Concerts

Click Picks, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Online

An Other Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Other MindsLazy, hazy summer days… Not much really happening, unless you hoof it to some festival or other… Or, for the price of simply wearing out your finger clicking, you could spend the better part of the next couple weeks feasting on the treasure trove that is the Other Minds website.

Founded in 1993 by Jim Newman and Charles Amirkhanian, the Other Minds Festival has become a San Francisco Bay-area institution, supporting the exposure for and exchange between a vast array of new-music and musicians important these last twenty-plus years, on or off the beaten path. The festival doesn’t simply rely on the concert-hall, but spreads to initmate, open places where the audience and artists can truly feel free to interact. 

More significant for us, early on Other Minds realized the value of the web for not just presenting but also archiving and sharing the music and ideas that flowed from the festival. They began to offer snippets, then entire concerts, from all of the festivals; added special articles and tributes to important musicians; and now even sell their own CDs, videos and books. I should also mention sometime-S21-visitor Richard Friedman’s related “Music from Other Minds” bay-area radio program, which also streams each broadcast and is linked at the OM site. There’s lots of news on their homepage, too, making well worth becoming one of your regular bookmarks.

It’s futile for me to even attempt to list all of the wonderful musicians documented at the site; so just go, see, hear, listen and learn. What else were you doing with your summer anyway? Maybe it’ll even get you thinking about how you can make it to next year’s festival…

by Steve Layton
Broadcast, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals

More from the Proms–first performances of Berkeley, MacRae, and Hillborg

The Prom Concert on August 10, given by the BBC Symphony, conducted by Edward Gardner, included two first performances, both of them commissioned by the BBC for this season of the Proms.  These were among the 13 first performances and 7 UK first performances on the Proms this season.

Michael BerkeleyMichael Berkeley’s Slow Dawn is a revision and reorchestration of a work written three years ago for wind band, which had been commissioned by the British conductor and horn player Tim Reynish as a memorial piece for his son William.   Berkeley intended it as a depiction of dawn in Wales where he lives, and follows the deliberate and inexorable tread of the sun from the first hints of light through its early appearance with to its full presence with stabbing rays of daylight.   This sunrise is a long way from Daphnis and Chloe (or, for that matter, from Sibelius’s Night Ride and Sunrise, which preceded this piece on this program).  Here the focus is on the tread of ‘the kind old sun’ (as Berkeley says, quoting Wilfred Owen) in its endless recurrence and its complete disregard for more transient human concerns. Starting with deliberate slow dirge rhythm in the percussion, which recurs periodically over the its course, the tonalish work builds, via lines which are increasingly quicker and more agitated, over a dense, very closely spaced harmonic texture to a violently rhythmic climax; it leaves a dramatic and satisfying impression.

Stuart MacRaeGaudete by Scottish composer Stuart MacRae is an almost half hour long piece for soprano and large orchestra, setting poems from the book of the same name by Ted Hughes.   The piece begins with very arresting ferociously clattering music for the full orchestra which gradually clears to reveal the soprano singing stratospherically high without words.   All of this is very effective and it all lands with something of a thud as soon as attention is turned to words, when the voice part, along with everything else, becomes labored and constricted, in terms of both rhythm and tempo.

This actually seemed to me to set the pattern for the piece, with instrumental music in what might be described as a high modernist style, managed in a very dramatically effective and masterly way, is cut short and undercut by vocal writing which is much less skillful, much less effective, and as a result, tends to come off much more as merely dealing in cliches of that same high modernist style, with endless jagged lines covering enormous registral stretches in jerky rhythms.  At one point, when the text says “He never stops trying to dance, trying to sing,” when the singer launches into long melissmas of a sort of new music yodelling, one could imagine that the idea was to depict the failed effort described by the words, but the music is so much like all the rest of the voice part that it’s not possible to be completely sure whether that might be the composer’s intentions.   It wasn’t clear to me exactly what the subject matter of the Hughes, as represented by the texts used or as discussed at some length in MacRae’s program notes, might be (and further rereading after the fact didn’t make things any clearer).

As the piece progressed I began to wish that MacRae had simply written a completely instrumental piece, somewhat shorter, that evoked whatever it was we were supposed to get out of the texts, and left the words out altogether.   Had he done that, and had that meant leaving out the soprano (as opposed to having a wordless voice part, which could have been very effective), on the other hand, it would have been a loss, since it would have meant not having heard the really wonderful singing of Susanne Andersson, who always sang beautifully, and managed to make practically all the words comprehensible, despite all the obstacles MacRae had put in her path. (more…)

by Rodney Lister
Chamber Music, Click Picks, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, San Francisco

What Will $5 Get You in San Francisco?

Sure, a short latte, or a couple humbows & a coke… Or, just about any couple weeks through this year, that or even less will get you into any of a slew of great concerts in the sfSound series. Beginning tomorrow (!), when you can hear Steve Reich’s Four Organs (1970), Giacinto Scelsi’s Kya (1959), Salvatore Sciarrino’s Muro d’orizzonte (1997), Tom Dambly performing Mauricio Kagel’s Atem (1970) for trumpet and tape, violist Alexa Beattie performing Alan Hilario’s kibô (1997), and a new collaboratively-created piece by sfSoundGroup, directed by Matt Ingalls.

The sfSound Group consists of a central core (currently David Bithell – trumpet; Kyle Bruckmann – oboe; George Cremaschi – bass; Matt Ingalls – clarinet; John Ingle – saxophone; Christopher Jones – piano, conductor; Monica Scott – cello; Erik Ulman – violin) augmented by a whole constellation of Bay-Area-and-beyond collaborators. Together they put on a stellar (constellation-stellar… cute, huh?) series of concerts; some upcoming shows include:

  • A sampling of theatrical compositions from the 1960’s San Francisco Tape Music Center by Pauline Oliveros, Morton Subotnick, Ramon Sender, Robert Moran and others; plus Brian Ferneyhough’s In nomine a 3, Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Intercommunicazione, Chris Burns’s Double Negative, and the premiere of a new work written for sfSound by local composer Erik Ulman.
  • Toyoji Tomita Memorial Concert (wonderful trombonist and sfSound collaborator who died this year) – work(s) by John Cage, improvisations, and more.
  • Morton Feldman’s 80+ minute composition For John Cage (1982), performed by violinist Graeme Jennings and pianist Christopher Jones.
  • sfSound’s saxophonist John Ingle in a recital of new solo and ensemble compositions, improvisations, and a concerto by local composer Josh Levine; plus, NYC-based percussion duo Hunter-Gatherer (Russell Greenberg and Ian Antonio) perform the West Coast premiere of a new work by David Lang, David Bithell’s Whistle From Above for percussion and robotics, and Gérard Grisey’s Stele for 2 bass drums.

Details & dates for all these and many more are listed on their series webpage. So spend that pocket change where it counts…

by Steve Layton
Concerts, S21 Concert, Scores

Deadline Approaching for S21 Concert Submissions

Hi everybody. Just a quick reminder that the deadline for score submissions for consideration in the upcoming Sequenza21 concert is fast approaching. All submissions must be postmarked by July 16th. Here‘s a link to the original posting of the guidelines and its comments thread. To submit scores, get David Salvage’s e-mail address from the masthead and send him a message. He’ll give you a mailing address and answer any questions.

As a quick reminder, the performances will be on December 4th at the Walz Astoria Cafe in Queens and on the 5th at the Good Shepherd Church in Manhattan. This concert is a collaborative effort with our friends the fabulous Lost Dog New Music Ensemble.

by Galen H. Brown
Click Picks, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

PBE/LA/OC

Paul Bailey EnsembleThe Paul Bailey Ensemble is a self-described “alternative / classical garage band” busy these last few years in and around Los Angeles. Though Bailey (The bulky but sharp-looking fella in the center of the photo, surrounded by some of the PBE posse) gets naming rights and creates a large amount of the featured music, the ensemble performs works by a number of other like-minded composers, too — most living, a few dead guys as well. That “like-mind” is post-minimal, with equal parts 1980s minimalism, 1680s Purcell, and heavy doses of the rock-band riff factor (though there’s usually no drumkit in the ensemble, there’s almost always electric bass and guitar).

The way Bailey tells it, he’s …had an eclectic musical career since moving to Los Angeles from Wichita, Kansas in 1989. A trained classical and jazz trombonist, he started his career as a staff musician at Disneyland. In 1995, he resurrected the music program at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles. During his tenure, the band won numerous awards and was recognized as one of the most outstanding music programs in the city of Los Angeles. He is now adjunct Professor of Music Education and Music Theory at California State University, Fullerton.

In 2005 Rex Reason interviewed Paul for the OC Weekly, and I can’t think of a better way to explain Bailey and his ensemble, than in few more of his own words:

OC Weekly : So you left Kansas to become a professional musician in California, and you ended up . . . at Disney. How was that?

Paul Bailey: It’s Disney. Anything anyone else has said? It’s true. I was trained to be a musician, I practiced very hard, and I got there, and I basically had to make farting noises on my trombone and play show tunes. At Disney, you don’t have a choice. We played the same 12 songs for four years.

OCW: Is that what drove you to become a teacher?

PB: Being a teacher is the only way I can be a composer and a musician and not have my soul taken out of me. Being paid to play trombone or being paid to write music, I have to worry about who’s going to pay me next. Now, in a sense, I have no filter. I can write whatever I want. It can be shitty, but at least it’s what I want.

OCW: So explain why you want to do what you do.

PB: I’m 36. Are people my age supposed to listen to pop music their whole lives? The whole music industry is set up to please a 17-year-old kid. I don’t mind listening to that stuff, but am I supposed to live my life through the eyes of a 17-year-old child?

OCW: But you told me earlier how much you like Weezer.

PB: I love Weezer. They’re one of my favorite bands, but it would be false of me to write pop songs or rock songs. Is rock and pop music the only way you can express yourself in today’s culture? If I had drums, we’d be a rock band. Right now, it’s very deliberate—I’m not a rock band, although I use rock instruments

OCW: So is this something closer to an orchestra?

PB: Fuck the orchestra. Let’s burn that puppy down and start over. The orchestra’s proper place is the museum. The idea you’re getting some cultural experience that’s going to make your life better and it’s going to expand your mind is total bullshit.

OCW: Then how do you reconcile the two forms?

PB: There’s the technical aspect where I can say, academically, we’re not modernist music. We believe in stuff that has the same chords as Weezer, the Beatles or Radiohead. I’m choosing to deal with music I grew up with and that interests me. But I don’t want to make people go through all these things to decide whether they like it or not. In this big piece I wrote, there might be a message, but the actual music takes very little to understand. You don’t need to listen to Michael Nyman or Steve Reich or Phillip Glass to listen to my music—although it’s based on them. You don’t need to have 20 years of musical history in your mind to listen to stuff I write.

The PBE website has more info, and lots of music to hear, watch, and purchase, so go/do/hear/buy. Their next performance is as part of the line-up for RealMusic 2008, kicking off at 7pm June 21st at Whittier College (on the way from LA to the big OC, yo…). Also on the bill are plenty of other like- and unlike-minds, like Steve Moshier’s Liquid Skin Ensemble, John Marr/Brother Mallard, Susan Asbjornson, Brian Kehlenbach and Melody Versoza. All this for not more than a ten and a little gas money, what could be better?

by Steve Layton
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Mini-Reconquista

Wilfrido Terrazas, phenomenal flautist and busy-busy beaver in the Mexican new-music scene, just passed along notice about a fantastic series of concerts coming up the start of next month in NYC.

3G: Tres Generaciones Music Festival May 2–7

The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) hosts a celebration of composer Julio Estrada and three generations of New Music from Mexico. This May 2–7, ICE invites New Yorkers to partake in a trailblazing cultural exchange when it hosts this six-day celebration of avant-garde music from Mexico. The Festival will showcase the work of three generations of Mexican composers: esteemed musical pioneer Julio Estrada; the second generation, his celebrated mid-career students Germán Romero and Ignacio Baca Lobera; and 10 up-and-coming composers, all of whom have studied with or have been influenced by the three masters.

The up-and-comers include Marisol Jiménez, Víctor Ibarra, Iván Naranjo, Hiram Navarrete, Mauricio Rodríguez, Juan José Barcenas, José Luis Hurtado, Edgar Guzmán, Víctor Adán, Sandra Lemus, Wilfrido Terrazas; most I’ve heard and can tell you they’re an exciting and creative bunch.

Visit the ICE website for full concert details. All but one of the four concerts are free, to boot, so money can’t be your excuse. This is going to be good, got it?

by Steve Layton
Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Living Composers Wanted

Okay, listen up. This is important. The American Music Center (AMC) and American Composers Forum (ACF) have teamed up with Columbia University’s Research Center for Arts and Culture to conduct the first major study of living composers. Since many Sequenza21 readers are, in fact, living and do write music, that means you. The study, they say, aims to gather important data to guide their efforts in better serving and advocating for composers of all styles and backgrounds.

If you are a composer, you can be a part of this important research by filling out the online survey at the link below. Should take about 20 minutes of your time. Says here that your participation will broaden the study’s reach and provide a better understanding of current trends in the field. Hie thee thither (but wait until about 2 pm eastern because that’s when the link goes live. )

The link is here.

by Jerry Bowles
Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Free as a Bird in Spring

Rice UniversityWhen you’re in a town with a good university or two, spring always brings a sudden flood of concerts and recitals, almost all of them free. It’s kind of like having a mini-festival, chock-a-block full of tasty morsels. Down here in Houston, Rice University is my main music fix (the University of Houston is no slouch, either, but I’m being picky), and April has a number of excellent-sounding concerts with newer music (and yes, that’s just what the weather looks like down here right about now):

April 10th, 8pm, Stude Concert Hall – the Shepherd School of Music’s Percussion Ensemble takes on Steve Reich’s Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices, and Organ. Also worth experiencing on the bill is Arthur Gottschalk’s The Consecration of the Fatted Calf, for 16 timpani.

April 13th, 8:30pm, Hirsch Orchestra Recital Hall: Composer Elliot Cole offers his senior recital, with works for double string quartet, clavichord, jazz piano trio, and electronics. I’ve heard this young guy’s work, and like it quite a bit.

April 14th, 7:30pm, Hirsch ORH: Percussionist Grant Beiner gives his master’s recital, with works by Xenakis, Cage and Veldhuis.

April 21st, 7pm/April 22nd, 8pm, Wortham Opera Theater: Rice’s REMLABS (the electronic music school) sponsors two concerts: April 21st is “Hecho en Mexico“, a program of electroacoustic music by composers who reside or study in Mexico; the next night it’s the turn of all the local Rice composers to share their creations.

April 23rd, 8pm, Stude Concert Hall: the Shepherd Chamber Orchestra takes on Olivier Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques, with Brian Connelly the piano soloist.

April 25th, 8pm, Stude Concert Hall: The Shepherd Symphony and Rice Choral get together to give Stravinsky’s always-stunning Symphony of Psalms, then finish up with Mahler’s 4th Symphony.

I’m not even counting the couple dozen other recitals, with quite nice, though more traditional, fare. All that music, without spending a dime on admission — what could be better?…

If that weren’t enough, I should mention that happening right in the middle of all that, the Pacifica Quartet hits town to give us their cycle of all five Elliott Carter Quartets. On Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 3:00 PM there’s a free concert in The Menil Collection’s fantastically weird Cy Twombly Gallery (Temple? Mausoleum?), featuring Carter’s String Quartet No. 1. (Reservations are required; call 713-524-5050). Monday, April 14, 2008 at 7:30 PM, the event continues with Carter’s String Quartets Numbers 2 and 3 and Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110.  On Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 7:30 PM, the program is Carter’s String Quartets Numbers 4 and 5 and Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111. (These last two concerts you’ve got to pay for,  but it’s all still quite a deal.)

Of course, many of you know of similar treats happening the next couple months in your own neck of the woods; feel free to mention anything worthwhile in the comments.

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

Incredible Isn’t Even Close…

 

Already mentioned at Bruce Hodges’ Monotonous Forest, and soon should be buzzing all over the new-music web, but this is so absolutely inspired and well-executed that I just have to help spread it around even more: Virgil Moorefield (who was one of my click picks here not so long ago) recently directed the Digital Music Ensemble at the University of Michigan in a miniature version of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s already-audacious Helikopter-Streichquartett. To me this version is every bit as audacious as the original, subversive and absolutely respectful at the same moment… And both visually and aurally stunning, to boot. There are two Quicktime files at the page linked above; the “lo-fi” seems to be just audio, but the “hi-fi” has the full video presentation as well, and is well worth the download.

by Steve Layton
Click Picks, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Frankly, Psappha

Psappha(OK, OK I know, the puns don’t come any worse than that…) No F.Z. music, but rather a reminder that The excellent U.K. ensemble Psappha (with help from Lancaster University and the BBC Singers) is in the middle of a great webcast series. You can watch and listen already to any of the pieces from the first two concerts, the third concert available March 31st.

Webcast #1 includes Larry Goves’ Four Letter Words, Gyorgy Kurtag’s Signs, Games and Messages and Scenes from a Novel, and Gyorgy Ligeti’s Aventures & Nouvelles Aventures. Webcast #2 is all Claude Vivier: his Et je reverrai cette ville etrange, Shiraz, Glaubst du an die Unsterblichkeit der Seele? and Journal. The final webcast offers Gordon McPherson’s Celeste Unborne, Edward Cowie’s Psappha Portraits, and Steven Mackey’s Five Animated Shorts.

by Steve Layton