Contemporary Classical

Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles

Sarah Cahill Performs Lou Harrison in Los Angeles

On April 4, 2017 Tuesdays@Monk space presented Sarah Cahill in a MicroFest concert titled Happy Birthday Lou Harrison!, marking the centennial year of the influential composer. Aron Kallay, Yuri Inoo and Shalini Vijayan were also on hand as was Bill Alves, who introduced his new book “Harrison – American Musical Maverick.” A capacity crowd gathered to hear Ms. Cahill, currently on an extended tour featuring Harrison’s early work as well as later pieces.

The concert began with 1st Concerto for Violin and Percussion (1959), performed by Yuri Inoo on percussion and violinist Shalini Vijayan. This consisted of three movements, the first of which started off with a strong beat and purposeful violin line. The Asian influence so typical of Harrison’s music are clearly heard in this work, first performed in 1959 but apparently dating back in some form to 1940. The intimate acoustics of the Monk Space amplified every detail, but the playing was always confident and precise. The second movement, Largo, is more sedate, with a flowing violin line and simple percussive beat, it retains the exotic flavor. The final Allegro movement features rapid, syncopated figures in the violin and a strong, driving rhythm. Shalini Vijayan shaped these passages into a smoothly sinuous melody, masterfully drawing out the beauty inherent in this music.

Sarah Cahill next took the stage to perform three early piano pieces. These were found in the Mills College library and are not among Harrison’s published works. Range-Song (1939) has a slow and steady feel, augmented by the presence of expressive tone clusters that were a tribute Harrison’s mentor Henry Cowell. Jig (1939) has a somewhat faster rhythm, syncopated and dance-like, as well as dense chords that alternate with a simple melody line that effectively heightens the vivid harmonies of this complex, but uncomplicated piece. Dance for Lisa Karon, the last piece in this group, was written in 1938 specifically for a professional dancer. Harrison, like John Cage, found work at this time playing and composing for dance companies and the original score was discovered only recently in San Francisco.  Strong, complex statements mixed with more straightforward sections again serve to enhance emotions powered by the often dense harmonies and thick textures. Although these are early works, all feel fully formed and typically Harrison.

Varied Trio (1986) was next, and for this the happily-named Varied Trio, a Los Angeles-based new music group consisting of Aron Kallay, Yuri Inoo and Shalini Vijayan, took their places. Varied Trio unfolds in five short movements and the first of these nicely showcased Harrison’s esteem of Javanese gamelan forms. A lovely sound rose up from the plucked piano strings and vibraphone to create a delicately beautiful foundation for the soaring violin line. The tranquil atmosphere was enhanced by a simple, steady beat in the percussion and the Asian influence was clearly evident. The second movement was driven by a more animated rhythm in the percussion and supplemented by a sharp pizzicato in the violin. The piano joined in counterpoint, complimenting the precise blend in a texture that was highly active, but always reserved and dignified. The third movement was styled as an elegy and the playing was appropriately solemn and introspective – especially in an expressive violin line that was fittingly sad – but never melancholy. Movement 4 was a rondeau homage to the French painter Fragonard, a favorite of Harrison. While there was no percussion in this movement, the sunny optimism and welcoming feel were augmented by a simple melody and the excellent playing of Aron Kallay on piano and Shalini Vijayan on violin. The nostalgic sensibility was warmly sentimental, but never saccharine.

The final movement was clearly a product of Harrison’s time playing for dancers. A swirling feeling of exhilaration was clearly heard in the rapid passages and lively rhythms. There was a detectable Asian flavor to this, but mostly it celebrated invigorating physical movement. The clean playing and fine coordination between the musicians in Varied Trio was rewarded with extended applause.

After intermission, Sarah Cahill returned to the piano to perform Conductus from Suite (1942). As Bill Alves explained, Harrison had moved to Los Angeles specifically to study the 12-tone technique with Arnold Schoenberg. Although Schoenberg was notoriously tough on students who attempted this, Harrison succeeded in making a good impression. Conductus dates from this period and is a surprisingly credible effort in this rigorous style. A complex and lively feel nicely captures the Second Vienna School – the phrasing alternates between well-shaped fast and slow passages, without any sense of forced process. Ms. Cahill performed Conductus with careful attention to detail, reflecting the high level of craftsmanship that Harrison had committed to it.

Omnipotent Chair (1940) was next and violinist Shalini Vijayan took the stage along with Yuri Inoo and Aron Kallay on percussion. The five movements of this piece were varied, but all had that distinctive Asian influence so characteristic of Harrison. The percussion often dominated in busy, complex passages as a strong violin melody arced smoothly overhead – the balance of these opposing elements being carefully maintained in both the score and the playing. By the the third movement, the pace was was slower and simpler – a quiet gong adding a touch of the mystical. The fourth movement had an active dance-like feel. A nice groove developed in the percussion that was taken up by the violin; Harrison was surely in familiar territory here. The last movement returned to a slower tempo and the steady drum beat was nicely complimented by the playing of some light bells, ably handled by Kallay. The blend of percussion and melody was perfect and conjured a bit of mystery as the piece faded to a quiet finish.

The three movements of A Summerfield Set (1988) completed the concert program and for this Sarah Cahill returned to the piano. The opening movement, while rapidly paced and full of repeating phrases, was open and sunny. A slower stretch provided some introspective contrast before returning to a recap of the active opening. The slower second movement was a bit more pensive and uncertain, and there was an echo of Harrison’s 12 tone influences. A nicely balanced melody and counterpoint – expertly played by Ms. Cahill – rounded out this movement. The final movement was faster and brighter – like a breezy day on a sunny beach or like a day of vacation in the country.

A Summerfield Set dates from later in Harrison’s career and is almost conventional in its optimistic sensibility. This made a nice bookend to the earlier works heard, providing an enlightening overview of Harrison’s long career. Ms. Cahill and the Varied Trio were greeted with enthusiastic and extended applause at the conclusion of the program. Hearing the music of Lou Harrison invariably leaves you wanting to hear more – and the performances in this centennial concert powerfully confirmed his greatness.

Sarah Cahill continues her extended tour and is scheduled to perform Harrison’s music in New York, Boston, The Bay Area, Cleveland, and Hawaii.

MicroFest continues the tribute to Lou Harrison with events at UCLA on April 21, Harvey Mudd College on April 23, Boston Court on May 12 and at the Harrison House in Joshua Tree on May 14.

by Paul Muller
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York, Piano, Twentieth Century Composer

Thursday: Sarah Cahill plays Harrison at LPR

Pianist Sarah Cahill appears at LPR on April 6th at 7 PM as part of her tour celebrating the music and birth centenary of composer Lou Harrison. She and I touched base earlier this week as she was preparing for her trip to the Northeast.

 

Hi Sarah. Thanks for taking time to talk with Sequenza 21. Which was the first Lou Harrison piece you played? When were you first aware of his music?

 

I don’t remember the first piece I played, but I became interested in him because of my fascination with Henry Cowell and Ruth Crawford and that circle of early 20th century American experimentalist composers.  And in the Bay Area, where I live, there’s a profound affection and devotion to Lou Harrison everywhere.  He taught at Mills College for many years, and lived fairly close by, in Aptos, and worked with many musicians I’m close to, including Larry Polansky, Robert Hughes, Jody Diamond, Willie Winant, Phil Collins, Julie Steinberg, and many others.

 

What was it like working with Harrison on his pieces? Tell us about the piece that you premiered.

 

I premiered a piece called Festival Dance for two pianos, with the pianist Aki Takahashi, at Cooper Union in 1998.  It’s a piece Lou Harrison wrote in the 60s and had never been played.  He was such a gracious person, always kind-hearted and relaxed.  He wanted us to emphasize the melodic line.

 

At LPR, you will be playing ‘Party Pieces.’ What was the collaborative process like in this composition – how did the “exquisite corpse” concept play out in the musical domain?

 

Lou Harrison, Virgil Thomson, John Cage, and Henry Cowell met frequently in Lou Harrison’s loft on Bleeker Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues in about 1944 or 1945.  Lou Harrison explains it best: “Each composer present would write a measure, fold the paper at the bar line and, on the new fresh sheet, put only two notes to guide the next composer in his connection.  The next composer would write a bar, fold at the bar line and leave two more black spots and so on.  It seems to me that we would begin simultaneously and pass them along in rotation in a sort of surrealist assembly line and eagerly await the often incredible outcome.”  Last month I visited the Lou Harrison archives at UC Santa Cruz, with Lou’s great friend, composer/conductor/bassoonist Robert Hughes, and made copies of some of the manuscripts with my cell phone.  I’ll give copies to the audience at my concert on Thursday evening.

 

What are some of the other pieces you are playing at LPR?

 

I’m starting with two unpublished Lou Harrison pieces, Range-Song and Jig, that pay homage to his teacher and friend Henry Cowell, who was in San Quentin at the time, with Cowell’s famous chord clusters.  Then a movement of Cowell’s own Rhythmicana, dedicated to Johanna Beyer, so then I’ll play a short piece from Beyer’s Dissonant Counterpoint.  That will lead to the Conductus from Harrison’s Suite which he wrote while studying with Schoenberg (with a twelve-tone row).  Then a short piece by James Cleghorn, who was Harrison’s friend who suggested he take classes from Henry Cowell.  His son Peter Cleghorn will be in the audience to introduce that piece.  Then a pair of pieces, both composed in 1946 for a performance by the choreographer Jean Erdman: Lou Harrison’s The Changing Moment, not heard in New York since 1946, and John Cage’s Ophelia.  Both compositions reveal some of the emotional disturbance and identity crisis that affected both composers at the time.  Then a movement of Frank Wigglesworth’s Sonatina, and ending with the wonderful Summerfield Set that Harrison composed in 1988.  At LPR I have to stick to a sixty-minute program– otherwise I could go on and on and on with Lou Harrison and his circle, because there are lots of fascinating connections.

 

Tell us about the concerto? What was Harrison’s approach to orchestration in this piece primarily Western in conception, or does it incorporate non-Western instruments/allusions/tuning, etc.?

 

Lou Harrison’s Piano Concerto is one of the great concertos of the 20th century.  It’s gorgeous and epic and should be played a lot more often.  The piano is retuned in a Kirnberger tuning, as are sections of the orchestra.  There’s a great battery of percussion.  

 

What else is going on for you this season?

 

Later in the year I’m playing Lou Harrison’s great Concerto for Piano and Javanese Gamelan at MIT and at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and also playing a program of his piano works on three different instruments– equal tempered piano, tack piano, and piano in Werckmeister 3– in Tokyo and Fukuoka, at the invitation of the extraordinary composer Mamoru Fujieda.  I’m learning Messiaen’s Visions de l’Amen for next year, and Takemitsu’s Quotation of Dream (Say Sea, Take Me!) to perform at Interlochen in July.  And next month I’ll get to play Lou Harrison on Maui and the Big Island, along with Tania Leon, Ruth Crawford, George Antheil, and many others, at the invitation of a marvelous composer, Robert Pollock, who runs a concert series there.

Thanks again.

Thank you!

Sarah Cahill’s April-May 2017 Lou Harrison Tour Schedule

(Fall 2017 Lou Harrison tour dates will be announced in May 2017)

 

Solo Recital | Le Poisson Rouge | NYC
April 6, 2017 at 7pm
Link: http://lpr.com/lpr_events/lou-harrison-centennial-sarah–cahill-april-6th-2017/

MicroFest North: Iconoclasts at 100 | Center for New Music | San Francisco, CA
May 7, 2017
Link: http://centerfornewmusic.com/calendar/

FULL: Harrison | Berkeley Art Museum | Berkeley, CA
May 10, 2017 at 7pm
Link: http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/program/full-2017-music-performance

Lou Harrison Centennial Celebration | New Music Works | Santa Cruz, CA
May 14, 2017 at 3pm and 7pm
Link: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2721368

Solo Recitals | Ebb and Flow Arts | Hawaii
May 20-21 2017
Link: http://ebbandflowarts.org/

by Christian Carey
Brooklyn, Composers, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Interviews, Microtonalism, New York, Opera

Friday: Ueno Opera at Sawdust

At National Sawdust on Friday April 7th at 7 PM, Opera Cabal presents the premiere of Ken Ueno’s new opera Aeolus. Joined by vocalist Majel Connery and Flux Quartet, Ueno performs throughout the opera. His fascinating blend of vocal techniques includes microtonal inflections, megaphone-amplified directives, and throat-singing. Electronics, video projections, and an architecturally conceived set design converge to make Aeolus a potent multimedia concoction. I recently caught up with Ken as he was in the thick of preparations for the opera.

Hi Ken. Thanks for taking the time to talk with Sequenza 21.

 

Why are you calling this an opera instead of some other genre? As you well know, multimedia theater pieces are called all sorts of things…

 

Following the examples of Monteverdi, Mozart, and especially Nono, “opera” seems to be an open enough label, if we need a label, so I hope it’s appropriate for this piece.  But you’re right – I don’t really know what to call it. It doesn’t have a regular narrative. It features two voices that are in distinct contrast to bel canto singing. But I am attached to the possibilities Prometeo opens up, so if Nono’s is an opera, then, Aeolus, can be an opera too, right?  Aeolus does feature a suoni mobili (Nono calls the movement of sound the main drama in Prometeo) characteristic in that, in the guise of Aeolus (the ruler of the winds), I move around the hall, directing my non-semantic vocalizations with a megaphone to articulate the architecture, the space, as an instrument.

You’ve mentioned that there are autobiographical elements in the libretto. Since it is fairly nonlinear in terms of narrativity, would you like to share how some of your own history fits in?

 

Memory is non-linear.  Spaces between texts and texts in memory become islands in search of a place in time, an ostensible home, which the idea of a Penelope represents.  My biographical circumstance is that my family moved around so much during my formative years that I don’t have a normative sensation of a home. So, the idea of a home is a mythic space for me, one I’ve also begun to associate with not only a place, but also specific people with whom I shared lived in those spaces that felt like places to which I belonged. That’s also, I think, why James Joyce resonates so powerfully in me. If there is a main narrative in Aeolus, it’s the counterpoint between the semantic and non-semantic in search of a home.

 

If I may, here’s an excerpt of a draft I’m writing for something else, which elaborates on this:

 

My own language acquisition parallels Dedalus’ in that the trajectory from babbling to fluency did filter out a palette of sounds that were extraneous to language. As a baby, I remember understanding language before I could actually speak. I remember both the frustration of not being able to communicate, as well as the tiny victories when I somehow managed to reach out and get through – sometimes purely through the inflections of non-semantic vocalizations, maybe combined with clear physical gestures like pointing or shaking my head.

When I was four, my family moved to Switzerland, and apart from speaking Japanese with my family I was a mute child again, unable to speak the local French. The burgeoning richness of my internal life was frustrated by this communication setback. Around that time, I was given a portable Aiwa tape recorder and started to make non-linear musique concrète, playing with snippets of sounds of my little world in exile. Listening to those recordings now, through auto-archaeology, I discover not only that I was vocalizing non-semantically, but that I was singing multiphonics. I was babbling, testing the limits of my vocal repertoire, expanding the repertoire of sounds my body could make. Unhinged from semantic obligation, I was freely playing at making sounds for the pure sake of making sounds, developing a series of dexterous moves ancillary to spoken language – to logos. I remember how it felt. The complex vibrations of the multiphonics reverberated in my body, shaking my bones. It was soothing. I learned to make a variety of sounds that registered different feelings. They felt like different weights of the world. Not being able to speak the local language, not having any friends, I was performing, rehearsing for my future self. The future will rationalize the past. When I read James Joyce as a teenager, the tropes of alienation and exile, and the distance between language as sound and language as semantic medium, all resonated with me.  

Tell us about your collaborators.

 

Majel Connery is my singer.  Though classically trained, she has a beautiful lyrical voice, that reminds me of Elena Tonra from Daughter or Beth Gibbons of Portishead. But that’s really unfair. I should not be naming names or comparing her to anyone else – she has a great voice, she is a primary referent in her own right. When I heard her voice and imagined what it was capable of, I knew I wanted to write songs for her. Songs that would carry the semantic exposition in Aeolus. She’s been very generous with me in trying out sketches of my songs in different keys, etc., so that we can get to the right voice/word combination to get to the pathos that I want to express. Majel is also a brilliant project leader. She is Opera Cabal. She is our fearless leader and most responsible for all of this happening. A visionary!

 

Thomas Tsang is a brilliant architect with whom I have been collaborating for ten years.  We met as fellows at the American Academy in Rome, and we’ve collaborated on installations ever since. As an artist, he brings a fully-fledged multidisciplinary edge to architecture. He questions traditional outputs and bravely creates installations, events, workshops that challenge us to rethink the history of specialization in our related fields.  The full vision for the opera is to have a space that he designs that is something more than a set or venue, something more integral to the expression of the piece. We are working towards that.

 

Erin Johnson is a video artist with whom I have been collaborating over the last few years. She’s an all-round creative force. Many of her works thread the line between video art, installation, performance art, curation, and community engagement. She naturally problematizes categories in her artistic output. She curated a work of mine last summer – Fortress Brass, a site-specific piece that took place on boats and then at Fort Gorges in Portland Harbor, in Maine. Erin made videos for four of the scenes in Aeolus, for scenes with voice-overs. Voice-overs take the place of dialogue in Aeolus (a move that I first began to experiment with in my first opera, Gallo). Being pre-recorded, the voice-overs inhabit a different time/place: it serves a distancing function.

 

I am also lucky to be working with the renown Flux Quartet. Specialists in the extreme demands of new music, breathtaking in their courage and inspiring. I am blessed to have this team.

 

What are some of the electronic elements in the piece?

Mostly, the electronics are backing tracks for the pop songs.  In one scene, I perform with a Max patch that the brilliant designer/composer Ilya Rostovtsev made for me. The patch lets me use my iPhone as a controller for algorithmic drums.

 

What does lateral bowing sound like? You’ve become a big fan of it … how did you first discover it as a technique?

 

I like lateral bowing because it sounds like breath – the link between my vocal practice, my body, and the embodied choreography of sounds that I notate for instrumentalists to perform.  I first came up with lateral bowing, when I was experimenting on a viola during the composition of my viola concerto, Talus.

 

What’s next for you?

 

I’m lucky to have pieces upcoming for talented friends: a piece for five-string baroque cello for Elinor Frey; a solo trumpet + electronics work for Andy Kozar; a solo cello piece for Jason Calloway; a saxophone piece for Vincent Daoud; a trio for Kim Kashkashian; and a long overdue piece for piano for Kathy Supove (and some other things too).

https://vimeo.com/196345650

by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Just Intonation, Los Angeles, Violin

John Eagle and Emily Call at the wulf @ Coaxial Arts

March 26, 2017 brought the opportunity to hear experimental music performed by John Eagle and Emily Call at the wulf @ Coaxial Arts. Since the sale of the former wulf building on Sante Fe Avenue last fall, various venues around town have been used for performances and the latest of these is Coaxial Arts on South Main Street. The space is smallish, but with the brick walls and overhead track lighting, Coaxial feels like a cross between Automata and Monk Space. Almost every chair was occupied as a knowledgeable crowd filed in on a quiet Sunday evening in downtown Los Angeles.

A sound installation, quieting rooms (2012), by Michael Winter was in progress as people were arriving, and this set the tone for the evening. As the program notes explained, quieting rooms is “… a very crude genetic algorithm (i.e., a model of Darwinian evolution) attempts to put two signals out of phase and quiet the room.” quieting rooms begins with moderately loud electronic sounds comprised of what seem to be several frequencies. The algorithm operates on these – adding signals that are out of phase – and with each succeeding generation of sine tones, the quieter ones are favored so that eventually the sound diminishes. What starts out as a complex and robust swirl of sound eventually thins out, as each new generation lowers the intensity and volume. A series of soft, pulsing and beeping tones in the background help to vary the texture. The entire process takes several minutes from start to finish, and then repeats. Always engaging, quieting rooms is an interesting application of evolutionary natural selection operating on musical processes.

The second piece, necklaces (2014) was also composed by Michael Winter and performed by John Eagle on a specially tuned guitar. As described by Winter in the program notes, the “…score represents all possible unique picking patterns of 4 strings sounding the same pitch. such limited focus accentuates minor variations in tuning, string tension and string gauge.” necklaces unfolds in a continuous stream of steady 8th notes, and with careful listening it is possible to discern minor differences in intonation as different strings are added to the playing sequence. Some strings had a deeply resonant and warm feel while others had more of a twang or a steely sound. It was a bit like listening to a prepared guitar, but much more understated. By focusing attention on these small variations instead of a pitch palette, the brain builds up a sense of rhythm and structure from the repeating patterns and their permutations. After just a few minutes, hearing these subtleties became almost automatic, and were not obscured even when the quieting room sound installation recycled. All of this is more engaging than it might seem and necklaces is an enlightening excursion into the boundaries between music and cognitive perception.

The final piece in the program was tuning #3: I. Ascending (2016) by John Eagle and was performed by Emily Call on violin. According to the program notes, “tuning #3 is comprised of various subsets of the 4-note, justly tuned, chords possible in the violin’s first position.  In this subset (Ascending), a basic ‘ascending’ shape is imposed where each finger must be positioned equal to or higher than the last.” An electronic reference tone is sounded for each chord subset and the performer must adjust the intonation of the ascending notes as the piece progresses. The score consists of a series of cells, each containing a chord subset. The performer initiates the reference tone with a foot pedal and then completes the chord, feeling for the best sequence and complementary intonation. The result was a wide-ranging exploration of the many emotions that were present in the chords of each cell. The feelings that emerged were variously, warm and welcoming, soothing, unsettled, questioning, anxious, searching, nostalgic or resolute. This music is always in the moment, and best heard unencumbered by expectation. Each cell brings a new, but fleeting, expressive vocabulary – some fragments were very vivid and others very beautiful. The audience was engaged throughout, listening carefully to catch the next flash of emotional color. The thoroughness of this working out of the chord sequences brought to mind the methods of Tom Johnson, and tuning #3 makes for an intriguing journey, charting less familiar musical territory.

The 40 minute length of this piece makes tuning #3 an exercise in stamina for the soloist. Emily Call proved more than equal to the task, even while constrained by a short pickup cable and the necessity of frequently activating the foot pedal. There was no loss of energy in her tone or hesitation in her intonation, even as she processed how to deal with each of the reference tones. Ms. Call was a model of grace and poise throughout and her efforts were rewarded with extended applause.

Orr Sinay, Jeese Quebbeman and guest composer Stellan Bark from Berlin will appear at the wulf.@ Coaxial Arts at 8:00 PM on April 7, 2010.

by Paul Muller
CDs, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Opera

BMOP Records Thomson and Premieres Sanford

Virgil Thomson – Gertrude Stein

Four Saints in Three Acts; Capital Capitals

 

Charles Blandy, tenor; Simon Dyer, bass; Aaron Engebreth, baritone; Andrew Garland, baritone; Tom McNichols, bass; Gigi Mitchell-Velasco, mezzo-soprano; Sarah Pelletier, soprano; Deborah Selig, soprano; Sumner Thompson, baritone; Lynn Torgove, mezzo-soprano; Stanley Wilson, tenor;

Boston Modern Orchestra, Gil Rose, conductor

 

BMOP/Sound 1049 2xCD

 

Virgil Thomson’s 1934 collaboration with the eminent author Gertrude Stein resulted in their first of two operas, Four Saints in Three Acts. Boston Modern Orchestra Project, conducted by Gil Rose, has made successful forays into recorded opera before, bringing scores such as Lukas Foss’s Griffelkin and Charles Fussell’s Wilde to life. Their recording of Thomson/Stein’s opera is a very successful addition to the orchestra’s burgeoning catalog of works.

 

Taking Stein’s use of non-linear narrative in her writing as a cue, Thomson created a score that, for its time, was exceedingly adventurous. At first blush, one might well think of Thomson’s harmonic language – relentlessly tonal – and his borrowing of material from the American vernacular – ranging from hymns and folksongs to popular songs and dances – to be far more conservative than Ives or other contemporaries who mined similar material but with a more dissonant palette. There is also a component of repetition and scalar melismas, even counting that sounds like a cousin of passages in Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach, that suggests a proto-minimal approach to Thomson’s design. However, near-constant shifts of texture and demeanor, which mirror Stein’s approach to text, provide their own set of challenges for both musicians and listeners: in essence, how to follow the thread?   

 

Four Saints in Three Acts is a work with a large cast, yet all of the roles in BMOP’s production are populated by fine singers, many of whom are associated with the Boston area’s various operatic ventures. The orchestra’s playing under Rose is also exemplary: this is a score in which frequent changes of instrumentation create a balancing act that could undo a lesser ensemble.

 

The liner notes are well curated. Given his totemic role as a writer on music, including Thomson’s essay about Four Saints is a particularly nice touch. Thomson scholar Steven Watson contributes his own enlightening essay, underscoring the durability of the opera through many production incarnations, from its original — an all African-American cast (most unusual for its day) — to Robert Wilson’s staging for huge animal costumes.

 

Capital Capitals is another Thomson/Stein collaboration, this one from 1927, for four male voices and piano. The text discusses the various virtues of “capital cities” —  Aix, Arles, Avignon, and Les Baux — in Provence (Stein became acquainted with the region during her tenure as an ambulance driver in the First World War). It is breezier than Four Saints and proves an eminently charming counterpart.

 

_______

David Sanford

At 8 PM on Friday, March 31st at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, BMOP presents a concert featuring works by John Harbison, Eric Sawyer, Ronald Perera, and the world premiere of BMOP commission Black Noise by David Sanford. Soloists include violinist Miranda Cuckson, cellist Julia Bruskin, and pianist Andrea Lam. At 7 PM, a pre-concert lecture with the composers will be lead by Boston Symphony’s Robert Kirzinger. A repeat performance, this one with the Claremont Trio as soloists, will be at 3 PM on Sunday, April 2nd at Amherst College’s Buckley Recital Hall.  

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical

Bang on Can Marathon Turns 30 with a Bang

Hard to believe that the venerable Bang on a Can Marathon began as a one day concert on Mother’s Day 1987 in a SoHo art gallery.  That’s 30 years ago for those of you keeping score at home.  Since then it has grown into a multi-faceted performing arts organization with a broad range of year-round international activities that have had a profound influence on New Music around the world.  As the NYTimes puts it: “The current universe of do-it-yourself concert series, genre-flouting festivals, composer-owned record labels and amplified, electric-guitar-driven compositional idioms would probably not exist without their pioneering example. The Bang on a Can Marathon, the organization’s sprawling, exuberant annual mixtape love letter to its many admirers, has been widely emulated…”

The  30th Anniversary Bang on a Can Marathon will be  presented for the first time at Brooklyn Museum on Saturday, May 6, 2017 from 2-10pm in the Museum’s Beaux-Arts Court.  As always, the event will be a mix of boundary-busting music from around the corner and around the world featuring eight hours of rare performances by some of the most innovative pioneering composers and musicians on the planet.

his year the Marathon includes music from such diverse places as Iraq (Amir ElSaffar and his Two Rivers Ensemble), India (Brooklyn Raga Massive), Morocco (Innov Gnawa), and the Caribbean (Pan in Motion and Kendall Williams), plus Bang on a Can co-founder and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Julia Wolfe’s folk ballad Steel Hammer, based on over 200 versions of the John Henry ballad, a quintessential American legend of the laborers that worked the railroad.

In a statement, co-founders Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe say, “Thirty years ago we started dreaming of the world we wanted to live in. It would be a kind of utopia for music: all the boundaries between composers would come down, all the boundaries between genres would come down, all the boundaries between musicians and audience would come down. Then we started trying to build it. Building a utopia is a political act – it pushes people to change. It is also an act of resistance to the things that keep us apart.”

The Marathon is also part of A Year of Yes: Reimagining Feminism at the Brooklyn Museum, a yearlong project that celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art through ten diverse exhibitions and an extensive calendar of related public programs. Women artists on this year’s marathon include music and/or performances by Meredith Monk, Julia Wolfe, Joan La Barbara, Carla Kihlstedt, Caroline Shaw, Kaki King, Kim Deal, Merrill Garbus (tUnE-yArDs), Women’s Raga Massive, and many more.

Highlights of the 2017 30th Anniversary Bang on a Can Marathon include:

  • Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble directed by Timothy Weiss, playing Dutch composer Louis Andriessen’s hard-driving Platonic masterpiece De Staat (“The Republic”), written as a commentary on the debate about the relation of music to politics
  • Brooklyn’s mesmerizing steel pan band Pan in Motion playing music by composer Kendall Williams
  • Hindustani all-stars Brooklyn Raga Massive paying special tribute to the Brooklyn’s Museum’s A Year of Yes with an all-female ensemble Women’s Raga Massive
  • Bang on a Can co-founder and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Julia Wolfe’s folk ballad Steel Hammer, based on over 200 versions of the John Henry ballad, a quintessential American legend of the laborers that worked the railroad
  • Renowned saxophonist, composer, painter, and poet Oliver Lake, co-founder of the internationally acclaimed World Saxophone Quartet
  • Joan La Barbara’s A Murmuration for Chibok, which honors and keeps in the present over 250 school girls abducted in Chibok, Nigeria by Boko Haram in 2014, performed by the award-winning Young People’s Chorus of NYC, led by Francisco Nuñez
  • New York’s legendary and inspirational composer-singer Meredith Monk leading the women of her acclaimed vocal ensemble in a set of shimmering a cappella pieces from her work-in-progress, Cellular Songs
  • Bang on a Can’s extreme mobile ensemble Asphalt Orchestra performing music by Merrill Garbus/ tUnE-yArDs, Kim Deal/Pixies, and more
  • The song-spinning duo Rabbit Rabbit, Carla Kihlstedt and Matthias Bossi
  • A rare solo set by Pulitzer-prize winning composer-singer-violinist Caroline Shaw
  • The distinctive and exceptional indie-guitarist Kaki King
  • The ambient music world of Laraaji
  • The Moroccan grooves of Brooklyn’s Innov Gnawa, exploring Mococco’s venerable gnawa music tradition
  • Amir ElSaffar’s Two Rivers Ensemble, an all-star sextet of jazz and Middle Eastern musicians that blends maqam music of Iraq and contemporary jazz
  • The New York premiere of Bang on a Can co-founder Michael Gordon’s No Anthem, premiered by Ensemble Modern in 2015
  • The Brooklyn premiere of David Lang’s Just, featured in last year’s Oscar nominated film Youth by Paolo Sorrentino
  • And Bang on a Can’s social engagement wing Found Sound Nation’s Street Studio, a mobile recording studio equipped for passersby and Marathon musicians alike to spontaneously create and record original music

2017 BANG ON A CAN MARATHON SCHEDULE (subject to change):

(more…)

by Jerry Bowles
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York, Violin

Miranda at Miller

The violinist Miranda Cuckson (USA), New York, New York, April 8, 2013. Photograph © Beowulf Sheehan www.beowulfsheehan.com

Miranda Cuckson – Pop Up Concert at Miller Theatre

March 7, 2017

Published in Sequenza 21

By Christian Carey

 

NEW YORK – Violinist Miranda Cuckson is one of the stars of new music in New York: a fearless, visionary, and tremendously talented artist.  On March 7th, she presented a solo program of 20th and 21st century works in a “Pop Up Concert” at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre. In her introduction to the event, Miller Theatre’s Executive Director Melissa Smey pointed out that their “Pop Up Series” has hosted dozens of world and New York premieres. Cuckson’s program was no exception, leading off with the New York premiere of En Soi (2017) composed by Steve Lehman, a Columbia alumnus who is now on the faculty of CalArts. It is a very strong piece, written with a bevy of plucked passages using both hands. This is designed to make the violin resemble an African instrument called the ngoni. To further cement this association, Lehman specified a microtonal tuning and scordatura. Accordingly, Cuckson performed En Soi with one violin and the rest of the program with another.

 

Two pieces by Aaron Jay Kernis followed. Both showed the Pulitzer prize winner’s absolute command of idiomatic writing for strings. Aria-Lament  (1992) departs from an introduction filled with soft altissimo passages to a gradual buildup of energy in the main section, incorporating meaty double stops and angular allegro melodic lines. A Dance of Life (2010) juxtaposes fast moving chromatic passages with ruminative sections of achingly sustained lines.

 

Cuckson has performed a great deal of Michael Hersch’s music. A recent work composed specifically for her, the weather and landscape are on our side (2016), demonstrated the composer’s keen affinity for Cuckson’s capabilities. A multi-movement work, it features numerous delicate passages, employing bowing techniques, pizzicato, and harmonics to differentiate gestures. All was not introversion however, as the piece also accorded the violinist dynamic sections which burst forth in eruptive fashion.

 

The concert culminated with Huang Ruo’s Four Fragments (2006), pieces requiring considerable virtuosity that use sliding tones and melodic patterns from traditional Chinese music. The frequent resemblance to vocalisms from Chinese opera were striking. The Fragments were a thrilling way to end the concert.

 

Cuckson is an ideal emissary for contemporary music. Assaying a formidable program, her preparation was exquisite and presentation consistently engaging. Miller has more “Pop Up” events in the Spring, including performances by the Orlando Consort, ICE, Ensemble Signal, JACK, and Mivos Quartet. The price can’t be beat – free – and one can even enjoy a libation to boot.

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by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York

Misato Mochizuki at Miller Theatre (concert review)

Yarn/Wire
Photo: Cherylynn Tsushima

Misato Mochizuki Composer Portrait

Thursday March 2, 2017

Miller Theatre

By Christian Carey

 

NEW YORK – On Thursday, March 2nd, Japanese composer Misato Mochizuki was featured on Miller Theatre’s Composer Portraits series. In a concert featuring four U.S. premieres and concluding with a work commissioned and premiered at the 2015 Lincoln Center Festival, the audience was introduced to a range of her work. Throughout, Mochizuki demonstrated a clear aesthetic embodied by an interest in exploring a panorama of instrumental timbres and effects and a flair for dramatic, often quasi-ceremonial, designs.

 

The earliest work on the program, Au Bleu Bois (1998) for solo oboe, was a standout. Mochizuki uses various playing techniques in an imaginatively constructed trajectory, ranging from microtones to multiphonics through all manner of alternate fingerings. James Austin Smith made this formidable work sound fluent and exquisitely well-shaped. Moebius-Ring (2003) was likewise given a persuasive rendition by Ning Yu, who handled its muscular, seemingly ceaseless, repetitions of corruscating glissandos with mastery. Percussionist Russell Greenberg’s committed and commanding performance of Quark-Intermezzi III featured a catalog of percussion instruments and extended techniques. Unfortunately, here Mochizuki’s penchant for the reiterative moved past the merely confrontational to the assaultive, populating the work with fortissimo thwacks of a tam-tam over and over again and a flock of searing bowed crotales (which appeared elsewhere on the program in a similarly overdosed measure).

 

JACK gave an excellent performance of Mochizuki’s first string quartet Terres Rouges (2006). Once again, there was a “kitchen sink” aspect to the catalogue of playing techniques featured; in general, editing could be a friend to the composer. However, several of the gestures found a structural place that helped one sieve through the panoply: a strident high violin note that opened the piece and reappeared, transformed, at its conclusion, the exertion of varying degrees of bow pressure, microtonal harmonics, and hammer on techniques reminiscent of the way heavy metal guitarists dig in. Indeed, one could see the members of JACK revelling in the challenges posed to them, acting as a tight ensemble unit.

 

The concert closed with Le monde des rond et de carrés (2015). Written for Yarn/Wire and first premiered at the 2015 Lincoln Center Festival, it is a piece just as much about ritual and choreography as it is about challenging chamber music. Its beginning is particularly striking. Percussionists Ian Antonio and Greenberg made their way from the back of the hall to the stage, playing crotales and cup bells. Once onstage, they were joined by pianists  Laura Barger and Ning Yu in unison passages, which gradually began to accumulate a more extensive pitch profile as the percussionists moved to mallet instruments. The intensity of the glockenspiel and vibraphone, played in fiercely fortissimo patterns, urged the pianists to their own glissandos and ostinatos. After the aforementioned searing passages featuring bowed crotales, a drumkit was added to the proceedings, first played by Antonio, then with Greenberg joining in. The piece’s climax involves the kit exclusively, with both the pianists joining the percussionists attacking the kit as well, unleashing a bombardment of crashing cymbals and forceful drumming. It was a kinetic and fascinatingly choreographic conclusion to the piece and the concert. Mochizuki has found stalwart advocates in Yarn/Wire and JACK; one can imagine future fruitful collaborations among them.

 

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical

A Brief Introduction to Daron Hagen and Paul Muldoon’s Frank Lloyd Wright Opera “Shining Brow’

Here’ a cheerful Monday treat,  ECS Publishing has made available for the 150th year of Frank Lloyd Wright a four-minute introduction to Daron Hagen and Paul Muldoon’s Frank Lloyd Wright opera
Shining Brow.   

The opera concerns events that occured between 1903 and 1914 during the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s life. Wright’s determination to leave his wife and children, his relationship with Mamah Cheney, and the subsequent murders and conflagration at Taliesin, are all part of the historical record. The opera takes Wright to the point at which he vows to rebuild Taliesin in Mamah’s memory.

The opera was commissioned by the Madison Opera, a division of the Madison Civic Music Association. The composer was officially authorized by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the Taliesin Fellowship to compose the opera and to have it published.

by Jerry Bowles
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles

Music of Klaus Lang at Art Share LA

On Friday, March 3, 2017 wasteLAnd presented the music of Klaus Lang at Art Share LA, in the heart of the arts district in downtown Los Angeles. The occasion was the US premiere of missa beati pauperes spiritu and Austrian composer Klaus Lang had planned to be in attendance, but with the recent immigration crackdown his visa was denied by the US. Inside the theater, clusters of players and singers were stationed around the performance space and the crowd arranged itself along the outside edges of the seating area for the best view.

missa beati pauperes spiritu translates from the Latin as “Blessed are the poor in spirit” comes from the sermon on the mount, as related in the gospel of Matthew. The work is roughly based on the form of the mass, with the text of each of the beatitudes included. Lang explains his approach in the program notes: “I think that a mass is not a theological rational discussion of the bible. Instead, its goal and prerequisite is not to fill the mind with the thoughts and pictures, but to make it empty and poor, for the blessed are those that are poor in spirit, and thereby free.”

In fact the Revised Common Lectionary, followed by most mainline Christian churches, lists the sermon on the mount for the gospel text for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany – January 29 of this year – so this piece was timely. Bell tones and the quiet sounding of a gong by percussionist Dustin Donahue opened the piece, creating a somber, mystical atmosphere complimenting the liturgical season of Lent that had begun a few days earlier. Soon, the other players quietly took their stations and deep, sustained tones were heard in the lower strings that added to the spiritual feeling. In this context, the music of Arvo Pärt came to mind.

At length, cantor Charles Lane intoned a stately “Kyrie Eleison” and the accompanying instruments added their voices in response. The entrances and harmonies were effectively done, given that the players were scattered in small groups across the theater and did not have much visual communication in the darkened space. The strings and trombone were heard mostly in their lower registers while the soprano voice of Stephanie Aston floated high above, a sustained, ethereal presence.

As the piece progressed, a line of text was sung by the cantor and the instrumental accompaniment offered a reflective reply. When the percussion was present, the bells and gong added a touch of the ceremonial while the strings were at times, a comforting presence, or alternately questioning and uncertain. The music was often unsettled, especially in the soprano voice, as if reflecting the tension in the text between the states of poverty, meekness, hunger, thirst and persecution – and the blessedness thus engendered. A number of restless pizzicato passages in the strings also contributed to this, while at other times warm, sustained tones produced a more expectant and hopeful feeling. missa beati pauperes spiritu is a moving and cathartic journey, with all of the conflicting emotions awakened by the text fully realized in this music.

Prior to the beginning of the concert, an electronic sound installation realized by Matt Barbier was heard through speakers as the crowd filed in. This consisted of sustained low humming tones that were fully musical but also hinting at some deep ongoing process. The feeling was warm, but autonomous; benign but not overtly friendly. Intriguingly, the sounds were simultaneously static, yet full of change and never boring. Barbier’s piece nicely set the stage for missa beati pauperes spiritu.

The performers for this concert were:

Charles Lane, cantor
Stephanie Aston, soprano
Matt Barbier, trombone
Dustin Donahue, percussionist
Linnea Powell, viola
Derek Stein, cello
Stephen Pfeifer, double bass
Scott Cazan, electronics

WasteLAnd returns to Art Share LA on Friday, April 7 to present einsamkeit, a concert featuring music by Erik Ulman, Patricia Martinez, Daniel Rothman and Daniel Tacke.

 

by Paul Muller