Contemporary Classical

FOR PHILIP GUSTON: A MEDITATION AND PRACTICE

Would you spend four and a half hours listening to this long piece?

Would you enter the concert hall and embark on this unknown auditory journey?

BY Di Fang

On April 12th at 2 p.m., in the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall at the University of California, San Diego, renowned percussionist Steven Schick, flutist Alexander Ishov, and pianist Liam Wooding performed together to interpret the work of 20th-century American composer Morton Feldman—”For Philip Guston” (1984). The initial experience of a four-and-a-half-hour concert with a slow, continuous pace, led by one of the world’s leading percussion masters, Steven Schick, left the audience with anticipation.

Steven Schick

Feldman’s music is slow and quiet, with an exquisite delicacy. When the first note of the piece is played, the floating melody immediately creates a sense of emptiness and mystery, leading the audience into an unknown world.

What are the performers doing? What elusive emotions are they evoking? What does Feldman want to say to his deceased closest friend Phillip Guston, the Abstract Expressionist? Where does the music lead the listener? What kind of chemical reaction will occur between the listener and the music? For the lead player Steven Schick, what does it mean to play this controversial work again after so many years? What is the difference between artists of very different ages performing together? What does this mean for the audience? What is the significance of Feldman to present and future?

Unexpectedly, as the music progresses, the audience’s curiosity is not constantly either amplified or resolved, but rather follows it the nice clean emptiness, to the depths of a calm and slightly melancholic abyss. With the passage of time, I began to discard all trivial matters, let go of unnecessary emotional burdens, and gradually set aside pointless thoughts. As the performance crossed the halfway mark, I felt constrained by my seat and walked to the steps on the side of the audience, where I sat down and continued the ritual-like listening. Looking at the other listeners, some stood with their eyes closed, while others lay directly on the carpet, seemingly immersed in a dream.

Liam Wooding

Feldman infused his notes into my present and future life, and my associations became a form of insight. Hidden metaphors, buried within myself, were like a reflection in a dusting mirror, gradually revealing their pure and natural essence through listening to Feldman’s composition. The act of listening enters the realm of aesthetic contemplation and communion with the universe.

The music is extremely minimalistic period, employing minimal motives for parallelism and repetition, resembling the primitive state of life. Its structure, however, is asymmetrical and unbalanced, unadorned, and bears a longing for ephemeral existence. The composer possesses a deep understanding of instrument usage, with the orchestration more akin to the blending of similar timbres rather than mere accompaniment. Compared with the weak sense of rhythm, the patterns of the melodies are more prominent and leave a lasting impression that lingers in one’s mind. This disrupts the audience’s previous auditory expectations of percussion.

This work not only challenges the physical limits of the performers in terms of its duration but also requires a sense of mutual understanding, breath, and collaboration among them due to its rhythmic, tempo, and dynamic characteristics. The vibraphone, the glockenspiel, and the celesta intertwine with indistinguishable timbres, while the contrasting tones of the piccolo and marimba disrupt the melody, creating a “Zen” stillness in the midst of the environment, halting the music and evoking a sense of enlightenment.

Alexander Ishov

The collaboration between the two young artists Alexander Ishov, Liam Wooding, and the percussion master Steven Schick is so harmonious and reflects each other. The bodily movements of the three artists are consistent, evoking the swaying of irregular tree shadows, while the overall composition progresses rhythmically, akin to a pendulum, showcasing a cohesive structure with internal coherence. I have no intention of seeking out specific vocabulary to describe the performance style of them, emphasizing their skills, coordination, and precise control over body expression. It’s because they best embody the concepts of “performer as absent” and “performer not present.” The performers’ act of erasing personal traces allows the audience to directly confront the work itself.

This aesthetic of sound is not commonly found in contemporary compositions. In an era of sound material exploding, Feldman returns to precise notation to paint the new structure. He places importance on the presentation of material and even more on the integration of material, requiring melting and mix like pigments. The process of viewing a painting is temporal, each moment seen is always partial. Feldman maps indeterminate sounds into the stretch of time, dissolving the complete symbolic image, which allows each instrument enough time to adjust its breathing and refine its sound system in the process. At the same time, silence gained its positive status.

In fact, no other composers of his time were influenced so much by paintings and painters. Whether designing, sketching, or copying, a painter’s first consideration is the size of the painting. Feldman thinks the same thing, “up to one hour you think about form, but after an hour and a half its scale. Form is easy—just the division of things into parts. But scale is another matter.” The emergence of the best crypto casino UK parallels this focus on scale, as these platforms expand rapidly, leveraging cryptocurrency to enhance user experiences and operational efficiency. However, we can’t ignore the connection between Feldman and Guston’s abstractions, early Anatolian rugs, Robert Rauschenberg, and the textiles in Egypt’s Coptic Period. The material itself is raised to the same status as the structure. The boundaries between tool and object, form and content are blurred. The intuition is the point.

Feldman’s dissonant sounds are organized within a naturalistic rhythm and a concise arrangement of pitches, creating an abstract space with multiple dimensions. Concrete sounds such as church bells, temple wooden block, and the rhythm of bouncing after free-fall are abstracted one by one, encompassing the natural cacophony, worldly clamor, and inner whispers. In the world of sound, one experiences and engages in a “serene contemplation” (Zong Baihua, “Aesthetic Stroll”). The repetition of similar or identical sonic elements allows the listener to gain a profound sense of time, leading to a clear understanding of life and the essence of time.

Today, do we still need Morton Feldman and Philips Gaston? Perhaps what we should think about is the spatial field of this sound. What the human condition represented or mapped by the presence of this sound.

“For Philip Guston” (1984) is not merely a concert but a meditation and practice for both performers and audience members. It gives me a new understanding of the concert event itself. As the audience enters the concert hall, they entrust their time to the performers, while the performers contribute their passion and past experiences to the composer’s work. The music work becomes a medium of communication between the audience, composer, and performers, constructing a unique path for each individual to find personal significance. The performers lead the audience into an unknown world of sound. This world is not solely created by the composer or performers; it belongs to the collective human experience.

Morton Feldman

As Morton Feldman said, “This piece doesn’t give you the feeling that it’s four hours.”

The beauty of Feldman’s music is characterized by an elusive contradiction and the embodiment of “less is more” functionality, aligning with the aesthetics and analytical thinking of modernism. The journey of this concert seeks enlightenment in stillness, serving as a “spiritual practice” for the performers and a “choice” for each audience to cultivate their inner selves, which will accompany them throughout their lives.

(All photos by Robbie Bui)

Author: Di Fang

Visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego, Music Department.

Ph.D. candidate in Aesthetics of Music, Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

by Di Fang
CD Review, Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

John Liberatore – Catch Somewhere (CD Review)

John Liberatore

Catch Somewhere

Zohn Collective – Molly Barth, flute; Andrew Nogal, oboe; Sammy Lesnick, clarinet; Paul Vaillancourt, percussion; Dieter Hennings, guitar; Daniel Pesca, piano/harpsichord; Hann Hurwitz, violin; Dominic Johnson, viola; Colin Stokes, cello; Robert Simon, bassoon; Ryan Berndt, trumpet; Brant Blackard, percussion, Nöel Wan, harp; Brendan Shea, violin; Philip Serna, contrabass; Zach Finkelstein, tenor; Tim Weiss, conductor

New Focus Recordings

 

Composer John Liberatore teaches at Notre Dame, and has traveled widely through the benefit of various fellowships, including those from MacDowell, Millay, Tanglewood, Yaddo, the Brush Creek Arts Foundation, and a Presser Music Award to study in Tokyo with Joe Kondo. His music has traveled widely too, with many contemporary ensembles commissioning and performing it. As a performer himself, John Liberatore has revived an old and esoteric instrument, the glass harmonica. 

 

Catch Somewhere, a portrait CD of Liberatore’s chamber works on New Focus, is well performed throughout by the Zohn Collective, a sinfonietta-sized ensemble containing some of the most prominent contemporary performers in the United States. Various subsections of the group are utilized in the programmed selections. 

 

The recording opens with “A Very Star-Like Start,” a capriccio for eight instruments that demonstrates well Liberatore’s general approach: rhythmically vibrant with frequent ostinatos, and a chromatic pitch language that at times hews close to tonality and then veers towards shadowy post-tonal sections. “A Very Star-Like Start” is an excellent curtain-raiser, with compound melodies built between strings, winds, and percussion that then unfold into fleet ostinatos and angular lines. 

 

Flutist Molly Barth plays “Gilded Tree,” a four-movement solo piece with titles from the poetry cycle “Fable” by Randall Potts. Here as elsewhere, there is a poetic impulse that operates alongside the musical one in Liberatore’s creative approach. Even in instrumental pieces, the resonances found in word groupings provides a generative role. Barth plays in a number of demeanors: slow delicacy in “dark inside secure,” punctilious rapid passages in “black twig lips,” mysterious lyricism moving to brash high notes in “silence lost to echoes,” and liquid trills paired with repeated melodic cells in “quivering with light.” Barth’s dynamic control and virtuosity are most impressive. 

 

The title work is an eight-movement suite for guitar, prepared piano, and percussion, which alternate prominence in the various movements. Once again, a poem, Walt Whitman’s “A Noiseless Patient Spider,” which Liberatore found while at MacDowell Colony, serves as inspiration. “Catch Somewhere” includes particularly beautiful writing for prepared piano, not at all Cagean but entirely its own preparation. In the first movement, “vacant, vast, surrounding,” motives, many timbral, that will be used throughout are introduced. Pianist Daniel Pesca plays a beautiful cadenza in the second movement “surrounded, detached,” which then becomes a soft duet with guitarist Dieter Hennings.  Hennings continues with a cadenza of his own, featuring snapped pizzicato, in the third movement “little promontory.” This too is succeeded by a duet, this time with percussionist Paul Vanillancourt, whose motifs are responses to the guitar’s riffs. The movement then erupts, with piano, unpitched percussion, and guitar playing thick passages fortissimo. Repeated notes from the piano initially signal a dialing back, but the trio continues in vigorous fashion to its close. 

 

“thread 1” returns to mallet instruments and guitar harmonics, creating a brief, undulating groove. The longest movement, at six minutes, “O my soul,” begins with an arpeggiated guitar solo with rich tone from Pesca. Mallet instruments are featured in the next solo, gradually shadowed by the other instruments. The guitar’s cadenza then returns with gongs providing resonance behind it in a hushed close. “thread 2” is another brief piece for mallet instruments, once again with guitar harmonics joining, this time at the close. “filament, filament, filament” opens riotously, then juxtaposes various instrumental deployments in a brisk moto perpetuo, dissipating at its conclusion. The piece’s final movement “catch somewhere” features bright harmonies and repeated notes, particularly prominent in unpitched percussion. A strong, arcing melody presses the music forward towards its conclusion. Repeated patterns then succeed this, with thunderous repeated bass notes from the piano juxtaposed against gentle guitar lines. A denouement ensues, in a decrescendo to niente. “Catch Somewhere” is a well-crafted, engaging, and entertaining piece. 

 

The only piece that includes a singer is the CD’s final one, Hold Back Thy Hours, a setting of fragments of seventeenth century English poetry. Tenor Zach Finkelstein performs the four songs that comprise the set with precision and expressivity, his high notes suffused with easy lightness and his phrasing thoughtfully unpacking the aphoristic texts. The ensemble accompanies him with a complex thicket of pitch slides and knotty tunes, out of which offset attacks provide a sense of surprise that supports the nonlinearity of the textual fragments. My favorite among these is perhaps the most traditional, “violets pluck’d,” which includes a lamento bass. Its imaginative scoring, however, is fully of the present. 

 

Liberatore’s Catch Somewhere is one of my favorite recordings thus far in 2023. Highly recommended. 

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, Improv, jazz

James Ilgenfritz – #entrainments (CD Review)

James Ilgenfritz

#entrainments

Infrequent Seams

Angelika Niescier, saxophone; Nathan Bontrager, cello; James Iglenfritz, bass; Gerry Hemingway, drums

 

Ecstatic jazz/free improv bassist James Ilgenfritz underwent brain surgery just months before being back in the studio to record #entrainments, the fiftieth release on the Infrequent Seams label. The recording makes reference to this traumatic event in some of its titles, such as “#frontmatter” and “#scarequotes.” 

 

This  is the first recording to employ Ilgenfritz’s modular improvisation system #entrainments, a term also reflecting the bassist’s work to repair his cognitive abilities. The body and brain have an extraordinary capacity to heal, especially when one is as dedicated to returning to their musical passion as Iglenfritz clearly is. 

 

If one didn’t know of Ilgrenfritz’s tremendous health challenges, they certainly wouldn’t guess when hearing him play. The bassist is in fine form, creating imaginative solos and intricate supporting lines. His countermelody on the opening tune “#frontmatter” is fleet and sonorous. His collaborators are equally estimable. Saxophonist Angelika Niescier and cellist Nathan Bontrager are regular collaborators of Ilgenfritz. Drummer Gerry Hemingway, an extraordinary talent with an ample discography of his own, is new to the bassist’s quartet. He provides support on the opener. Bontrager plays searing sul ponticello lines and Niescier’s solo skates through scalar passages at lightning speed. 

 

“#frontmatter” features a duel with Niescier versus Hemingway, who plays freely but with metric articulations. Likewise, Bontrager and Ilgenfritz have an extended contrapuntal fray. The whole group figures in the next section, which breaks it up into varying duet textures. 

 

“#scarequote”s is aptly named. Niescier plays multiphonics and then a dodecaphonic solo, accompanied by forceful fills from Hemingway and open-string chords from the strings. “#facepalm” has a more jocular cast, with a syncopated riff as tuneful as it is buoyant. Niescier fires off fast sheets of runs in her solo. Ilgenfritz’s solo combines the riff with slinky interspersed passages, only to lead the group into a morphed version of the initial tune which swiftly leads the proceedings home. 

 

Ilgrenfritz has long been a favorite musician of mine. I am moved, however, by his indomitable spirit and continued musicality. #entrainments is both a celebratory document of Infrequent Seams’s continued relevance, and one of Ilgenfritz’s healing and questing journey. Recommended. 

Christian Carey 

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Cecilia Smith Celebrates Mary Lou Williams

Cecilia Smith

The Mary Lou Williams Resurgence Project, Vol. 1: Small Ensemble Repertoire

Cecilia Smith, vibraphone, Lafayette Harris, Jr. & Carlton Holmes (piano/organ), 

Kenny Davis (bass), Ron Savage (drums), Carla Cook (vocals)

Self-released

 

Mary Lou Williams was an extraordinarily gifted jazz pianist and composer, particularly prominent during the Swing band era, but also rightly held in esteem for her late modern jazz work “Zodiac Suite.” Among her accomplishments, she played with Benny Goodman and arranged for Duke Ellington. Vibraphonist Cecilia Smith has decided to commemorate her legacy with the recording The Mary Lou Williams Resurgence Project, Vol. 1: Small Ensemble Repertoire. Smith has been at work on Williams’s repertoire since 2000 and the Resurgence project has been granted an NEA American Masterpiece Award. 

 

Smith incorporates material by Williams into her own original “Truth be Told for mlw,” in which she exchanges chord solos, and a puckish riff doubled by organ, with drum fills. Partway through, the quick phrases are juxtaposed with a slow blues drag. The uptempo time then returns, with ebullient solos from Cecilia Smith and pianist Carlton Holmes. The tune ends with the chordal soloing alternating with the phrases of the blues section. 

 

Composed by Williams in honor of the philanthropist Doris Duke, “D.D.” features an elaborated blues progression built in chromatic seconds played midtempo. Smith’s solo exploits a variety of dense scalar patterns and then builds in syncopated substitutions on the tune’s original patterning. Harris’s piano solo reveals the underlying blues framework of the tune. After a brief turn by bassist Kenny Davis, the tune returns to complete the performance in traditional fashion.

 

Standards associated with Williams as a performer and arranger also feature prominently. A suave rendition of “Body and Soul” is a standout, as is Smith’s playing on “St. Louis Blues.” My favorite is the rendition of Dr. Billy Taylor’s “It’s a Grand Night for Swinging,” a tune to which over the course of her career Williams frequently returned. Here, the whole band plays the head in effusive fashion, with Carlton Holmes’s organ added to Harris’s piano-playing to fill out the rhythm section. Harris’s solo recalls Taylor’s voicings and fragments the melody into small subsections that then are developed. Smith cools things down a bit at the beginning of her solo, with repeated quarters succeeded by swinging eighths. It eventually becomes faster moving and more intricate, perfectly paced. Holmes’s succeeding solo is slinky, with a number of blues thirds complicating his melodies. Davis plays his ostinato riff solo. The return to the head trades fours and repeats to finish. 

 

The recording’s last track is a second version of “Miss D.D.” This one is a couple minutes longer, allowing the group members to stretch out on their respective solos. Organ is more prominent and Davis’s bass riff more elaborate. 

 

Smith’s first installment of The Mary Lou Williams Resurgence Project honors Williams with a sampling of her repertoire and further develops her material into stirring originals. I look forward to hearing what Smith does with a larger ensemble.

 

-Christian Carey

 



by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Los Angeles, Ojai

Ojai Music Festival 2023

The Ojai Music Festival began on Thursday, June 8, 2023 at 6:30 PM with an informal ‘Pop Up’ performance of Moon Viewing Music (2016), by Peter Garland, presented at the gazebo in Libbey Park. Percussionist Steven Schick, a familiar figure at Ojai over the years, was the solo performer, and he brought along an impressive array of gongs and tam-tams gathered for the occasion from various museums and personal collections. Moon Viewing Music consists of six short pieces, each inspired by a Japanese haiku or short poem. As described by Peter Garland’s concert notes, “This music is low and slow – an obvious correlation exists between tempo and pitch register.” The gongs and tam-tams were helpfully mic’d into a sound board and speakers so that the subtle character and interactions of their tones were not lost in the open Ojai evening air.

Shifting gears to another musical realm, country music embodies a rich tapestry of storytelling and cultural heritage. It weaves tales of heartache, joy, and the essence of everyday life into melodies that resonate across generations. For enthusiasts seeking to delve deeper into the genre’s history and contemporary resonance, exploring sites like https://www.countrythangdaily.com offers a gateway to articles, reviews, and insights into the artists and stories that shape country music’s enduring legacy. Whether it’s the twang of a steel guitar or the heartfelt lyrics of a ballad, country music captures the spirit of rural America with authenticity and depth.

Before the start of each piece, Dr. Schick read the haiku text as an introduction. The opening gong tone of the first piece was was deep and clear, ringing out with surprising authority. A second gong with a higher pitch was struck, and this produced tones that interacted with the fading vibrations of the first. Then began a sequence of single gong tones, each separated by a short interval, but always overlapping in their ringing. The tam-tam occasionally entered with a rolling crescendo, and this added additional warmth to the overall sound. The effect was most engaging and in general the feeling was both calming and mysterious.

Other pieces followed, in more or less the same manner. In some sequences, more than two gongs were employed. The dynamics could be anywhere from a gentle softness to church-tower intensity. There were some variations in tempo, but the ‘low and slow’ pattern of the gongs was consistent. In the fifth piece an extended tremolo on the tam-tam was followed by strong gong strikes that together created a grand sound. At the conclusion of the sixth piece a great blow to the largest gong produced a memorable finish.

This is introspective and contemplative music from a composer known for radical simplification. That this is artfully accomplished strictly through the use of percussion makes Moon Viewing Music all the more remarkable.

Liquid Borders, by Gabriela Ortiz opened the main Thursday evening concert in the Libbey Bowl. This is a three-movement work commissioned by Steven Schick and was premiered at the Banff Centre in August 2014. Liquid Borders is scored for a percussion quartet and was performed on this occasion by red fish blue fish, directed by Steven Schick. Ms. Ortiz is a Mexico City-based composer who has “created a body of imaginative work animated by adventurous border crossings between strikingly different realms: folk and avant-garde, Latin American and European, acoustic and electronic.”

The three movements of Liquid Borders each portray a different facet of life in modern Mexico. “Liquid City”, the first movement, portrays Mexico City as it copes with an influx of people from the countryside seeking greater economic opportunity. This opens with quiet xylophone arpeggios that suggest the soft light of a dawning day. As the city rouses itself, a series of metallic sounds are heard that evoke the activity and bustle of the waking populace. Living conditions for newcomers to the city are often rough and ready, so the percussion builds by gradually incorporating a variety of bottles, cans and other found objects. This manages to sound both chaotic and purposeful at the same time, attesting to the skill of Ms. Ortiz in orchestrating these unusual elements. A loud bass drum enters, and the strong beat adds a sense of effort and organization to the start of the working day. A nice groove breaks out as the red fish blue fish ensemble reaches full force. The impressive assortment of found percussion perfectly captures the gritty yet lively reality of the “Liquid City.”

The second movement is “Liquid Desert” and this opens with the soft rustling of maracas and a light hand drumming that creates a remote and rural feeling. The sound of a wood block and the striking of two stones add to the sense of isolation. A bass drum roll enters quietly, and slowly crescendos into a sinister presence. The social context is the exploitation of poor women for cheap labor in the maquila factories scattered throughout the northern Mexican border towns. Women have been known to disappear from such factories and the solemn and ominous character of “Liquid Desert” reinforces the gravity of these crimes.

The final movement of the piece is “Liquid Jungle” and this takes us to the southern borders of Mexico with Central America. A series of active marimba arpeggios are heard in the opening and this develops into a nice groove that evokes the buoyant commotion of a busy border town. The driving pulse brings the music of Steve Reich to mind, and the mood is tropical with a distinctly African feel. The playing by red fish blue fish is precise and carefully coordinated throughout, and is especially impressive given the fast tempos and often intricate layering of the rhythms. As the piece continues, the dynamics ebb and surge, but the active feeling remains consistent. Towards the finish some tension creeps in as the bass drum begins beating and the rhythms become even more frenetic. “Liquid Jungle” ends with a rousing finish, expertly delivered by red fish blue fish.

Liquid Borders delivers a remarkable depiction of three different sides of contemporary Mexican life through the masterful use of unusually expressive percussion materials. The 21st century musical sensibility of Ms. Ortiz eludes regional stereotyping and offers the possibility of a better understanding across previously wide cultural divides.

After the intermission, the Attacca Quartet took the stage. ‘Attacca’ is a musical notation term that instructs to the performer to proceed immediately to the next piece. The playlist for this part of the concert program consisted of no fewer than ten pieces in styles ranging from a Haydn string quartet to pieces by Philip Glass, John Adams, David Crosby and Rhiannon Giddens. These were not in the form of medleys or arrangements, but rather complete works or movements played serially, without pause. Attacca is a standard string quartet but called on percussion, vocals, a dancer and others as each piece required.

Given the amount and wide variety of music in this program, the Attacca Quartet did a splendid job of summoning up the spirit of each style and genre. The Haydn String Quartet in F major was instantly recognizable and the more contemporary pieces in the program were played with confidence and flair. Perhaps the most impressive performance was Pallavi, by Zakir Hussain, a complex piece employing four separate ragas. As the composer wrote in the concert notes: “Unlike the traditional Pallavi based in one raga, I have used four different ragas and tried to find a way to give each instrument its own personality with a raga assigned just for it. By doing so I hoped to address the Western system, which employs counterpoint and harmony, through multi-tonal play of the four ragas working in tandem in certain passages.” The result was an exquisite combination of sounds from the conventional Western string quartet, infused with the passionate energy and exotic harmonies of the classical raga.

Lullaby, by Rhiannon Giddens was a simple and lovely folk song, beautifully sung by the composer. The “Stem and Root” movement from The Evergreen, by Carolyn Shaw was another elegant piece, inspired by coniferous trees on the Canadian border and the general climatic uncertainty. The Attacca portion of the program lasted almost an hour, a testament to their skill, adaptability and extraordinary stamina. This was rewarded with enthusiastic applause from the audience and brought the initial evening concert for the 2023 Ojai Music Festival to a satisfactory conclusion.

Photos by Timothy Teague, courtesy of the Ojai Music Festival

by Paul Muller
CD Review, File Under?, Guitar, jazz

Dominic Miller – Vagabond on ECM Records (CD Review)

Dominic Miller

Vagabond

Dominic Miller, guitar; Jacob Karlzon, piano, keyboard; Nicolas Fiszman, bass; Ziv Ravitz, drums

ECM Records

 

Vagabond is guitarist Dominic Miller’s third recording for ECM Records. Apart from bassist Nicolas Fiszman, Miller has assembled a new group of collaborators: keyboardist Jacob Karlzon and drummer Ziv Ravitz join him in a quartet setting. Miller composed most of Vagabond’s eight originals while living in the South of France. He has suggested that nature and the small towns and buildings he passes on long walks supply him with inspiration. The guitarist’s Argentinian roots may be a bit further out of the limelight, but they too are an abiding part of his composing and playing technique. 

 

The track “Vagines,” named after a small French town, epitomizes this. Miller plays delicate melodies, sometimes doubled in octaves, that contain a hint of Francophone aesthetic. Here as elsewhere, he plays a classical guitar that is judiciously amplified. Fiszman and Ravitz deftly punctuate his phrasing. Karlzon joins with a scalar solo that embellishes the tune. On “All Change,” the band is more assertive, creating a buoyant backdrop to Miller’s single line solos.

 

Miller has likened himself to an “instrumental songwriter,”  and on “Cruel but Fair,” one can readily hear the ballad’s song-like construction. Chord-melody and single guitar lines are accompanied by economic comping from Karlzon. Add lyrics to this, and several others on Vagabond, and one could readily imagine them ready to sing. 

 

“Open Heart” is one of the highlights of Vagabond. It features a syncopated ostinato underneath a minor-key tune. The longest composition on the album, it introduces the material slowly, with Miller playing  in a solo context. The other musicians enter and develop the material in rebuttal. Karlzon’s fetching solo retains the tune’s diaphanous contours while extrapolating from its changes. The piece’s denouement features splash cymbals that announce Miller’s return and the reprise of the tune’s head, with a decrescendo to close. 

 

“Altea” begins with sumptuous chord voicings that quickly adopt the Latin rhythms of Miller’s Argentianian roots. His colleagues revel in this context,  both Fitzman and Ravitz providing syncopations in ebullient fashion. There is a tangy solo by Karlzon, and all of a sudden the tune ends with rolled chords by Miller. “Lone Waltz” closes the album with Miller playing a jazz tune in triple time to an arpeggiated accompaniment. Karlzon is at his most virtuosic here, and the rhythm section allows room for the Miller-dominated arpeggiated sections while playing with zest during the piano solos. Once again, the group performs a gradual denouement, with brief melodies from Miller, performed over the piano’s arpeggios, sending the record to a quiet conclusion.

 

Vagabond is Miller’s most versatile project yet, and has several memorable compositions. Miller gels well with this band. Although he tends to change collaborators between projects, one could readily see these musicians sticking around for a while.

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, Pop

Wila Frank – Black Cloud (CD Review)

Wila Frank

Black Cloud

Tone Tree Music

 

Singer-songwriter Wila Frank’s debut LP Black Cloud defies the expectations of a Music City artist. Like a number of musicians who have moved to Nashville in the wake of the city’s big boom, Frank isn’t a country artist. Her work hews closer to indie rock, with fetching quirks that make it distinctive. For instance, there is a repeated sharp fourth that gives the progression in “Oh Fate” an unconventional tinge.

 

Frank’s singing sometimes adopts a disaffected, even laconic, tone, which makes the soaring climaxes of songs such as “Fire” even more stirring. A mathy guitar riff on the verses of “Tonight” succeeds to a buoyant vocal hook and emphatic guitar chords. One of the most distinctive aspects of Black Cloud is Frank and her band’s ability to change demeanor tremendously quickly. It is almost like skipping chapters in a novel to find a completely dramatic arc.

 

The title track is haloed with synths and propelled by rhythm guitar, a piano ostinato, and an attractive line in the bass guitar. Frank’s singing floats over this finely constructed arrangement, displaying a plaintive lyricism. A standout.

 

There is a hat tip to country music on “Ghosts and Guitars,” but it adopts elements of Tejano music instead of the Nashville Sound. The album closer, “Executioner,” has a stark electric guitar playing the Lamento progression. When the chorus begins,  drums enter with terse fills and Frank sings with sliding fluidity. There is a memorable, melancholy hook. The vocals soar, buoyed by the  band at full cry. After the last chorus, we are returned to the verse’s electric guitar in a desolate coda.

 

Frank has shared a fascinating autobiographical essay via Talkhouse. She is distinctive and talented, both as a singer and as a songwriter. Many in Music City likely can scarcely believe their ears.

 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
Composers, Contemporary Classical, Deaths, Electro-Acoustic, File Under?, Metropolitan Opera, New York

Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023)

Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023)

Kaija Saariaho
(1952-2023)
© Maarit Kytöharju

Sequenza 21 is saddened to learn of Kaija Saariaho’s passing at the age of 70. The cause was cancer. Despite the toll taken by the disease, she continued to compose nearly to the end of her life. Hush (2023) for Finnish jazz trumpeter Verneri Pohjola, was her last piece.

 

Saariaho was one of the greatest composers of her generation, and a pathbreaker who encouraged composers in the next. She composed for nearly every genre of concert music and made electronic music at top flight studios, including IRCAM. 

 

The composer had an international career with champions throughout the world. A signature example is her opera Innocence (2018), a group commission by Finnish National Opera, The Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Dutch National Opera and San Francisco Opera. Saariaho has had a significant presence in the United States as well. Oltra mar was premiered by the New York Philharmonic to celebrate the Millenium. Her opera L’Amour de loin (2000) was the first by a female composer to be performed at the Metropolitan Opera in over a century. 

 

Generous tributes from all corners of the musical community, ranging from prominent composers, conductors, and performers, to admiring students and listeners, have been pouring out since this sad news was announced. Saariaho was not only a respected creator, by all accounts she was a keen collaborator and kind person. She will be missed by many, and her music will live on.

 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
Brooklyn, CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, File Under?, jazz, Piano, Twentieth Century Composer

Ethan Iverson Curates Sono Fest; Han Chen’s Ligeti

Ethan Iverson by Keith Major.

Ethan Iverson Curates Sono Fest; Han Chen’s Ligeti

Like many listeners, I first became acquainted with pianist Ethan Iverson via The Bad Plus recording These are the Vistas, which contained strong originals and a jaw-dropping rendition of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Several albums later, Iverson moved on from The Bad Plus to a variety of projects. His blog Do the Math outlines his work as an educator (at New England Conservatory) and a variety of interests that, unsurprisingly, focus on jazz, but also encompass twentieth and twenty-first century concert music. Starting next week, he brings his omnivorous musical instincts, and significant talents as a pianist, to bear, curating Sono Fest from June 6-23rd at Soapbox Gallery (636 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY 11238l).  

Timo Andres by Michael Wilson.

Iverson’s newsletter has been a veritable feast of material previewing the festival (sign-up is free). He doesn’t just plug events, but gives detailed discussions of the programmed music and featured artists. Essays on Timo Andres, Miranda Cuckson, and Judith Berkson are all revealing.

Miranda Cuckson, violin

Judith Berlson.

 

My favorite of the posts is about Ligeti, which discusses the piano etudes and includes a link to an interview by Benoît Delbecq with Ligeti included on DTM. Pianist Han Chen isn’t playing any Ligeti on Sono Fest, but his recital on June 17th looks tantalizing, with pieces by Berg, Corigliano, Adès, and Ravel.  

 

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Han Chen’s new Naxos recording (8.574397) is a sterling document of the Ligeti Etudes. Iverson is voluble in praising it and I will add my own acclamations. The pieces themselves are one of the finest collections of the twentieth century, abundant in variety and virtuosic in demands. Ligeti’s early modern and postmodern concerns are updated by his late career interests in minimalism, Asian, and African music. There are a number of fine recordings of the etudes, but Han Chen’s is a welcome addition. 

The pianist is tremendously fluent in the plethora of dynamics and articulations required by Ligeti. His execution of formidable polyrhythms and hairpin transitions are uniformly excellent. The first etude from Book 1, “Désorde,” in which the left hand has complex scalar patterns and the right spiky, syncopated progressions, is performed at a breakneck pace. “Galamb borong,” from Book 2, in which a gently percussive opening, evoking Balinese gamelan, gradually builds to thunderous chords, with a denouement at its close, is equally stirring. Directly following this is a rhythmically incisive performance of the polyrhythmic “Fém.” The diaphanous diatonicism of Book 3’s “White on White” is performed with superbly controlled delicacy. Its ebullient coda is a welcome surprise. Han Chen’s Ligeti CD shows that there is plenty of room to reinterpret the composer, particularly during his centennial year.

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Taka Kigawa

 

Sono Fest Schedule

 

Tickets are $25 in-person, or $15 for the live-stream, available at SoapboxGallery.org.

 

Tuesday, June 6 – Ethan Iverson and Miranda Cuckson

Wednesday, June 7 – Ethan Iverson and Chris Potter

Thursday, June 8 – Miranda Cuckson

Friday, June 9 – Taka Kigawa

Saturday, June 10 – Timo Andres

Sunday, June 11 – Sam Newsome

Monday, June 12 – Momenta Quartet

Tuesday, June 13 – Judith Berkson

Wednesday, June 14 – Marta Sánchez

Thursday, June 15 – Aaron Diehl

Friday, June 16 – Scott Wollschleger

Saturday, June 17 – Han Chen

Sunday, June 18 –Robert Cuckson (set 1); Ethan Iverson (set 2)

Friday, June 23 – “Coda Concert:” Mark Padmore, Sarah Deming, and Ethan Iverson

Mark Padmore by Marco Borgrevve.



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

Rochford and Downes on ECM (CD Review)

Sebastian Rochford, Kit Downes

A Short Diary

ECM Records 

 

“This short diary (of loss), offered as a sonic memory,

  created with love, out of need for comfort.”

-Sebastian Rochford

 

When Sebastian Rochford’s father, the Aberdeen poet Gerard Rochford (1932-2019) passed away, the drummer decided to create a recording in his memory. He composed most of the music after his father’s death, and enlisted pianist Kit Downes as a collaborator. Downes is actually a musical switch-hitter; he is also an accomplished organist. “This Tune Your Ears Will Never Hear” opens the album mid-tempo with thick chords and snare in rhythmic unison, only to give way to a slower rendering of the tune, juxtaposed with enigmatic harmonies. “Communal Decisions” has a wayward, modal melody that becomes an overlapping duo, finally filled out with Debussyian harmonies. “Night of Quiet”  consists of slow-paced chords in intricate changes, parallel planing, and filigree phrase endings. “Ten of Us” has an ambling melody and chromatic chord progressions that recall Rimsky-Korsakov. Considerable development follows, with a floating texture that arpeggiates some of the preceding material and shares new melodic variations. The last section includes a chordal ostinato reinforced by Rochford that slows into an emphatic minor key cadence.

 

“Love You Grampa” is one of the most fetching of the collaborations here, with Rochford creating a lullaby rhythm behind the drum kit and Downes playing the composition’s winsome melody with delicacy and poignant phrasing. In a shuffling rhythm and with a pentatonic melody, “Silver Light” recalls folk music. “Rochford’s playing is often economical, even restrained. Yet the textures and punctuations he provides always enhance the proceedings. 

 

The last piece on the recording, “Even Now I Think of Her,” is in a sense co-composed by Sebastian and his father, who sang the melody to his son, suggesting it for a piece. The drummer in turn shared the melody with Downes via cell phone. It is quite an intricate tune, rendered as a folk-like ballad with warmly voiced harmonies and gentle drum fills. Bringing the project full circle to Gerard Rochford is a fitting and touching conclusion to a compelling and inspired project.

 

-Christian Carey 


by Christian Carey