Delighted to report that our regular Cary Boyce was among five composers selected from a field of 128 entries representing 35 states to participate in the May 2007 Essentially Choral reading session–an annual program co-sponsored by American Composers Forum and VocalEssence with the support of the Jerome Foundation.  Essentially Choral provides an opportunity for emerging composers from across the country to develop their skills in writing for choral ensemble. The selected composers are:

Cary Boyce (Bloomington, IN): “The Magi”
Kitty Brazelton (New York City): “Love, I Know, Beyond a Doubt”
Gao Hong (Northfield, MN): “Coming of Spring”
Aya Nishina (New York City): “Sleeping in Dew”
Matthew Peterson (Bloomington, IN): “Miserere Mei”

Over the course of two days in May, the participants will hear their works-in-progress read by the 32-voice VocalEssence Ensemble Singers, a professional mixed chorus. Some of the works call for instrumentalists as well. In conjunction with the reading sessions, the composers will attend mentoring sessions with both VocalEssence Artistic Director Philip Brunelle and composer Libby Larsen. Seminars will also be held for the selected composers, led by Philip Brunelle, Libby Larsen and American Composers Forum staff.

One of the selected composers may also receive a $3,500 commission to write a new work to be premiered by VocalEssence during its 2007-2008 concert season.

For details and more information about Essentially Choral, visit http://www.vocalessence.org, or call VocalEssence Director of Community Engagement Kimberly Meisten (612-547-1456, https://www.sequenza21.com/mailto;kmeisten@vocalessence.org. 

A requiem for Tonic in today’s Times.

Julius Eastman’s Crazy Nigger (1978? 1979?) was given its West Coast premiere last night at REDCAT.  Three members of California EAR Unit gave up their usual instruments (flute, cello, percussion) for the piano to join their pianist Vicki Ray in giving the work its four-piano interpretation.  While the score doesn’t specify a particular instrumental combination, it was recorded by Eastman with four pianos, and this recording was the one that brought the work to the public.  It would be interesting to hear Crazy Nigger in a different configuration, but it would certainly take more than four musicians to give the sonorities so central to the work.

It would have been interesting to have heard this last year in association with the minimalist festival, and the performance of In C in particular.  Eastman worked for something very different from Riley, and he gave the performers both more freedom and more structure.  Structure was provided by specifying notes to be added, in sequence, and by stating specific times for moving from section to section in the work. (Each pianist had a clock by the score.)  The players had freedom, or the ensemble had freedom, to decide how to provide the notes.  The work begins like In C, with a repeated sequence of the pitch; instead of adding melodic cells, however, Crazy Nigger builds sonority.  First, the core tone is supplemented by that note in different octaves.  Then, gradually, another tone is added.  The color changes.  Another tone.  Another.  The sound becomes three-dimensional, not quite solid, but shifting and shimmering.  Finally, for the climax of the work, six additional pianists stepped on stage one by one, going to a keyboard to add six additional pitches to the structure.  Fifty-five minutes have seldom seemed so short.  The EAR Unit deserve a lot of credit for their interpretation.  With the audience seated so that they could see the hands of all four pianists, it was easy to see which person took a little longer to make sure that her hands were correctly placed for the right note, but their interpretation used the skills of each and used them well. 

I think I saw Alex Ross; his blog this morning shows a photo with the wall of Disney Hall and the coral tree in the garden, so I know he was in town.  Perhaps he’ll comment.

The Guggenheim Foundation recently divulged its latest crop of worthies. Click here for a complete list of the winners by category. Editorial bias compels me to extend a special mention of Tania Leon, Paquito D’Rivera, and Dmitri Tymoczko (orbifolds — remember?  Quiz Monday, y’all.). 

The other music folks are, unfortunately, news to me.  Though something tells me they aren’t to many of you . . .

Once again, one of our regulars is responsible for adding some coolness to the world. 

Many apologies for going silent for several weeks (I just KNOW you’ve been losing sleep without this column). Without giving excuses, I’ll move right along to three recordings you may not hear about anywhere else:

Mark Zuckerman

New Music for Strings

Seattle Sinfornia; Joel Eric Sueben

Momenta Quartet

(MSR Classics 1223)

Much of Mark Zuckerman’s music is infused with dance figures and folk melodic ideas, and makes us of titles in Hebrew and stories from the Old Testament. One such work, Out of the Wilderness, is a five-movement “symphony” based on a passacaglia and is “a metaphor for the continuing trek of eth Jewish people…” The Seattle Sinfonia performs well, but I must complain about the editing in track 5. A very poor splice is clearly evident at about 1:08, where the music “skips.” This isn’t something one should expect from a commercial release.

Two short, tonally centered works, Shpatsir (Yiddish for “stroll”) and Theme Song, are light interludes between the heavier fare.

The final work, a string quartet, provides for interesting listening, if the sound editing, again, weren’t so obvious. The fake reverb and echo is so apparent in the first few seconds, you can almost see Garage Band. This is nothing against Mark Zuckerman’s work, but I am unhappy with MSR Classics’ product.

Norman Dello Joio

Two Concert Etudes

Music for Piano Trio “The March of Folly”

Sonata for Piano

Garrick Ohlsson

Ani Kavafian, Carter Brey, and Jeremy Denk

(Bridge 9220)

There are occasions when twenty-three minutes of music comes together in the last three minutes, as though to say “The moral of the story is…” Justin Dello Joio’s Piano Trio “The March of Folly” (inspired by Barbara Tuchman’s book of the same name) achieves such a climax (or anti-climax) in its Epilogue after twenty minutes of angst and anger. It is an optimistic finale, but one that doesn’t overshadow the message of its predecessor movements. Ani Kavafian (violin), Carter Brey (cello) and Jeremy Denk (piano) offer a compelling and powerful performance.

Garrick Ohlsson frames the trio with performances of two solo piano works, both tremendously difficult and complex. The music is often angular, interspersed with sweeping romantic gestures: One moment in the sonata is almost Lisztian.

New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media

Women in Electronic Music 1977

(New World Records 80653-2)

I like to read magazines from back to front. So, I listened to this CD from the last track to the first, causing a kind of aural time travel through electronic music.

The last two works by Laurie Anderson (b. 1947) are from 1977, and are short portraits of people: A New York artist (New York Social Life) and an art museum guard (Time to Go). In New York Social Life, Laurie Anderson plays two characters, one “live” and the other prerecorded on a telephone, accompanied by Scott Johnson on a tambura. This pre-Sex and the City diary-entry is humorous, and would be fun to see live. Time to Go depicts a museum guard telling people, well, “It’s time to go.” Once again, Laurie Anderson, singing and playing the violin, is accompanied by Scott Johnson on guitar and organ.

Ruth Anderson’s (b. 1928) Points from 1973-74, is a static sound journey using sine tones. Megan Roberts (b. 1952) was next (moving backwards) with I Could Sit Here All Day (1976) for drums, electronics, and screaming voices. Insane-asylum sound environment meets hypnotic drumming pattern.

Appalachian Grove I (1974) was Laurie Spigel’s (b. 1945) first composition of computer-generated tape music after studying the GROOVE programming system. Spiegel’s love for the banjo, fiddle playing and the plectra are explored through electronic sounds that evoke modes and gestures found in Appalachian music.

Pauline Oliveros (b. 1932) makes an appearance with Bye Bye Butterfly from 1964. It was created at the Tape Music Center studio. New Zealand-born Annea Lockwood (b. 1939) created World Rhythms in 1975 from sounds found in the environment (pulsars, earthquakes, human breathing, etc). A live gong is played throughout the performance and, when performed live lasts between thirty-nine to ninety minutes. This recording offers an eight minute version.

Johanna M. Beyer (1888-1944) created one of the first pieces of electronic music in 1938 (!) and called it Music of the Spheres. The premiere performance took place in 1977, at the Cabrillo Music Festival, given by Allen Strange who realized the score for this recording. It comes from a larger work for theatre called Status Quo and represents Beyer’s feelings of injustice during her days. A friend of Percy Grainger and a student of Henry Cowell, she was and still is largely unknown today. This recording features The Electric Weasel Ensemble.