner. Bell instead played expressively, never overdoing it. The audience at the Y couldn’t restrain themselves from bursting into applause after the conclusion of the first movement, enthusiasm trumping any worries about a faux pas. Fauré was ambidextrous, and even when they are not virtuosic, his piano parts can prove challenging. Denk enjoys a good challenge, and he inhabits Fauré’s music with estimable suavity. The sense of ensemble reminded one that these are avid chamber musicians who, by long association, are attuned to one another with razor focus. The second and third movements were no less impressive, and the applause after the entire work’s conclusion was no less resounding. 

 

Isserlis joined Denk for a duo version of the Barcarolle in F-sharp Minor, Opus 66. The cellist has performed Fauré’s Cello Sonata with Denk, but on this evening he contented himself with arrangements of some of the composer’s best-loved piano pieces, their melodies underscored by the addition of cello. In the second half, he also performed the Sicilienne, Opus 78, and Berceuse, Opus 16. The pieces recast in this way underscore memorable melodies, and elsewhere resonant bass notes are doubled and thereby amplified. Denk made sure that the piano, despite inherently different attack and decay profiles from the cello, was in sync with the string instrument, making for a beautiful blended sound. 

Photo: Michael Priest.

Duval and Teh Engstroem performed with the trio in the Piano Quintet No. 1 in D minor, Opus 89. The resulting group had a simpatico interaction, its opening allegro movement’s interlacing lines being given particular attention, and throughout a buoyant sense of phrasing. D minor is often used in funereal contexts, the Mozart Requiem and Bach’s D minor Toccata for solo violin to name two. Even in its lyrical slow movement, Fauré’s Piano Quintet never seems to plumb dolorous depths. Instead, the piece feels like a dramatic journey that seldom loses hope for a destination. The concluding third movement was an ample payoff. Instead of ending in minor, it is in D major, with its main theme principally scalar in design. There are little modal inflections around the edges, imparting an impressionist ambience. The performance itself was effusive and unerring, with pinpoint execution of complexly overlapping entrances, thoughtfully nuanced dynamics, and rousing tutti passages. Its close was triumphal in character.

 

There may not be many hits among Fauré’s orchestral works, but the quintet is chamber music writ large. It is an ambitious piece cast in three sizable movements that clocks in at around a half hour in duration. The composer took great pains to create the version that audiences hear today, starting it around 1887 and taking nearly twenty years to finalize the score. He wrote a second in C minor, completed in 1921, and they both have set a high standard for the genre. The Y’s Midsummer Musicfest fete of Fauré did well by him, and one hopes that it doesn’t take an anniversary year for further championing of this fine composer. 

 

  • Christian Carey
by Christian Carey
Canada, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, New York

Preview: Pianists Adam Sherkin and Anthony de Mare: “Composers in Play XV”

Pianists Adam Sherkin and Anthony de Mare (courtesy of the artists)

The Canadian pianist/composer Adam Sherkin shares music from his home country on an extensive program at Merkin Hall in New York on March 15, 2025. “Composers in Play XV” is presented by Piano Lunaire, an organization launched by Sherkin and his colleagues in 2018. On this occasion he joins forces with the American pianist Anthony de Mare.

Together the two perform music by (mostly) living Canadian composers for one and two pianos.

Each of the performers has connections with some of the creators. In Sherkin’s case it is himself as the composer of Ink from the Shield for two pianos, which has its world premiere performance this program. De Mare has a 30+ year friendship with Rodney Sharman, and was one of the people who encouraged the composer to write a series of “Opera Transcriptions,” three of which are on this program.

The composers represent a geographical cross section of Canada: Vivian Fung hails from Edmonton; Ann Southam (the sole non-living composer on this program) was from Winnipeg; Kelly Marie-Murphy from Calgary, and Linda Catlin Smith and Sherkin from Toronto.

by Gail Wein
Cello, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, New York, Orchestras

Sphinx Virtuosi and New York Philharmonic Play Black American Composers

Cellist Seth Parker Woods with New York Philharmonic, Thomas Wilkins conducting. Music by Nathalie Joachim on October 17, 2024 (credit: Chris Lee)

Black American composers dominated the programming at two of New York City’s major institutions last week — a 180° turn from the typical fare of Dead White Men at most orchestral concerts.

On Wednesday, October 16, Carnegie Hall presented Sphinx Virtuosi — the flagship ensemble of the Sphinx Organization, an organization whose mission it is to encourage careers of Black and Latino classical musicians and arts administrators. Thursday at Lincoln Center’s Geffen Hall was New York Philharmonic’s program “Exploring Afromodernism” — a program which was repeated on Friday. Both concerts featured outstanding and committed performances of mainly 21st century classical works.

Sphinx Virtuosi at Carnegie Hall on October 16, 2024 (credit Brian Hatton)

Sphinx Virtuosi is a conductorless chamber orchestra of 18 Black and Latino string players. It can be hard to pull off cohesive performances without a conductor, but it was immediately apparent that this ensemble was up to the task. The concert began with a reworking of Scott Joplin’s overture to his opera Treemonisha, arranged by Jannina Norpoth. The work infused classical gestures with blues, gospel and a bit of ragtime. The most effective and exciting selection was the world premiere of Double Down, Invention No. 1 for Two Violins by Curtis Stewart, performed by Njioma Chinyere Grievous and Tai Murray. It was a brilliant display of virtuosity from both violinists, playing off one another in a keen game of counterpoint which included a fiery display of fiddling as well as percussive foot-stomping. The audience roared its approval with a lengthy standing ovation. Stewart’s other work on the program was the New York premiere of Drill (co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Sphinx Virtuosi and New World Symphony). Percussionist Josh Jones, a member of the ensemble, was the soloist. It was a wild piece with frenetic drumming countered by subtle moments of gentle trills on wood blocks. All in all, it was a roiling cluster of excitement.

Music by Derrick Skye, Levi Taylor and the 19th century Venezuelan-American Teresa Careña, rounded out the brief program, which included a five-minute promotional film and comments by Sphinx Organization president Afa Dworkin.

The New York Philharmonic’s program was a wonderful display of a range of talents and generations conducted by Thomas Wilkins. It began with Carlos Simon’s Four Black American Dances, which impressed right away with the composer’s great orchestration. The rich first movement showcased the brilliant playing of every section of the Philharmonic, including a rollicking solo by concertmaster Sheryl Staples, who showed off her great artistry later in the work as well. After a somewhat schmaltzy second movement (“Waltz”) and predictably percussive third (“Tap!”), the final section (“Holy Dance”) began with a mystical aura which devolved into a loud and jaunty display.

The New York premiere of Nathalie Joachim’s concerto Had To Be, written for the cellist Seth Parker Woods began with an off-stage band replicating a New Orleans-style “second line.” After a smooth transition into a slow and lush passage by the orchestra on stage, the solo cellist had a lyrical soulful melody. The second movement, “Flare” launched with boisterous brass and percussion, which tended to drown out the strings. “With Grace,” the final movement, was beautifully emotional. Though the soloist wasn’t given an especially virtuosic part, Woods’ stage presence dominated throughout the work. Wilkins graceful conducting infused an appropriate amount of emotion into the performance.

David Baker’s Kosbro was intense from its very beginning, with driving rhythms, insistent timpani whacks, double-tongued brass and winds and angular melodies. Written in the 1970s, the work was an effective combination of jazz and classical styles.

William Grant Still’s gift for melody, harmony and orchestration made me wonder why this particular work – Symphony No. 4, Autochthonous, (the subtitle refers to indigenous people) isn’t programmed more often. Still’s superb orchestra writing balanced winds and strings in a dialogue which Wilkins navigated beautifully, each exchange infused with profound meaning.

Beyond the demographics of the composers, a similarity on both of these programs was that each of the works by the living composers was an olio of styles. In each case, the creators sought to include a variety of folk, pop, jazz and other cultural idioms in a single composition. It may be unfair to generalize, because the selections were undoubtedly programmatic decisions. I promise not to make a broad generalization until I hear more music from each of these composers, which I am eager to do.

With regard to the focus of these two concerts, I am going to say something very unpopular: Nobody is proclaiming that there aren’t enough White rappers or that Anglos aren’t well enough represented in, say, Latin jazz or conjunto music. And yet in recent years there has been great emphasis on striving for diversity in classical music. I’m not saying we shouldn’t work very hard to be inclusive of all Americans — or of all peoples in general for that matter — to be a part of this art form, this culture. I’m wondering aloud why it seems especially crucial in classical music.

Let’s discuss.

Be that as it may, the Sphinx Organization has been a leader in encouraging careers and celebrating people of color in classical music for over 25 years. They have done an admirable — nay amazing — job, welcoming hundreds of young musicians into the art form, creating role models for future generations, and creating an environment in which it is not only comfortable, but encouraging for young musicians to get involved and excel in the field.

by Gail Wein
Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Louis Karchin A Retrospective at Merkin Hall (concert review)

Louis Karchin: A Retrospective

Merkin Concert Hall

September 22, 2024

NEW YORK – Composer Louis Karchin has been prolific, even during the pandemic years. In a program at Merkin Concert Hall of chamber works and songs composed between 2018 and 2024, he was abetted by some of New York’s go-to new music performers, who acquitted themselves admirably throughout. 

All photos: Julie Karchin.

Stephen Drury is an abundantly talented pianist. But even with a repertoire list as lengthy and challenging as Drury’s, Sonata-Fantasia (2020, New York Premiere) is an imposing addition. The piece is in four large sections combined into a single movement, with elements such as chromatic and bitonal harmonies, chains of angular gestures, trills, and thrumming bass notes appearing frequently. One of the distinctive techniques employed pits a middle register chord repeated against impressionist sounding arpeggios cascaded above and below it. Apart from the meditative third section, sprightly virtuosity ruled the day. 

Two Sacred Songs (2018, World Premiere) were workshopped via Zoom during the pandemic. Soprano Marisa Karchin and pianist Steven Beck performed these settings of George Herbert, a seventeenth century poet and Anglican priest. The soprano has radiant top notes, clear diction, and a sure sense of phrasing. “Denial” requires all of these characteristics, its wide vocal range matching the various emotions on display in the poem. Beck is a versatile pianist, who matched Marisa Karchin’s attention to the intricacies of the texts and provided vivid accompaniment. The two were a powerful pair when demonstrating the intensity of “The Storm.” 

Beck frequently plays with instrumentalists too, and he performed Sonata quasi un Capriccio (2023, world premiere) with violinist Miranda Cuckson, a longtime collaborator of Karchin’s. This association benefited both piece and performance, as the composer knows how reliable Cuckson is, even in stratospheric altissimo lines. Sonata quasi un Capriccio is a white-hot piece filled with dramatic flair. It closed the first half.

The second half was also a mix of vocal and chamber music. The poet Steven Withrow heard Karchin’s music and was impressed. He approached the composer and suggested providing two texts based on paintings – San Vigilio: A Boat with a Golden Sail by John Singer Sargent and I And the Village by Marc Chagall – for Karchin to set as art songs, the result being Compositions on Canvas (2021, World Premiere). Soprano Alice Teyssier, joined by Beck, clearly reveled in the detailed texts, the first describing Sargent’s relationship to Italian patrons, the second detailing a virtual menagerie of animals found in Chagall’s painting. Karchin’s songs supply many coloristic shifts, dynamic gradations, and widely spaced gestures to encompass the imagery found in Withrow’s words. Teyssier navigated these handily, and Beck’s accompaniment glistened persuasively, particularly in the impressionist-simulating arpeggiations.

 

The concert concluded with a substantial work that, while maintaining Karchin’s musical language, provides a few hat tips to the concert tradition. Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano (2019) was performed by the Horszowski Trio: Jesse Mills, violin; Ole Akahoshi, cello; and Rieko Aizawa, piano. Cast in three movements that run over twenty-five minutes, its first movement is marked Allegro con spirito and in sonata form. It begins with a mercurial upward arpeggio in the piano that references the opening gesture of Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet. This is quickly countered by descending sixteenths. Gradually, lines compact into whorls of stacked thirds and seconds with trills adding zest. The presence of ascent is underscored by upward leaps in a subordinate theme in the cello. The tempo of the development shifts three times, slower and then quicker, with a misterioso section deconstructing the constituent themes. A recapitulation embellishes the material with even more scalar sixteenths, building in intensity until it closes with a forceful, registrally duplicated major third. 

 

The second movement, marked Lento, begins with thirty-second note pile-ups and octave bass notes in the piano undergirding a sustained violin solo. A tremolando duet between the strings is succeeded by sul ponticello playing. The cello and piano imitate the violin’s sustained tune in canon against pulsating piano left hand octaves. A slow chain of rising, alternating intervals unveils a gradual reference to the first movement. Silvery piano arpeggiations and long chromatic ascent in the piano accompany the theme in several string variations. 

 

The final movement, marked Vivace, begins with sustained low F octaves in the piano and a low F tremolando in the cello. The latter instrument adds short trills to abet a triplet-filled motive in the violin. These are succeeded by angular imitation in all three instruments, with the conflict between ascending and descending permutations of similar lines being restored. Pizzicato and trills in the strings are next set against the triplet passages in the piano, the variations in instrumentation opening a potent development section. Eventually, arpeggiations of seconds and fourths succeed the added note triads, and eighth note triplets once again propel the violin. A series of descending sustained bass notes in the piano are set against quarter note triplets in the strings, effectively stretching out the prior thematic material. This is followed by a kaleidoscopic reframing of all the motives from the third movement. The coda has a compound feeling, with quarter note and eighth note triplets overlaid and a fortissimo Bb major chord to conclude. 

 

One of Karchin’s gifts as a composer is the ability to employ a relatively consistent musical language to a number of expressive ends. The variety of the program at Merkin Hall was impressive, as was the high quality of all of the music. One hopes that recordings of these pieces will soon be forthcoming.

-Christian Carey 

 

by Christian Carey
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Events, Music Events, New York, News, Premieres

Tonight: New York Premiere by Christian Carey

Tonight, the Locrian Chamber Players gives the New York premiere of Quintet 2 by Christian B. Carey.

Sequenza 21 readers know Carey very well through his insightful reviews of concerts and recordings in this publication. He is also a superb composer with a lengthy catalogue of varied works.

Christian B. Carey

Quintet 2 is scored for oboe, clarinet, violin, cello and piano, and Carey wrote it for the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, who commissioned it and premiered it in 2016. In his program note, Carey writes that much of his music – including this work – is based on the idea of labyrinthine structuring. “Quintet 2 deals with a spectrum of harmonic shadings, from triads to microtonal verticals with a great deal expressed in between. Likewise, the short melody at the beginning is offset by long passages of linear counterpoint. A number of rhythmic layers corruscate to create overlapping and frequently syncopated gestures.”

You can listen and follow along with the score on this YouTube recording.

Also on the program, music by Augusta Read Thomas, Oliver Knusson, Jeremy Beck, Jonathan Newman and the world premiere of “I Like Chocolate Ice Cream” by David Macdonald (me too, says the writer).

Performance Details:

August 15, 2024, 8 pm

Locrian Chamber Players

Music from the Past Decade

Riverside Church

490 Riverside Drive, NY NY

Admission is free. A reception will follow.

Performers include:  Calvin Wiersma and Conrad Harris, violins; Daniel Panner, viola; Chris Gross and Peter Seidenberg, cellos; Huan-Fong Chen, oboe; Benjamin Fingland, clarinet; Jonathan Faiman, piano; Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek, mezzo-soprano

by Gail Wein