Composers

Remembering Jack Beeson

Word of Jack Beeson’s death reached me yesterday;  very, very sad  news– and also shocking.  Not just because  I’d studied with Jack at Columbia  in my last year there and he’d been my thesis advisor , but because  after decades   he and I had just reconnected  in the last  3 weeks or so:  I’d sent  a note of congratulations following his award given at the AMC meeting , including in it  warm memories of the effects of his comment and advice,  instrumental  in  shaping my own approach to students  over the years;  the note was sent on to him from the Ditson Fund because I didn’t know his home address.

Jack  called  (surprisingly) on May 15th.  We talked for a quarter hour, during which time he mentioned his recent group of recent CDs released by Albany.  Not really knowing his choral music, I ordered the Gregg Smith  disc, which  arrived  5 days later –  in the same mail with a hand-written letter from Jack (another surprise).

After  listening I wrote directly to Jack about my renewed pleasure in the clarity  and immediacy of his music,  its fineness of craft, and  such refreshing   surprise in  how he shaped  the harmonic rhythm.    Because we both had set the same poem, I  sent him   a CD with that setting,  plus the  2 discs of orchestra  music he’d asked to hear.

The final surprise came on  June 1st : another long letter from Jack –  he’d  really listened to everything  (and wrote many  kind comments), and  concluded  the letter  with his “pleasure at our re-meeting”.

Understandingly,  the shock  of  his death  was almost overwhelming.   I  immediately sat down  and  as a tribute wrote Cortège for Jack;  it  was  almost like   automatic writing – the music was done inside  2 hours.    Only  after  finishing did  I recognize  that “Beeson”  is  the governing  rhythm.

Jack Beeson was  really memorable.  Laconic at times, careful  and caring with words – as with notes.   The joy, exuberance  and  passion in his music  come forward fully  because  of  his  innate discretion and  artistic good  taste.   In some respects  he was a musical ‘father’ to me – certainly one of only two composers with whom I ever had formal study in composition.    As a model, as a  thinking musician and  a citizen of the musical world,  he was  significant and  important to me.   I will miss him.

by Judith Lang Zaimont
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Ojai

Ojai-oh!

Kicking off in just a matter of hours, this year’s Ojai Music Festival has a schedule sure to make a number of East-Coasties feel they picked the wrong ocean to live by.

This year features a multi-part symposium, starting at 3:30pm this (10 June) afternoon with “The 21st Century Musician“. Ara Guzelimian will lead a panel of diverse and creative musicians in exploring questions such as “Where is the music industry heading?” “What are the changing roles of musicians?” “What are the opportunities?” “What are the challenges?”… Panelists will include violinist and 2009 Ojai artist Carla Kihlstedt, LA Chamber Orchestra concertmistress and prominent LA musician Margaret Batjer, plus members of the Ensemble Modern. Then at 8pm’s main concert, members of Ensemble Modern, George Benjamin conducting,  joined by Hilary Summers (mezzo soprano) and Hermann Kretzschmer (piano) to take on works by Saed Haddad, Steve Potter, Elliott Carter and Arnold Schoenberg.

Friday (11 June) picks up at 11am with two more symposia: the first a conversation with George Benjamin, followed by this year’s centerpiece: discussions and concerts on Frank Zappa, the man and his music. Ara Guzelimian will be joined by Frank’s widow Gail Zappa, as well as Ian Underwood, Steve Vai, Todd Yvega and Dietmar Wiesner. All that leads to the 8pm all-Zappa concert (with of course a couple Varèse pieces parked in the middle): Music from Greggery Peccary & Other Persuasions and Works from The Yellow Shark — 14 works in all, performed by the Ensemble Modern, Brad Lubman conducting.

But wait! You really need to wake up early on Saturday (12 June), to head back at 11am and hear pianist Eric Huebner play Olivier Messiaen‘s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus in its entirety. Then you can relax again until the evening concert, a double bill featuring George Benjamin‘s Into the Little Hill and Igor Stravinsky‘s L’Histoire du Soldat Suite.  Once again George Benjamin will be at the helm of the Ensemble Modern,  and Hilary Summers will be joined by Anu Komsi, soprano.

Sunday morning (13 June) takes a slightly different turn at 11am, as the group Wildcat Viols present Henry Purcell‘s Fantazias for three and four viols, followed by Aashish Khan (sarod), Javad Ali Butah (tabla) and John Stephens (tanpura) offering North Indian classical morning ragas. The big finale at 8pm brings most of our major players back on stage for what sounds like a stunning concert: Pierre Boulez‘s Memoriale, Benjamin‘s Viola, Viola, Oliver Knussen‘s Songs for Sue, Benjamin‘s At First Light, Gyorgy Ligeti‘s Chamber Concerto, and Olivier Messiaen‘s Oiseaux Exotiques.

The L.A. Weekly interviewed George Benjamin about the festival, and you can read all about it here.

by Steve Layton
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Events, File Under?, Interviews, New York

Locrian Chamber Players this Thursday

Eclectic in their programming and superlatively talented, the Locrian Chamber Players have a unique mandate: they are the only new music ensemble which limits their repertoire to works composed in the last decade. This has led them to give countless American and World premieres of works. LCP are giving a concert this Thursday at Riverside Church, uptown in NYC. I caught up with the group’s director, David Macdonald, who whets my appetite for what looks to be an exciting concert.

CBC: How did you come to commission Malcolm Goldstein’s The Sky has Many Stories to Tell?

DM: A long time ago I heard Malcolm play a solo violin improvisation at Carnegie Hall.  I was floored by the sounds he got out of the instrument and the way he built a flowing piece on the spot out of all these extended techniques.  I later found a string quartet by him, which we performed in 2008, I think.  We loved the piece and, I’m happy to say, he was pleased with the performance.  We got to talking about having him write a piece for Locrian and “The Sky…” is the result of that.  The commission came through the Canada Council.  (Malcolm lives in Montreal.)  The piece, like most of his works, is a set of coordinated improvisations.

Who performs your Hornpipe? Is this a new piece?

It’s for string quartet, and it is a new piece.  Anyone who wants to hear it should not come late.  It lasts about 3 minutes and it’s first on the program.

Tell me about Evan Hause and his piece Halcyon Shores?

Evan is probably best known for a series of operas he’s written over the past decade based on 20th century historical subjects.  Like many of today’s youngish composers, his influences are very eclectic.  One of those operas has this aria where the vocal writing is kind of a hybrid of sprechtstimme and scat singing.  It’s really terrific.  Halcyon Shores is for violin, cello, flute and harp.  It’s never been performed in New York.

John Adams’ music is, of course, well known and often performed, but Fellow Traveler perhaps isn’t one of his ‘household name pieces.’ What’s Adams up to here?

It’s a crazy little piece he wrote for the Kronos Quartet a few years ago.  It’s almost entirely quarters and eighths at a very fast tempo (half-note-equals-138), with lots of nervous syncopation.

Which composers are going to be in attendance on Thursday?

Me and Evan Hause. Malcolm was supposed to be there and to play the violin part in his own piece.  But he became ill last week after a grueling European tour and thought it best not to push himself.  Our excellent violinist Cal Wiersma will take his place.

This has been a year of transition for Locrian Chamber Players? How have things changed in the way that you’re organizing the ensemble and programming concerts?

It’s been a tough year.  When (co-founder) John Kreckler died, I wasn’t sure if we could continue.  But the players have been absolutely lovely in helping me run things.  Locrian is a very important part of all of our musical lives, and we will go on.

What plans are in the offing for Locrian?

Next concert:  August 26.

……………………………………………..

The Locrian Chamber Players this Thursday, June 10 at 8PM in Riverside Church (10th floor performance space). Entrance at 91 Claremont Avenue (North of W. 120th Street: One block W. of Broadway) Free admission. A reception will follow the concert.

The Program: Malcolm Goldstein – The Sky Has Many Stories to Tell (World Premiere); John Adams – Fellow Traveler; Evan Hause – Halcyon Shores (New York Premiere); Joel Hoffman – Blue and Yellow; Chen Yi – Night Thoughts; David Macdonald – Hornpipe

The Players: Calvin Wiersma and Conrad Harris, violins; Daniel Panner, viola; Greg Hesselink, cello; Diva Goodfriend-Koven, flute; Jonathan Faiman, piano; Anna Reinersman, harp.

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical, Mexico, Obits, Performers, Video, viola

Omar Hernández-Hidalgo, 1971-2010

There’s a lot of shock and sadness in the Mexican classical community just now: last week one of the finest violists in Mexico and the world, Omar Hernández-Hidalgo, was found dead in his hometown of Tijuana, four days after apparently being kidnapped. A principal violist by the age of 21, Grammy-nominated twice, the first violist in his country to recieve a PhD. (at Indiana University), praised by Pierre Boulez, Hernández-Hidalgo was a champion of contemporary music, especially the new and vital in his own country. While his technique was commanding and virtuosic, his own personality was warm, modest and endlessly generous. He was in the midst of a demanding schedule of performances and festivals right up to his disappearance, and the sudden hole his senseless death leaves in the Mexican musical soul is keen and intense. Our hearts go out to his colleagues, family and friends, along with our hopes for sanity, peace and determination to stand for a world that will not stand for this kind of evil. RIP.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEFwstO-54w[/youtube]

 

by Steve Layton
Composers

Jack Beeson, 88

American composer Jack Beeson died of congestive heart failure on Sunday, June 6 at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, at the age of 88. His family was with him at the time of death.

Jack Beeson was born on July 15, 1921 and received his early education in Muncie, Indiana. He studied composition at the Eastman School, completing Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees.  Upon winning the Prix de Rome and a Fulbright Fellowship Beeson lived in Rome from 1948 through 1950 where he completed his first opera, Jonah, based on a play by Paul Goodman. Beeson then adapted a work by the well-known American playwright, William Saroyan, for Hello Out There, a one act chamber opera produced by the Columbia Theater Associates in 1954.

The Sweet Bye and Bye, with a libretto by Kenward Elmslie, was produced by the Juilliard Opera Theater in 1957. It concerns the leader of a fundamentalist sect and her conflict between duty and love. The central character, Sister Rose Ora, resembles famous religious leader Aimee Semple MacPherson. The score includes marching songs, hymns, chants, and dances, as well as memorable arias and ensembles.

Beeson’s next opera, Lizzie Borden, again based on an American subject, was commissioned by the Ford Foundation for the New York City Opera. Lizzie Borden tells the familiar story with less emphasis on the ax murders than on “the psychological climate that made them inevitable”, according to critic Robert Sherman. In American Opera Librettos, Andrew H. Drummond writes, “This opera has an obvious dramatic effectiveness in which a clear and direct development with tightly drawn characterization leads to a powerful climax.” New York City Opera premiered Lizzie Borden in 1965, and it was produced for television by the National Educational Television Network in 1967 using the original cast. A new NYCO production opened in March 1999 and was telecast by PBS.

With 1975’s Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, Beeson found a gifted collaborator in Broadway lyricist (and also composer and translator) Sheldon Harnick. Several years later, the two hit on a possible subject, Clyde Fitch’s romantic comedy about a wager on the virtue of a prima donna which leads to true love. Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines was premiered by the Lyric Opera of Kansas City in 1975, and featured in the catalog accompanying Opera America’s Composer-Librettist Showcase in Toronto. (more…)

by Jerry Bowles
CDs, Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, Exhibitions, Experimental Music, Houston, Improv, Mix Tape

Houston Mixtape #1: Hand+Made, Screwed+Chopped

[Ed. — After many years in NYC but fresh to my own stomping ground of Houston, Chris Becker has offered to write some semi-regular musings on the new-music scene down thisaway. His own introduction:

In its March 2010 Global Ear column, The Wire magazine described Houston as “the weirdest and wildest of (Texas) cities” with a “rich tradition of unofficial and DIY art.” Speaking as a recent transplant from New York City (where I lived for twelve years), I can confirm that our British friends were on point with their analysis of H-Town. I am in my third month as a native, and only just beginning to take in the breadth and variety of Houston’s cultural scene– especially its music. Although I’m also enjoying the city’s classical music (Houston Grand Opera, Mercury Baroque) each dispatch I bring to you from Houston will focus on contemporary composition, improvised idioms, and works that integrate theatre, the visual arts, and/or dance. Inevitably, my love for rock, folk, blues, country, zydeco, and all out noise (Red Krayola, anyone?) will creep into future writing, the overall goal being to expand peoples’ perception (including my own) of where one can find innovative forward-thinking music.]

2009-2010 marks the sixth year that Houston’s contemporary ensemble and presenting organization Musiqa has presented its “loft” concert series at the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston. Each concert program is produced in conjunction with and inspired by a different exhibition. In May, CAMH debuted the show Hand + Made featuring works that blur the lines between craft (crochet, pottery, glass blowing) and performance. As a composer who has collaborated with clay and crochet artists (often in combination with dancers and improvising musicians), I dug the curatorial concept immediately and looked forward to hearing what pieces the composer founded and led Musiqa would choose for Hand + Made’s corresponding May 20th concert.

The concert took place at CAMH with the musicians surrounded by the artwork on display – including several elaborately designed and decorated “sound suits” by artist Nick Cave (a former dancer with Alvin Ailey’s troupe, not the singer with the Bad Seeds). I was happy to see people of all ages and filled CAMH’s space for this concert, using up all of the available benches and much of the floor space.

The program – performed by three percussionists (Craig Hauschildt, Alec Warren, and Blake Wilkins) included Clapping Music by Steve Reich, Panneaux en acier by Marcus Maroney (a beautiful and relatively new work for percussion soloist on various metals), Vinko Globokar’s primal piece of solo performance art Corporal (bravely and convincingly realized by a half naked Craig Hauschildt who was required to – among other actions – slap and strike parts of his body), and Ohko for three djembes by Iannis Xenakis. The performances were incredible, blurring the lines between what was composed, what was improvised, and where “music” as one might define it begins and ends. Musiqua’s program illuminated the creative interzone that is “in-between categories” where many of Hand + Made’s artists (and many Houstonians) reside.

 .        .        .        .

Artist and performer Yet Torres is responsible for the handmade design and packaging of the new double CD Screwed Anthologies: improvised music under the influence of DJ Screw featuring David Dove (trombone) and Lucas Gorham (guitar, lap steel). David and Lucas celebrated this CD release Sunday May 30th at Resonant Interval – a concert series (“Sideways Shows For A Straight Laced City”) that features Houston’s experimental, electronic and improvising artists. David is the director of Nameless Sound, a presenting organization that, in addition to bringing experimental musicians from around the world to Houston, offers music instruction to young people in the public schools, community centers, and homeless shelters. Screwed Anthologies is a “disjointed exhibition” initially conceived at Labotanica (an experimental laboratory for art and performance located in the historic Third Ward) featuring music and mixed media performances inspired by the “screwed and chopped” music of the formidable DJ Screw. The venue for the Resonant Interval performance was an empty storefront located a few doors away from a cool wine and beer bar with its own show on its walls of lovely and haunting photographs of New Orleans. Once again, the space was filled with people ready to take in the music.

Throughout David and Lucas’ set, excerpts of DJ Screw’s music were cued and superimposed over the sometimes (but not always) heavily processed sound of David’s trombone and Lucas’ lap steel and guitar. “Under the influence…” is the tag to this project, but legacy or homage did not seem to drive the actual improvising in performance (although both David and Lucas created sounds that harkened to the slow tempos, shifted pitches and soulful timbres of DJ Screw’s mixes). The disparate qualities of each sound (including the stray transmissions of DJ Screw) hung in the air like parts of a mobile (or a collection of Duchamp ready-mades) creating an experience where one seemed to hear each component to the music as an individual entity sitting in its own time and space, even as the music unfolded in the context of a duo (trio?) improvisation. The influence of Houston-born Pauline Oliveros was apparent, along with the sounds of Houston’s birds, traffic, and weather. I am excited to hear (via bootlegging or perhaps another CD-R or two…) how this music develops on the road. David and Lucas are currently touring Screwed Anthologies throughout the South and East Coast. You can get the tour dates here.

by Steve Layton
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Dance, Experimental Music, Festivals, Seattle

The 2010 NW New Works Festival

We covered some great shows coming up this month in the Bay Area and NYC, now it’s Seattle’s turn. For the next two weekends (June 4-6 & 11-13) On the Boards will be hosting the 2010 NW New Works Festival which features “emerging and established artists from a variety of performance disciplines” and “highlights artists who are pushing themselves to take on new challenges.” Looking over the list of showcases it seems that the festival is primarily focused on new theater and dance, but there are a few music related sets in there if you look hard. The Mint Collective, Josephine’s Echopraxia, and Corrie Befort all appear to be cross-disciplinary/music/multimedia/collaborative productions.

On the Boards is also bringing back “PODFEST” as part of the festival.  From June 4-13, On the Boards will roll out 6 short videos (video podcasts featuring performance made for film), one each Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the festival. They can be viewed at ontheboards.org and in the lobbies prior to each festival showcase.

All the information about the festival, including youtube videos for all the artists, can be found here.

by James Holt
Contemporary Classical

Benjamin Lees, 86

Benjamin Lees died of heart failure on Monday, May 31 at North Shore Long Island Jewish Hospital in Glen Cove, New York at the age of 86.

Lees’s work rose to prominence in 1954 when the NBC Orchestra performed his Profile for Orchestra in a national broadcast. He was later awarded Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships, allowing him to live in Europe for seven years and present his works throughout the continent. Upon his return to the United States in 1962, Lees was appointed Professor of Composition at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, where he served until 1964. He later taught at both the Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard School of Music. In 1972, Lees was commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra to write the music to the text of E.B. White’s “The Trumpet of the Swans.” In 1985, Lees was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to write a piece that would commemorate the 40th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust, Symphony No. 4 ‘Memorial Candles’. Symphony No. 5, commemorating the arrival of Swedish immigrants to Delaware in the 17th century, was recorded, along with his Symphony No. 2 and Symphony No. 3, for Albany Records and earned him a 2004 GRAMMY nomination. A recording of his Violin Concerto by Elmar Oliveira on Artek Records was nominated for a GRAMMY in 2009. His music has been performed around the world over the years at venues such as Lincoln Center in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and in Monaco at a performance celebrating the 500th anniversary of the kingdom. In 2009 Naxos Records released a new recording of his String Quartets Nos. 1, 5 and 6, performed by the Cypress String Quartet.

Benjamin Lees was born January 8, 1924 in Harbin, Manchuria to Russian parents. He and his family immigrated to San Francisco the following year, then moved to Los Angeles in 1939. At age 15, Lees began studying piano harmony and theory, and began composing with his teacher, Marguerite Bitter. After serving in the army during World War II, Lees entered the University of Southern California in Los Angeles in 1945. Lees continued his composition studies with George Antheil until 1954.

When asked about his approach to composition, he was quoted as saying, “There are two kinds of composers. One is the intellectual and the other is visceral. I fall into the latter category. If my stomach doesn’t tighten at an idea, then it’s not the right idea.”

Lees was commissioned to write pieces through his early 80’s and continued writing until his recent death. He is survived by his daughter, Jan Rexon, and his wife, Leatrice Lees.

by Jerry Bowles
Chamber Music, Commissions, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Interviews

Decisions, decisions, decisions

[Polly writes about great events happening in the Bay Area, here.  And, I’ll have a few cool things happening in Seattle soon.  In the meantime here are some interesting performances coming up in NYC ]

It looks like the first couple weeks of June are going to be full of tough choices.  Like, on Saturday, June 5th will I check-out, a) The JACK Quartet on the opening night of the Tribeca New Music Festival, b) Wet Ink meets Yarn/Wire at Roulette, or c) Feldman performed by Flux Quartet and Evan Ziporyn?

Here’s what’s coming up, choose wisely:

June 2: Da Capo Chamber Players will be “Illuminating Darkness” at Merkin Hall (8pm). Daniel Felsenfeld (Insomnia Redux), Carl Schimmel (Four Nocturnes), George Crumb (The Sleeper), Donald Martino (Notturno), and more.

June 4-6: Flux Quartet will be performing five works by Morton Feldman over 3 days over at Bargemusic.  Friday at 8pm: String Quartet #1; Saturday at 8pm: Structures and Three Pieces for string quartet, also Clarinet and String Quartet (featuring Evan Ziporyn); Sunday at 3pm: Piano and String Quartet (again, featuring Evan Ziporyn)(and, no, that is not a mistake!)

June 5: Four of the people behind Wet Ink (Alex Mincek, Sam Pluta, Kate Soper, and Eric Wubbels) meet Yarn/Wire at Roulette (8pm).

June 5, 7-9: The 2010 Tribeca Music Festival begins at Merkin Hall (all concerts at 8pm).  Concert #1, 6/5: JACK Quartet performs more string quartet goodness. Lisa Bielawa (The Trojan Women), David Crowell (The Open Road), Jeff Myers (Dopamine), and more.  Concert #2, 6/7: “NextGen” featuring Andy Akiho, Timo Andres, A (yet to be named) “Ted Hearne Band,” and others.  Concert #3, 6/8: “Monsters!” Mary Rowell, Geoff Burleson, and Kathleen Supove perform Eve Beglarian, Victoria Bond, Philip Glass, and more.  Concert #4, 6/9: Bora Yoon and Pamela Z with video artist Luke DuBois and the acapella group New York Polyphony.

June 8: MAYA Commissions Concert at Judson Memorial Church (8pm). Works by Gabriel Erkoreka, Yotam Haber, John Hadfield, Robert Paterson.

And as an added bonus…Over the past year (or so) I have recorded audio interviews with many of the people on these concerts.  Click on their name below to hear about their experience working with composers:
Blair McMillen (Da Capo Chamber Players)
Tom Chiu (Flux Quartet) (the background noise is really bad on this one, sorry!)
Evan Ziporyn
Laura Barger (Yarn/Wire)
John Richards (JACK Quartet)
Mary Rowell (performing on Tribeca New Music Festival)
Sato Moughalian (MAYA)

by James Holt