Contemporary Classical

CDs, Cello, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Ivan Fedele – Works for Violoncello (Review)

Ivan Fedele

Works for Violoncello

Michele Marco Rossi, cello; Francesco Abbrescia, electronics

Kairos CD

Ivan Fedele (b. 1953) has created a large catalog of compositions. Like J.S. Bach, he has written six French suites, “Suite Francese.” Unlike Bach, Fedele’s six suites are for different instruments. His latest recording on the Kairos label focuses on the suites for cello, a solo Partita, and a reworking of Suite Francese VI that incorporates electronics. 

Suite VI uses traditional baroque dances as movement titles, further underscoring the question: how closely related are Fedele’s pieces to their progenitors? It is a similar problem to considering the movements from Schoenberg’s Op. 25 Suite, and in both cases, any incorporation of baroque dance rhythms is, at best, greatly sublimated. Within these modern takes on the suite however, there are rhythmic and textural distinctions between movements that suggest that they are indeed organized as a set of variations.

The opening “Preludio” features trilled passages and ascending chromatic scalar segments, offset by rhythmically punctuated bass notes. “Ostinato” has a middle register melody that, rather than remaining unvaried, throughout the movement enlarges and collapses. “Corrente 1” features driving rhythms and squalls of sound effects against an occasionally present motive built out of minor seconds and minor thirds. Partway through, a huge build up of repeated notes arrives in a series of bass notes, giving the sense of an interior structural boundary. The bass register is then used as an ostinato with periodic interruptive soprano register squalls. The minor second theme once again makes appearances set against thrumming bass. The upper register is reasserted with a flurry of activity, juxtaposed against lower register glissandos. Those glissandos populate the final section, alongside minor seconds, now in the bass register. “Interludio” is a duet between a plummy tenor register melody and high harmonics. The eventual imposition of a bass line makes it conclude as a trio. “Corrente 2” is rife with combative repeated notes bounced from register to register. Upper register interjections harry the main rhetorical thread, which is a repeated move towards descent to the bottom of the instrument. Chords replace the upper voice and a longer bass melody is introduced and then swiftly deconstructed. Pizzicatos and bow pressure treat a melody that soars to the soprano register. This stentorian climax is just as swiftly replaced by hushed effects to close. The suite is an impressively varied piece in terms of techniques employed, expressive qualities, and ways in which relatively brief movements are given intricate formal identities. 

Suite III has a different character at the outset of its first movement, “Arc-En-Ciel” with gently juxtaposed harmonics crafting a gradual move towards open strings and octaves that grounds the harmony between sliding tones. The harmonic series is presented successively in harmonics and open strings, finishing the movement with a sense of tonicization. “Preludio e Ciaccona” contrasts this with reedy thematic cells spiraling away, finally supplanted by open low strings and bass register slides. “Branle Double” contrasts this by starting in the upper register and moving through chromatic descents that land on dissonant multi-stops. Partway through, things are halted by bass octaves. The chromatic descents are now replicated in mid-range octaves. Angular and rangy melodic material is given an ardorous presentation. The piece gradually quickens, adding harmonics and bass notes to the line to create a compound melody. Here as elsewhere, cellist Michele Marco Rossi supplies a detailed, embodied, and expressive interpretation of Fedele’s music.

All of the pieces employ extended techniques, but Partita is a showcase for them. Instead of dances as movement titles, here we are given a bit more of a hint of generative properties for some –  “X-Waves” and “Z-Point” – and moods for others – “Hommagesquisse” and “Threnos.” The latter title speaks to an overarching sense of keening and frequent violent utterances. The use of slow-moving glissandos imparts a vocality to the playing that underscores the sense of mourning. The final movement, “Corrente,” adds percussive raps and slaps alongside mercurial melodic playing that is embellished with high harmonics. There is a slight sense of triple meter that is one of the most palpable places related to dance. 

The revised version of Suite VI, Suite VIb, incorporates electronics. It would be interesting to know whether Fedele had this in mind before composing the original version. There is certainly ample room left for the treatments employed, most of them effects that embellish the existing music. Harmonics are enhanced, repeated passages reverberate to create a sense of overlap, the gestures that result taking on the perception of a “super instrument.” Overdoubling and squealing treble register climaxes replace considerations of the baroque suite with ones of deformation and deconstruction. It is an impressive example of reconstituting an acoustic work in the digital domain. Which to prefer? Best not to have to choose. Recommended. 

-Christian Carey     

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical, Review

Gene Pritsker – Cloud Atlas Symphony

NEscapes Records has released Cloud Atlas Symphony, by Gene Pritsker, performed by the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony and choir, conducted by Kristjan Jarvi. Some ten years in the making and based on music from the film ‘Cloud Atlas’ by Tom Tykwer, Jonny Klimek and Reinhold Heil, Cloud Atlas Symphony is a re-imagining of the film music into the wider context of a contemporary symphonic performance. As the composer writes in the liner notes: “I wrote this symphony because I was inspired by this story, by this movie and by a new concept of taking music, that was created specifically for film, and re-interpreting in a more abstract symphonic context. Putting some of this material into the more conceptual world of a symphony.”

Gene Pritsker has been a presence on the new music scene for many years as the founder of Sound Liberation and the Co-Director of Composers Concordance. He has written over 800 compositions and has a busy performance schedule in the US and in Europe. His work is not limited by genre or category and often crosses boundaries. Pritsker is at home with mostly smaller ensembles, but has also written chamber works and pieces for larger musical forces. Cloud Atlas Symphony, although owing much to the original film score, clearly qualifies as one of his more ambitious projects.

The first movement, “Evolving”, is typical of the entire symphony. All of the orchestra sections participate, often in layered phrasing and with strong dynamics. The brass and percussion are featured in an opening full of warning and premonition. As the tempo increases, great masses of sound build up, leading to a climatic cymbal crash. The woodwinds then enter with short, active cells while sustained notes in the brass echo the opening. There is a grand feeling to all of this; a majestic portrayal of nature expressed in the formation of high cloud banks. The texture ebbs and flows as different sections of the orchestra enter and exit, and this produces an active sense of evolution. Clouds are portrayed here as serious weather, never angry or menacing, but possessing a raw, untamed power. The orchestration is forthright and muscular, with gestures reminiscent of the first movement of David Diamond’s Symphony No. 1.

“Meditation”, the second movement, retains the same general form but is much more subdued. Soft, calming strings open with a quiet, flowing feel, followed by an expressive violin solo. Tension is introduced with a slightly dissonant clarinet passage and the theme is picked up by the horn. There is some really lovely orchestration here resulting in a sweetly introspective feel. A lush symphonic palette is liberally employed and this is also the case for many of the other movements. Pritsker happily piles up the sounds as if he is afraid of losing them for lack of use, but always with a good sense of color and balance. The playing by the Leipzig Radio Symphony is controlled and precise throughout.

“March”, the sixth movement, opens with slow piano chords in foreground against sustained strings underneath. This has an introspective, nostalgic feeling and the piano leads with declarative phrases in simple, spaced chords. At 2:31 the lower brass dominates with a series of long soaring lines. Woodwinds are above in staccato counterpoint and this leads to a more purposeful feeling, as in a slow but resolute march. This piece starts quietly and builds continually into a final statement from the brass that is full of power and triumph at the finish.

Some movements betray a more experimental influence. “Groove Travelers”, for example, has a distinctly percussive nature with gruff rhythms dominating in the foreground. Other movements are variously mysterious, dramatic, nostalgic or purposeful – all artfully add to the overall cloud portraiture. Capturing the variations of ever-changing cloud formations is a formidable task, both in film or in music. Cloud Atlas Symphony applies a full range of contemporary orchestral colors to create a vivid listening experience that convincingly evokes the majesty of clouds in nature.

A digital release of Cloud Atlas Symphony can be found here.

by Paul Muller
Contemporary Classical, Deaths, File Under?

RIP Ryan Muncy

Photo Credit: Jonathan Mathias

We at Sequenza 21 are saddened to share that Ryan Muncy, saxophonist, curator, and administrator for the International Contemporary Ensemble, has passed away. Ryan was formidable in all of the aforementioned roles. Moreover, he was a much-admired and beloved person; a bright light in the new music community.

Our condolences go out to all of Ryan’s friends and family, in particular to his community at International Contemporary Ensemble. You may read more about Ryan from the ensemble here.

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Opera

Kronos Quartet – Mỹ Lai (CD Review)

Mỹ Lai

Kronos Quartet

Smithsonian Folkways

 

In one of its most ambitious projects to date, Kronos Quartet has recorded Mỹ Lai, an opera by composer Jonathan Berger (Professor at Stanford University) and librettist Harriet Scott Chessman, who has also written a libretto for Georg Friedrich Haas’s next opera. Vocalist Rinde Eckerdt and multi-instrumentalist Vân-Ánh Vanessa Vo ̃ joined Kronos to create an East/West musical hybrid, with t’rưng, đàn bầu, and đàn tranh, traditional Vietnamese instruments, being added to the string quartet instrumentation.

 

The story of Mỹ Lai is one of brutality against civilians, over 500 killed by the U.S. Army in one village, and of an officer who sought to stem the massacre. Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson put his helicopter between the miscreant soldiers and noncombatants, to little avail. Later he refused to remain silent about the massacre, leaving him a pariah for much of his life. Today, we see the bombing of civilians in Ukraine and call it what it is, a war crime. During the post-Vietnam era, there was tremendous conflict about whether the United States was justified for its involvement in the war.  Mỹ Lai came to be exhibit A for those who felt that war crimes were never justifiable and that there had been a significant amount of atrocities committed by the Americans.

 

It is a truly operatic subject, and Berger integrates the various musical forces to heighten the dramatic tension inherent in the story. The string quartet is provided with post-minimal figurations that reminds one of their works with Steve Reich. The strings often break off into plaintive counterpoint. Most compelling are the interludes in which Kronos and Vo ̃ play together, integrating their two technical backgrounds into fascinating textural combinations. It is worth noting that the quartet bridges the gap from West to East. Their considerable experience playing non-Western music is displayed in their keen deployment of sliding tones and strummed passages.

 

Eckerdt’s performance is captivating, with stalwart reportage of the events unfolding, aching high notes in passages exhorting his fellow soldiers to stop the massacre, and sensitive piano singing in reflective sections. The addition of spoken word footage supports the narrative and adds another multimedia component to the piece.

 

Four decades on, collective memory is fading about the controversy over atrocities in the Vietnam conflict. Art can serve as a reminder, an exhortation not to forget lives lost and brutality enacted. Berger and Chessman have created an opera that speaks as much to today as it is a valuable history lesson. Once again, Kronos has taken on a piece with great resonance for our society.

 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic

John Luther Adams – Houses of the Wind

Cold Blue Music has released Houses of the Wind, a new album of electro-acoustic music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams. This was inspired by a 1989 recording of Alaskan arctic winds blowing through an aeolian harp. In listening to that original recording again, John Luther Adams writes: “The voices of the wind singing through the strings of the harp brought back vividly the clarity of light, the sprawling space, and the sense of possibility I had felt.” The recent pandemic lock down presented Adams with the studio time to electronically reshape the recording and the result is a five-movement piece consisting of variations on the same ten-and-a-half minute original. This was accomplished using voice layering, time stretching and pitch manipulation to fashion continuously changing patterns and textures of sound, as animated by the wind itself. Houses of the Wind is both a distillation and summation of the strong environmental influences present over the entire arc of Adams musical career.

All of the movements share the same general character – there are no formal rhythms or structures; the composer uses variations in the mix of pitches and changes in their intensity to express patterns in the wind. The overall effect is a wash of tones that change character relatively slowly and possess an organic sensibility that evokes the natural atmospheric phenomena. Each movement describes a separate category of wind. For example, the title of the first movement, Catabatic Wind, refers to a wind that carries high-density air from a higher elevation down a sloping terrain under the force of gravity. In Southern California, we have the Santa Ana winds, flowing from the high deserts down to the coast, and this is a catabatic wind. Accordingly, the first movement begins with high, brightly metallic tones, piercing and penetrating to the ear as the volume builds. The intensity suggests a bright, clear arctic day on a high plateau. The sounds swell and crest as the mix of pitches vary, gradually adding tones in the middle and lower registers as if describing a wind that is running ‘downhill’. About halfway through, the volume and intensity subside and there is a more reflective character as the piece quiets down, with middle and lower pitches predominating. Throughout the album, Arctic nature is invariably characterized as a positive force. Catabatic Wind, starts out forcefully and is generally one long decrescendo, unfolding with a regal impartially.

Mountain Wind follows and as might be expected, this movement is less settled. Beginning with low, softly droning sounds that gradually increase in volume, there is a sense of expectation as higher pitches are added and then fall away. These cycles continue, varying in duration and intensity with the middle and higher pitches spiking in volume – a metaphorical gusting of winds in the mountain passes. The sounds reach ever higher in pitch and volume – almost to the point of pain – recalling the sharp bite of the wind in an arctic mountain blast. There is also a mystical element to this movement that befits the imagined mountain scenery. Towards the finish the tones subside, becoming more distant and the pitch content becomes lower as the sounds get softer. At length, we are returned to the low drone of the opening. Mountain Wind artfully portrays the changing wind movements typical in mountainous terrain.

The middle movements, Tundra Wind and Canyon Wind capture the differing characteristics of the wind in these environments. Tundra Wind contains a mix of higher register pitches and a pulsing that evokes a swirling wind on an open landscape. The pitches seem more varied and active in this, giving a strong sense of motion. This is perhaps the most open and welcoming movement, a bit nostalgic, but never grim or angry. The intensity rises and falls as winds will do in an open space – a very beautiful portrayal. Canyon Wind provides a contrast, opening with high pitches that are brilliantly loud and hard on the ears. With lower pitches in between, the bursts of higher tones suggest the gusting of wind in a narrow canyon. About halfway through, there is a quiet lull, followed by the entrance of middle pitches that indicate a building breeze. This increases in volume and rises in pitch, but blows steadily without gusting before fading at the finish.

The final movement is Anabatic Wind, and this refers to a gentle wind blowing up slope due to the sun heating the surface of the ground. This movement opens with a low hum, quietly pulsing to create a feeling of solemnity. New pitches enter from the middle registers, not in force, but just enough to lighten the deep tones below. Additional higher pitches enter, swell up briefly, and then subside again as if in no hurry. The feeling becomes more optimistic with the added entry of these new pitches, less gloomy and ultimately bright enough to suggest a brilliant sun above. By 6:30 higher pitches dominate making for a harder sound, always increasing. The overall feeling, however, is a mix of the urgent and the settled; Anabatic Wind never seems aggressive or dangerous. In contrast to Catabatic Wind, the first movement, the gradual, continuous crescendo heard in Anabatic Wind is the reverse of the catabatic process, and makes a fine book-end to complete Houses of the Wind.

That five variations on the same original recording can be so distinctive while exhibiting the same general form is a tribute to the artful manipulation by Adams of density, volume and pitch within a limited context. This adds to the elemental feel of the piece and allows the wind to portray itself through the original recording. The direct articulation of wind into sound through the medium of the aeolian harp makes Houses of the Wind a unique convergence of music, emotion and nature.

Houses of the Wind is available from Cold Blue Music directly as well as from numerous CD retailers.



by Paul Muller
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Guitar

James Romig’s The Complexity of Distance (CD Review)

James Romig

The Complexity of Distance

Mike Scheidt, electric guitar

New World Records

 

James Romig is best known for his solo piano piece Still, an hour long meditation on the paintings of Clyfford Still. Trained at Iowa and obtaining the Ph.D. at Rutgers, where he worked with Charles Wuorinen and Milton Babbitt, Romig has a number of serial works to his name. The structuring of Still displays this, but the surface has a limpid character and the gradual development of the material also demonstrates an affinity for Morton Feldman and Earle Brown. Pianist Ashlee Mack’s recording of Still was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, an unusual choice for the committee, as large-scale works – opera, orchestral pieces – are more often selected. 

 

Romig’s current project is an even greater departure. The Complexity of Distance is for solo electric guitar, tuned down a fifth so that the low string is A instead of E. It was commissioned by doom metal guitarist Mike Scheidt and composed during the remote times of the pandemic via long distance communication. Scheidt is best known as being part of the band YOB, but he adapts well to the detailed notation and solo context of TCOD. 

 

The piece opens with a sustained open power chord, which forms the basis of the piece: roots, fifths, and octaves, seldom thirds. TCOD’s rhythmic structure is a three-line canon, which Romig describes thus,”The first rhythmic strand alternates, at a time-interval of 13 beats, between chords with roots written E and G (sounding A and C in A-standard tuning). The second strand alternates every 14 beats between chords with roots of C and D (F/G). The third strand alternates every 15 beats between chords of B and A (E/D).Beginning and ending with a unison pulse in all three strands, the 13:14:15 ratio takes 2,730 beats to resolve. At a metronome tempo of 48, this cyclic process lasts nearly an hour.”

 

The canonic techniques that Romig is using have ample precedents, from Ockeghem and Josquin in the Renaissance, to Conlon Nancarrow’s player piano pieces in the twentieth century, and Babbitt, Carter, and Wuorinen’s use of time points and canonic devices in their post-tonal pieces. The overarching structure requires patience to apprehend, but it is a well-conceived use of rhythmic design. On the death metal side of the equation, the power chords use feedback and distortion and sustain through the score’s rests. Many of the chords employ open strings for resonance. Scheidt’s choice to tune down allows the piece to co-opt the sonic signatures of doom metal, its sepulchral register and slow tempos. 

 

TCOD is a curious amalgam. It stretches the stylistic possibilities in which one may incorporate complex canons and serial procedures. A departure for Romig to be sure, but a winning one.

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Minimalism, Organ, Piano

John Tilbury Plays Terry Riley

Terry Riley

Keyboard Studies

John Tilbury, piano, harpsichord, celeste, and electric organ

Another Timbre

 

In addition to their impressive catalog of music of the moment, the past recordings that are uncovered and released by Another Timbre are frequently astonishing. This is certainly true of a recording of the great new music keyboardist John Tilbury playing three pieces by Terry Riley from 1965: Keyboard Study No. 1, Keyboard Study No. 2, and Dorian Reeds.  Written just after In C, these pieces are foundational as well, presenting the methods with which Riley would assemble solo work from patternings. Like In C, they do not have full scores, and their durations may vary. Dorian Reeds was originally written for saxophone with tape delay and is adapted here for electric organ. Tilbury is well known for his performance of New York School composers, Morton Feldman in particular, as well as his work as a free improviser. This is the first recording of him engaging with 1960s American minimalism.

 

The tapes from which this CD was made are from the late 1970s or early 1980s in Hamburg, with other details forgotten. They have weathered well, and provide an important link to that time period, in which American minimalism had begun to have a significant number of British and European interpreters. The 1980s would see minimalism capture English composers’ interest as well, with figures like Michael Nyman and Steve Martland creating distinctive repetition-based music.

 

Tilbury’s performance of Keyboard Study No. 1, played on the piano, clocks in at eighteen minutes. Like In C, a repeated pitch is a constant throughout. The piece features unraveling and returning patterns not dissimilar to Steve Reich’s phase pieces, with tasty secundal dissonances set against fourths and fifths and generally avoiding thirds. Gradually, it moves through all sorts of modal inflections and polyrhythms.

 

Keyboard Study No. 2 has the most elaborate instrumentation: piano, electric organ, harpsichord, and celeste. Over a half hour long, it is also the most expansive. Once again, scales and rhythms morph against a constantly repeating note. Here, the instrumentation brings out different parts of the patterning, the varied attack and sustain of the instruments allowing notes to become prominent or recede in the texture.

 

Dorian Reeds works well for organ, with intervallic oscillations and corruscating melodic gestures punctuated by repeated pitches. The organ registrations provide varied timbres for the piece’s motives, with more and more lines accumulating as the piece develops. Tilbury plays Dorian Reeds with tremendous dexterity. Here, as elsewhere, he delineates the counterpoint with deft touch. The original saxophone version is compelling, but this version is equally so. Recommended.

 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Adams Boxed Set Listening Party

John Adams

Collected Works Boxed Set

40XCDs

Nonesuch

 

What a seventy-fifth birthday present. Today, Nonesuch releases John Adams Collected Works, a 40-CD compendium of his recordings for the label and a few from other imprints. 

 

The curation of the set has thoughtful touches. It begins with Harmonielehre, the 1985 recording by Edo de Waart that began Adams’s association with Nonesuch and ends with a live recording of the same work by the Berlin Philharmonic, which released its own Adams boxed set a few years back (well worth seeking out). There are extensive liner notes, with essays by Timo Andres, Nico Muhly, Jake Wilder-Smith, Julia Bullock, and Robert Hurwitz. 

 

Adams continues his creativity apace. Accordingly, space has been left in the box for future recordings.

 

From 12:00 PM to 12 AM (EDT), listen to excerpts from the boxed set here. 



by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical

Chelsea Music Festival features music by Edmund Finnis alongside Fanny and Felix

Ulysses Quartet (credit Lauren Desberg)

Tonight, June 28, 2022, the Chelsea Music Festival in New York City brings their annual festival to a close. The theme of the festival is, “Not Without You,” and the culminating chamber program features music by siblings Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn.

An intriguing addition to the programming is two works by the British composer Edmund Finnis: Brother and Sister. Even more intriguing is the fact that two actual sisters – violinist Lisa Lee and cellist Angela Lee, will be performing the string duo by Finnis, Sister. Fun fact: Radiohead’s guitarist Jonny Greenwood is a fan of Edmund Finnis, and included a recording of Brothers on an album he curated for NOMAD records.

More treats on the program: the Ulysses Quartet performs Felix’s Quartet in F Minor; and some of the personal correspondence between Fanny and Felix will be shared. Details at https://www.chelseamusicfestival.org/2022events/finale

by Gail Wein
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Ojai, Premieres

Ojai Music Festival – McIntosh and Aucoin

On Saturday, June11, 2022 the Ojai Music Festival evening concert featured Little Jimmy, by Andrew McIntosh along with Deep Water Trawling and Family Dinner, both by Matthew Aucoin. The Libbey Bowl was mostly filled as was the lawn seating. A perfect evening, clear and warm, added to the pleasant Ojai atmosphere.

Andrew McIntosh is a Los Angeles-based composer and gifted violinist who is also an avid outdoorsman. Andrew has made it to the summit of several peaks in the Sierras as well as Mount Shashta, and he can often be found hiking the local trails. Little Jimmy is named for a popular backpacking camp on Mount Islip in the San Gabriel Mountains. McIntosh has written several chamber pieces for strings, an opera – Bonnie and Clyde – and several microtonal pieces. He has also composed I Hold the Lion’s Paw, a large-scale work for the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet.

Little Jimmy springs directly from McIntosh’s environmental muse. Perhaps not surprisingly, this is a quietly nuanced percussion piece from a widely accomplished string player. The Libbey Bowl stage was set with hanging metal tubes, a steel plate, a vibraphone, triangles, a series of cymbals and a brake drum that brought to mind the inventive creations of Lou Harrison. Jonny Allen and Mari Yoshinaga were the percussionists while Conor Hanick and Matthew Aucoin were stationed at two pianos on opposite sides of the stage.

Little Jimmy opens in a series of triangle and percussive piano notes that give a rough, spiky feel, as if one is walking over the gravel of the San Gabriel foothills. A moment or two of silence follows and then a low roaring sound is heard from the rubbing of a rock on a piece of slate. A field recording of local bird calls evokes the remote landscape around a small creek or mountain stream. The vibraphone adds a few mystical tones, perhaps a glimpse of the high mountains ahead. The vibraphone plates are then bowed, adding to the sense of a transcendent immersion in nature.

As the piece proceeds, the quiet organic sounds give way to a more purposeful feel in the piano phrasing along with a few solitary chimes, perhaps signaling an ascent along the trail. Drones materialize with the drawing of cords across the piano strings. This sound intensifies while soft mallets on the metal tubes summon the mystical pull of the mountain peaks in the distance. A sudden, loud gong is struck followed by dramatic, low notes from the piano, signaling that the high point with a majestic view has been reached. After a short stretch of repeating phrases, perhaps indicating a descent, the bird calls and rushing sounds first heard at the starting point return. The rock is now rubbed on the brake drum along with a bowed cymbal that intensifies the feeling of completeness. A single chime sounds at the finish – a benediction in the cathedral of nature.

The subtlety of the piece was a perhaps a bit confusing to audience at first, but the quiet nuance encouraged close listening and the understatement soon came to be appreciated. Little Jimmy contains all the metaphorical elements of a picturesque hike in the San Gabriel mountains and was convincingly conjured through the imaginative use of percussion and two pianos.

An intermission followed and Deep Water Trawling, by Matthew Aucoin was next. This was everything Little Jimmy was not – loud, urgent and realized with formidable musical forces conducted by the composer. Despite these differences in approach and style, Deep Water Trawling shares with the McIntosh piece a similar attitude on the environment. The program notes state that Jorie Graham’s text for Deep Water Trawling “…addresses the issue of humanity’s impact on nature and the climate, presenting the perspective of the ocean from beneath in response to the problematic practice of fishing with a trawl net.” Accordingly, deep cello tones are heard in the opening along with piano notes in the lower registers. The instruments enter boldly, vividly evoking all the drama, mystery and pressure of the ocean depths. The vocal line “Ask us anything” initiates a dialogue between humans in the soprano voice and the creatures of the depths in the lower voices. There is a spooky and surreal feeling to this; we are clearly being called to account for over-fishing and other environmental transgressions perpetrated by humans in the ocean. As the piece proceeds, full voices and accompanying instruments weave a compelling and cautionary tale. Deep Water Trawling cries out as a powerful indictment of our stewardship of the sea and warns of the ultimate effects on our civilization.

Commissioned by the Ojai Music Festival, the world premiere of Family Dinner by AMROC co-founder Matthew Aucoin followed. This is a large-scale work consisting of a series of ‘mini-concertos’ connected together with poetry readings, spoken anecdotes and toasts such as might be offered at a large family dinner. The muscular musical forces on the stage gave vigorous voice to Aucoin’s vision of “dialogue movements, songful outpourings and raucous dances.” The AMROC personnel that made up the ensemble proved equal to rigorous task before them and performed brilliantly throughout this extensive piece. The sounds called for by the score were highly varied, depending on the scene, but the instruments and voices were always on the mark. Given its impressive length and heft, Family Dinner can trace no doubt its origins to Aucoin’s extensive experience in the world of opera. The music was artfully composed and skillfully performed, but stayed close to conventional gestures and forms. A dazzling platform for virtuosity, Family Dinner delivers almost too much – like an out-sized Thanksgiving meal.

by Paul Muller