The composer Jorge Liderman died Sunday morning after reportedly jumping in front of an oncoming BART train in the Berkeley, CA area. I had initially heard of him after coming across his name on a bulletin board in the early 80’s at the U of Chicago, and when I saw the news item about his untimely death at the age of 50, it caught my attention. Of Argentine descent, Liderman was being increasingly performed, although I regret that I actually never have heard a note of his music. The circumstances of his death are currently under investigation. (Update: a newer and fuller article from the San Francisco Chronicle.)
Amazingly enough, there’s still some people who have never been to New York City…and until yesterday, I could count myself as a member of that group. This weekend, however, I finally got an opportunity to leave my post in Western NY and fly down to NYC, ostensibly to attend a NYSSMA Composition Committee meeting, but also to finally see what all the noise about the music scene was about. Lucky for me, this was a good weekend for concerts – I was able to catch two top-notch ones in the span of less than 24 hours.
I’ve been reading a lot of good reports on the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the work that Michael Christie has done since he took over after Robert Spano left three years ago, and after Saturday night I can now see why. He took the audience in the Howard Gilman Opera House at the Brooklyn Academy of Music through a pretty wild ride, one that traversed almost 200 years in history but was connected through the overall concept of color and narrative.
The first half consisted of John Corigliano’s Pied Piper Fantasy that featured a wonderful performance by flutist Alexa Still (imagine not only memorizing a 40-min. concerto but also having to move and act throughout the entire auditorium while you’re doing it!) as well as a very inventive staging by David Herskovits which included multitudes of actor-rats (complete with LED eyes) and throngs of costumed children – all of whom were also playing flutes and drums and playing by memory. The logistics alone – not to mention the actual performance aspects, which were many – must have been mindboggling and it’s to Christie’s credit that he took the risk to perform the work in such a way. The performance was passionate and nuanced and the visual aspects of the acting and lighting design added a extremely visceral layer to the work that the composer himself had not imagined when he wrote it.
The second half was taken up with Symphonie Fantastique; while it was a satisfying performance, it seemed to slightly suffer from balance issues, including the audio enhancement microphones that, I’m assuming, were put up to compensate for the acoustics onstage. By contrasting two masters of orchestration and story-telling – John Corigliano and Hector Berlioz – Christie impressed me with his programming skills; Berlioz was the first composer to really let the orchestration genie out of the bottle and no one in the past 25 years is more expert in evoking the color variations within the orchestra than Corigliano. My only regret was that I had to miss the post-concert concert in the BAM Cafe that featured Nico Muhly, Jefferson Friedman and Mason Bates…I had already made dinner plans with the tubist and principal trumpeter with the Brooklyn Phil (Ray Stewart and Wayne Dumaine) and who am I to turn down dinner with brass players like that?
Today’s concert was equally enjoyable, with a star-studded audience to boot. My luck was still with me as I was able to get up to Manhattan and the Tenri Cultural Institute to check out Robert Paterson’s American Modern Ensemble. Entitled 1938, the program took the unique concept of featuring six works by six world-class American composers, all of whom happened to be born in 1938 (and, of course, all will be celebrating their 70th birthday this year). Not only did AME program works by Corigliano, Joan Tower, Paul Chihara, Charles Wuorinen, John Harbison and William Bolcom, but they were adept enough to secure everyone but Bolcom to attend one of their two concerts on Sunday. Needless to say, it was an enjoyable people-watching session with Corigliano, Tower, Chihara and Wuorinen were idly chatting with each other along with Steven Stucky…I noticed several other composers including Derek Bermel and Dalit Warshaw as well…point being is that it was interesting for someone who has never been to a NYC concert to see so many well-known composers at just one relatively intimate chamber concert.
Paterson has put together a damn fine group of performers, with kudos going to cellists Robert Burkhart and Eric Jacobsen, harpist Jacqueline Kerrod, baritone Robert Gardner and serious, serious props going to Stephen Gosling and Blair McMillen, two pianists who have already gotten a lot of press and deservedly so – their performance of Corigliano’s Chiaroscurro was playful, intelligent, and so very…right. The works included Tower’s In Memory for string quartet, Wuorinen’s An Orbicle of Jasp for cello and piano, Chihara’s Elegy for violin, cello and piano, Bolcom’s Celestial Dinner Music for flute and harp in the first half and Corigliano’s Chiaroscurro for two pianos (one tuned a quarter-step flat) and John Harbison’s Words from “Paterson” for baritone and chamber ensemble filling out the second half. While all the works were performed at an very high level of maturity and subtlety, the second half seemed to feel a bit more comfortable and at ease…the intimacy of the Tenri Institute cut both ways, with some very soft parts in the first half sounding tentative (though in a larger, more forgiving room with more space between the audience and the ensembles I’m sure that wouldn’t be the case).
The interviews after intermission with Corigliano, Tower and Chihara were quite informative and entertaining, as all three listed their own ideas of what drastic changes over their lifetime have affected the industry (Corigliano mentioned the internet while both Tower and Chihara agreed that the freedom that composers now feel in regards to style) and their own writing (Tower listed living in South America and being married to a jazz musician, Corigliano explained how the AIDS crisis affected him and Chihara gave several ideas, including the Vietnam War and his own coming-to-terms with his life history).
Ultimately the entire concert was extremely successful and the folks at AME should be very proud of what they accomplished. As for my trip to NYC…something tells me it won’t be my last.
DAY
It’s been said (probably by Robert Craft) that Stravinsky was the last composer whose work could survive a one man recital. At yesterday’s performance of the complete Sequenzas at the Rose Theater, I heard that mantle happily passed by 14 brilliant advocates to Luciano Berio.
In his introductory remarks for yesterday’s performances composer & host Steven Stuckey said that when Berio wrote the Sequenza I for flute in 1958 he didn’t know that he was starting a dynasty. I wonder. By 1958 Berio was already fashioning an approach to composition consciously modeled, down to the smallest detail, on the working methods of 20th century literature’s most voracious and Faustian omnivore, James Joyce. And while Berio himself probably would not have cared much for the notion of “dynasty building”, I think it’s safe to say that he was happy to build and set in motion some very big wheels. Maybe dynasties are what they rolled over.
To push the metaphor a little further perhaps we could say that the Sequenzas, taken as a whole, constitute not a dynasty but a beautiful and (naturally) problematic invisible city. On this occasion each work was dazzlingly interpreted by members of the NYP and a cadre of ferociously gifted special guests. The complete cycle was presented in three highly illuminating groups of 5, 5 and 4, separated by two intermissions. Each segment started with concise & lucid remarks from Steven Stuckey. Each set of Sequenzas was concluded with the representative work for bowed string instrument, culminating in Eric Bartlett’s fearless and riveting performance of Sequenza 14 for cello, which fuses molten modernism with Sri Lankin drumming patterns.
The program opened authoritatively with Sequenza 3 for solo voice, brilliantly performed by Synergy Vocals leader Micaela Haslam. The piece is an all-or-nothing tour de force that Berio wrote for Cathy Berberian (the first of three formidable creative collaborators to whom he was married.) Probably no other work in Berio’s catalog boils down his Joycean obsession with sound-becoming-sense as quickly and concisely as Sequenza 3. The piece is the embodiment of the soul or spirit of all the other Sequenzas and can only come first and be performed with utter conviction (as it was here) in any setting where all the other Sequenzas are to be heard at one go.
Sequenza 3 gave Berio the idea of imbuing all the other Sequenzas with a layer (implied or explicit) of theatricality and Sequenza 5 for trombone was given the full cabaret clown work-up by Sachar Israel, complete with a red rubber nose & a movie-style “back story”. The piece was played with bravura humor & technique but the total effect came of as over worked.
The two most genuinely affecting moments of theater came from performers whose instruments are not normally associated with the gravitas & prestige of their cousins. William Schimmel’s performance of the Sequenza 13 (Chanson) for accordion was truly lovely on every level. He performed as if on a subway platform or in a park, not showily, but, his music balanced on his accordion case, with an air of understated humor, a sly wistfulness that conveyed a bemused understanding that he is creating great art even as he is likely being ignored by all who pass by. Berio takes full advantage of the accordion’s physicality, and one sees & hears the performer squeeze, stretch and bend Berio’s highly individual saturated harmonies, as if a full-blown orchestral work like Formazioni was literally being stuffed into a black box to be taken on a strange journey far from concert halls.
Martin Kuuskmann’s performance of Sequenza 12 for bassoon left me wondering why that instrument has not long since replaced the electric guitar in the bedroom’s of disaffected teenagers around the globe. Playing from memory and holding his instrument without the aid of a support strap he laid down a 22-minute industrial pipeline of sliding, distortion-laden multiphonics that gave me the vivid impression of a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo emerging from one of Anselm Kiefer’s collapsed concrete labyrinths. Using nothing but axe, air & embouchure Kuuskmann sent 40 years of guitar geekery back to the stone age.
Another outstanding contribution to the afternoon was Sherry Sylar’s playing of Sequenza 7 for oboe. Like Sequenza 13, Sequenza 7, even with the extreme technical demands it places on the performer, is one of the more elegiac and haunting of the series. In this work Berio stipulates that a B-natural be sustained just on the threshold of audibility throughout the performance by some external sound source, electronic or acoustic. The aural result should make it sound as if resonance from the oboe’s overtone structure was continuing between the attacks and releases of the notes actually played. Ms Sylar’s blending of her sound with the external sound was seamless & seemingly effortless throughout, beautifully “raising the temperature” of Berio’s long lines ever so slightly. The result captured the gently hallucinatory aura that has always struck me as an important aspect of Berio’s artistic persona.
And I’m very happy to write that the afternoon contained what for me was one of the all-time great moments of hearing Berio’s music played anywhere- Charles Rex’s incandescent rendering of Sequenza 8 for violin. Rex’s performance was a 13-minute taut cable of luminous, buzzing, flickering energy, alternately nervous & lyrical and ultimately profound & very beautiful. He found the perfect balance between Berio’s classical poise & expressionist heat and let me tell you, it was something.
NIGHT
The evening’s performance of Berio’s Sinfonia by the New York Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel at Avery Fisher Hall was a different affair all together. There is no doubt that the NYP makes an amazing, very assured sound, but I have to say that Maazel did not seem very engaged. The work didn’t catch fire and go supernova the way it did with the same vocal ensemble and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under David Robertson a couple years back. I don’t know if this is SOP or not, but Maazel did not do a lot of cueing and in fact very often used his left hand to simply grip the podium railing behind him while beating time with his right.
The first & second movements were securely but very cautiously executed, the first to the point of being under tempo. The orchestra was certainly “there” for Maazel. They just seemed a little under-utilized. The famous “Mahler Movement” grabbed both conductor & orchestra at certain points, although this may have been due as much to the fact that its quote-based material gives all concerned access to a familiar & highly effective gestural repertoire as any real engagement with Berio’s vision. And even here there were problems. The amplification of the vocal ensemble was just slightly too loud. And I really do mean just slightly. The amplification was clean & undistorted but, due to the forward placement of the massive speakers, it easily overwhelmed the orchestra in places where it should have been balanced like any other ensemble within the group. This problem also marred the haunting bursts of soft whispering in the brief fourth movement and the gorgeous “Rose de Sang” soprano solo, flute & piano trio that opens the fifth.
At the risk of pulling my punches, the good news is that it was all still pretty damn good. Also, the hall was full and the work was very warmly received. Along with the one man recital Berio, like Uncle Igor, can also survive a B-level performance from an A-level group. That fact, coupled with a nonetheless genuinely excited full house, are the things that a repertoire standard make. Say “Amen”, somebody.
Quick–whodunnit?
Classical music; in the twentieth century; with the… twelve-tone row? PhD? Rock music? New York Phil?
(The corpse he’s mistaking for classical music is in fact his idea of what classical music was. I say: Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!)
And go support our pal Jeffrey Phillips tomorrow. His Cadillac Moon Ensemble is making their NYC debut at the Nicholas Roerich Museum. They will be rendering works by Berio, Christian Wolff, and some guy named Jeffrey Phillips. Hmm…
Hello Jerry Bowles and Sequenza21,
I am writing from the office of Bang on a Can in Brooklyn. We are currently beginning a search for a new cellist to be a member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars. In order to reach the broadest possible pool of applicants, we would love to list this job opening on the Sequenza21 website. Attached is a description of the position and the application procedure. Please reply to jeremy@bangonacan.org, or call the office at 718-852-7755 and ask to speak with me or our executive director Kenny Savelson.
Best,
Jeremy Thal
Bang on a Can
UBUWEB is playing online host to an excellent hour-long WDR documentary on Mauricio Kagel. Of course it’s in German, but don’t let your lack of the lingo stop you from clicking over there and watching. Scenes of Kagel rehearsing his Divertimento with the Schönberg Ensemble & Reinbert de Leeuw at the 2006 Donaueschinger Musiktage are intercut with footage of Kagel and a number of his earlier works from the 60s and 70s. There’s plenty of Kagel’s love of theater and the absurd, careful fascination with all kinds of sound and action in music, and just plain play on show in this one.
A meeting of the San Juan Island Book Club, pictured here, convened immediately upon my return from Seattle, where Alex Ross and Kyle Gann had curated a truly remarkable new music festival for the Seattle Chamber Players Icebreaker series, with SCP’s artistic director Elena
Dubinets at the helm. An inspiring line-up of emerging and emerged composers were on hand this past weekend to discuss their music, Alex and Kyle presented their books, and the concerts each evening were wonderful. You can read about the terrific event here.
It was particularly fun to meet people I had until now known solely in their enpixelated states via this and other blogs. Nothing beats live interaction; there’s an endless supply of talent and joy to be found in these gatherings.
Several bloggers have shown us photos of their cats reading our colleagues’ books, so I thought I would tell folks that felines are not the only avid fans. Here we see my two guys, Smudge and Moses, waiting impatiently on my desk for the foxes to arrive (they’re often late but bring good wine so we forgive them). The birds always hang out chattering in the cedar birdhouse until the last minute and then fly in the door, while the deer have a smoke outside my studio prior to the opening discussion. A wild time was had by all as the fur flew during a
very lengthy and entertaining conversation. Next month’s book club reading includes Christopher Dingle’s new book, “Olivier Messiaen: Music, Art and Literature,” selected by acclamation by the woodpeckers and chickadees, plus a listening session for Pink Floyd’s classic, Animals.
Last year, many of us saw a posting regarding the VIM:Tribeca concert series. The organizers, Judd Greenstein and Kimball Gallagher, wanted to put on concert series of mostly new works; the composers were responsible for providing performers. The concerts were to be put on in the Gallerie Icosahedron (I’m deliberately not linking to them, for reasons that will be apparent soon!). The first indication of trouble to us should have been the delays, imposed by the gallery, regarding scheduling and, we found out later, the renting of a piano. The first public sign of trouble was the sudden announcement that the concert series was now to be called the ICO series.
When it was announced that my work had been accepted, I was thrilled. I was to be featured alongside Pamela Stein; I contacted Kathy Supové, who was going to play my new pieces for interactive piano. And, Pam was going to sing the premiere of a piece by Lukas Ligeti. This had all the makings of an exciting event.
On Thursday, we received the following note:
1) CONCERT FEE: all concerts will be subject to a $300 minimum, payable to the gallery in half a week before the concert, with the remainder due at the show. For double-bills, each artist will be responsible for half this figure. In addition to this de facto rental fee, all money over $600 in receipts from the door will continue to be split 50/50. The fee is a guarantee against low turnout – a deposit, essentially. These checks must arrive 1 week before each concert, beginning with the February 14th show, and all checks should be mailed to Gallerie Icosahedron, 27 N Moore St., New York, NY 10013, and made out to Gallerie Icosahedron.
2) TICKET PRICE: the ticket price will now be raised to $20, with no student discounts.
3) REHEARSAL FEE: all artists will have access to the gallery from 5-6:30 on the day of the show. Any other rehearsal times need to be scheduled in advance and will be available at a $40/hr rate.
4) INTERMISSION: there will be NO intermissions of any kind. For double-bills, there will be a brief set change, but even this will be less than a standard intermission.
5) COMPS: there will be no comps, except for press.
6) PIANO: the piano needs to be kept at the back of the gallery, and cannot be moved forward.
And, furthermore, Judd and Kimball were to be removed from the organization of the concerts themselves. Actually, we’d have to individually negotiate elements of the shows, if we wished to continue.
At this point, the series is in disarray. I haven’t kept track, but most of the participants have jumped ship. I’m not sure if I would have done this had these policies been in place beforehand. But, to impose these changes mid-season – mind you, the ICO had a full slate of concerts in the Fall of 2007 – is just infuriating. And, looking at their demands, the one that irks me the most is the policy against comps or student discounts. $20 is a steep fee, particularly when you’re just going to a gallery with folding chairs. $20 would get me into a lot of concert halls in many places (okay, nosebleed seats in some places), and with more comfortable chairs.
I’m aware that costs have risen tremendously in the past few months. But, assuming their gallery would have been open those nights anyway, would the ICO series really have been displacing $300 worth of business? $900, if you count the door costs.
What’s truly disturbing is the Kremlin-style overthrow of the originators of the series. Here you have two people who have done all the work, put a huge amount of time, energy, and, I assume, their own money into this project. It seems to me that the ICO people just want the series to go away, which it seem like it will.
First of all, here is my advice. If anyone is still planning on putting on one of the ICO concerts, please go support them. Go to the gallery, and have a good time. Don’t buy any refreshments if the gallery sells them. As a matter of fact, avoid direct eye contact with any gallery employee. However, if you see any art there you like, write down the name of the artist, and contact them directly when you go home. If you like, wait until their show at the ICO is done. Buy something else from them, but make sure no money goes to the Gallerie Icosahedron.
At one point, I have been told, they complained about the nature of the music being presented. It wasn’t ‘classical’ or ‘conservative’ enough. I didn’t realize that we were under the scrutiny of the new music police, telling us how to write as well as demanding that we pay – oh, and that piano is just there for decoration. I’m sure that their list of demands would eventually include no parallel 5ths or un-resolved dissonances – and, I’m sure, no Max patches.
This is truly a horrible situation for all of us. I understand that concerts do need to be canceled sometimes. Performers get sick or injured, the composer isn’t finished with the piece, sometimes even accidents occur in the performance venue. Yet, this is truly, truly appalling: a concert canceled because of greed and almost maniacal control exerted by the proprietors of the concert space. I am disgusted by their actions.
This morning, someone suggested that we try to find another location. I’m all for that, although I have my doubts that we’d be able to find a decent concert site that would have availability for all the events (which were scheduled on Thursdays). If that can be done, I’d be thrilled. I’d be happy to wait until the Fall. I’d be happy to pay or raise funds for a performance at a good venue. And, I’ll be happy to avoid walking down the street anywhere near the Gallerie Icosahedron.
Sunset at Montclair by George Inness
New Jersey Arts Collective and the Montclair Art Museum are sponsoring Pictures 2008, a composition competition for high school and college students residing or studying in New Jersey.
The winning works will be performed on May 9th at the Montclair Art Museum by the Halcyon Trio (www.halcyontrio.com). The museum has also commissioned a piece from Christian Carey for the concert. A Composers Forum on April 4th at 3:20 PM at Westminster Choir College will feature readings and a masterclass with the Halcyon Trio for the competition winners.
Last year’s Pictures jury: Frank Ezra Levy, Christian Carey (standing)
Melinda Wagner, Andrew Lamy, and Brett Duebner, (seated)
All submissions must be based on Sunset at Montclair, a George Inness painting from the MAM’s collection. An image of the work, as well as competition guidelines, can be found at the following web link:
http://www.montclairartmuseum.org/education.cfm?id=93
The deadline for entries is March 21st. There will be a complimentary curator’s talk about Inness on Saturday, Feb. 9th at 1 PM at the MAM. Applicants are encouraged to attend.
Check out this video of Tom Cruise talking about Scientology, apparently leaked from the Scientology organization (they got it pulled from YouTube, but copies are kicking around the internet). The ideological content is pretty wierd, and it’s Tom Cruise, which make it interesting enough. But check out the Minimalist use of the “Mission Impossible” theme as underscoring. (more…)