Sequenza21

As many of you know, we also run a new music wiki here. It’s got lots of user-created content, links to very cool MP3 files through our Listening Room and a lot of lists of performers, and opportunities. Recently we’ve come under attack, not from SpamBots but from a new type of bot which seemingly means only to destroy wikis. We’re not the only one being attacked, but it has seemingly focussed a great deal of attention on our little homebrew music information site.

If you check out the Recent Changes you’ll see auto-generated usernames and very slight random text modifications to a bunch of articles, maybe your article. It’d be really cool if we could get the wiki cleaned up, but for that to happen, it’ll require a few more worker bees than me and David Toub. Please give it a look if you can and remove the random texts. They seem to only preface articles with obviously unreadable words.

And if you haven’t written an article about your favorite contemporary composer, performer and musical technique please add to our wonderful collection of articles. For those that don’t know, the wiki gets a lot of traffic. And please read the Getting Started page before you start writing. We insist that composer pages be not merely self-promoting, but informative. Thanks!!

It’s a pretty short list when you try to name the persons who have really affected and changed musical life in Los Angeles.  There are many who brought fame to L.A., and there are several who became famous through Los Angeles.  But fame is much easier than impact and change.  Bill Kraft is one of that short list.  He was a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 26 years, 18 of which were as Principal Timpanist.  As conductors and administrators worked with the orchestra to make it a more stellar ensemble and to bring vitality to contemporary music, Bill Kraft was a leader from within the orchestra.  He was founder and director of the Phil’s New Music Group, instrumental in getting that started and recognized.  He was the Phil’s composer in residence for four years.  He was a soloist.  He was a performer.  He was a director.  He was a teacher.  He was and is a composer.

Last night Southwest Chamber Music opened their series with the first concert devoted to the music of William Kraft.  They had initially programmed seven (7) of Kraft’s “Encounters”, but found that rearranging percussion for each piece (with one exception) took a little too much time.  As a result, their plan for two “Encounters” concerts now looks like at least three, stretching into next season.  I’m one of the many fans of Kraft, so as far as I’m concerned, the more concerts the better.

The concert comprised “Encounters” from the late 1960s and the 1970s.  This period includes the only “Encounter” that lacks percussion; interestingly, it may have been the first “Encounter” written.  Encounters I: Soliloquy (1975) is for percussion with tape.  While Bill writes for percussion, he puts tuned percussion at the center of so many of his works.  Often the instruments are the timpani, but in Encounters I (and through much of the evening) the major instrument was the vibraphone.  The work was done on commission for a performer who wanted a work to take on travel appearances; the vibraphone was selected because Kraft was able to work with a full range of techniques to color and shape the tones.  Ricardo Gallardo, leader of the percussion group “Tambuco“, was soloist and did a lovely job with a work that seems to require a person with three arms to handle the bows and the mallets. 

Encounters II (1966) is for solo tuba.  It was composed for and with the great tubaist Roger Bobo, for so many years a vital part of the Phil as well as soloist and recording artist.  Bobo and Kraft wrote a work showing off the musical range of the instrument and changing its sound color through a variety of techniques, including singing while playing.  The soloist was Zach Collins, who will receive his doctorate in tuba from USC this December.  [Yes, I know that the degree is actually in music performance; I enjoy thinking of someone with a tuba doctorate.]

Encounters III: Duel for Trumpet and Percussion (1972) had trumpeter Thomas Stevens as commissioner and collaborator, and it was performed well last night by Tony Ellis.  Lynn Vartan, the percussionist of Southwest Chamber, was the rival, and victor, in the contest.  Kraft spoke to the audience about his tendency to write music in which percussion wins, and he related how after one performance of this piece the trumpeter slowly left stage with his final diminuendo to return to stage waving a white handkerchief. 

After intermission they presented Encounters VII:  Blessed Are The Peacemakers: For They Shall Be Called the Children of God (1978) for speaker and two percussionists.  Miguel Gonzalez of “Tambuco” joined Vartan in this attractive work that emphasizes the ability of percussion to make melody.  The narrative elements, fortunately short, include quotations from religious texts and from secular poetry.  The conclusion of the concert was Encounters VI: Concertino for Roto Toms and Percussion Quartet (1976).  Vartan was joined by the “Tambuco” quartet in a good performance.  It’s the only work I’ve ever heard with eight (8) bows getting notes from the vibraphone simultaneously.  It’s a rare sound.

It was almost a sell-out at Zipper Hall last night, an audience of close to 300.  We stood and applauded to bring Bill Kraft out again and again.  I think the audience was as pleased as the performers and the composer.

Now this is amazing.

In this final piece on most prominent of the organizations that do noticeable programming of contemporary or near-contemporary music, I’ll deal with a variety of activities around the city. 

Perhaps the most consistently interesting programming in Los Angeles is put together by Jacaranda.  As implied by their subhead, “music on the edge of Santa Monica”, their programs do much more than give service to the idea that music is actually written and worthy today.  (Yes, their performances are held within walking distance of the ocean.)  This season they begin the first of two seasons focusing on the music of Olivier Messiaen, commemorating the centary of his birth in 1908.  The first of the Jacaranda concerts, in two weeks, will include the performance of works by William Bolcom and Joan Tower that fairly directly invoke Messiaen, plus works by Elliott Carter and Steve Reich that offer indirect associations.  Read their brochure.  Season tickets for eight great programs are only $190.

I don’t subscribe to the Los Angeles Master Chorale because I can only take a little religious music in secular concerts without becoming tone deaf, and this makes half of the LAMC’s concerts pretty unappealing to me.  But, oh, that other half! Their November concert includes the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in the premiere of Louis Andriessen’s The City of Dis plus God Protect Us From War by the Estonian Veljo Tormis whose work is new to me.  The April concert programs Gorecki’s Five Marian Songs.  The early May concert is entirely contmporary, with works by Gorecki, Morten Lauridsen, Salonen, Stucky, Judith Weir, Eric Whitacre, and the premiere of a work by David O.  The mid-May concert of opera music includes the premiere of a choral concert suite from The Grapes of Wrath by Ricky Ian Gordon.  Even the Christmas concert comprises music and arrangements by contemporary composers.

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra includes a contemporary work in almost half of their programs, and they are active in promoting commissions of new music in a program enabling small donors to participate in commissions.  It’s a model of a program.  Pacific Serenades, a chamber group, seems to include the premiere of a new work in each of their concerts in a season, giving each program in three venues:  one in Westwood, one in Pasadena, and one in a private home; season tickets are approximately $25 a concert.  Their concerts seem to use the contemporary work as the spread in a sandwich between works of 18th and 19th century composers, which is a little more conventional than I like.  But their list of premieres includes composers whose music I admire, and their site includes clips of several of the works.

REDCAT, the CalArts output in Walt Disney Concert Hall, provides an active music program edging to the avant garde.  The major concert this fall will be in less than a week with California EAR Ensemble performing Andriessen’s Dubbelspoor plus works by Liza Lim, Franco Donatoni, and Raphaele Biston, whose work is new enough to avoid references to him in Google.  The music program for the fall and winter is pretty adventurous, and it’s fun.  CalArts also sends out regular emails of events at their campus in Valencia.

UCLALive, which has a great program of performances for theatre and dance, serving as the West Coast equivalent to BAM, comes close to ignoring contemporary music except for a few rare performers who have gained name recognition and whose music might have been described favorably in the New York Times (e.g., Kronos, Bang on a Can).  The music programming is no more adventurous than the attitudes and positions of the speakers they bring in.

The Thornton School of Music at USC has a great program for the student audience, mostly by student performers.  The calendar of events includes some programs that would really be worth going to.  Noteworthy this fall is their Contemporary Music Ensemble, conducted by Donald Crockett, performing Stephen Hartke’s Sons of Noah.

Too many events, too little money and time!

The L.A. Philharmonic’s New Music Group opened its season last night with a concert of three works by Kaija Saariaho, all written in the early 90s.  This concert was to have provided a follow-up program to a major new Saariaho work, la Passion de Simone, on the philosophy and death of Simone Weil, which was premiered this summer in Vienna.  But (as reported by Mark Swed) Peter Sellars, who staged the premiere, convinced the Phil not to do a mere concert version as planned, but to produce the semi-staged version of Vienna, with dance and lighting; so the Passion was postponed until next season when all of the right people (dancer and lighting designer) are available.

The major work of the evening, and a major one it is, was Saariaho’s violin concerto, named Graal theatre (1994/1997), in its second version for violin with chamber orchestra.  Both versions are available on recordings.   The version for violin and full orchestra was written for Gidon Kremer and premiered in the Proms of 1995 with Kremer and the BBC Symphony conducted by Salonen; the recording also includes Saariaho works performed by Dawn Upshaw and by the cellist Ansi Karttunen, so it has its own great program.  John Storgards premiered the version for violin and chamber orchestra with the Avanti Chamber Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu; its recording includes two other Saariaho chamber works performed by Avanti.

The title of the work comes from a series of medieval poetry, updated by Florence Delay and Jacques Roubaud, who also provided the source idea for what became the libretto for l’amour de loin.  The idea used by Saariaho for this concerto was the co-existance of two systems of belief and actions:  the spiritual chivalry represented by the Grail; and the profane and physical approach.  The concerto has two movements, Delicato and Impetuoso, representing the dichotomy.  In last night’s performance, Jennifer Koh was soloist, and she was very impressive overall.  To me, Koh’s strengths suited the first movement’s feeling better than the second, and I didn’t hear enough change of feeling between the two to be fully satisfied, but this work is quite demanding and difficult and when Koh has the work so in hand that she is free from the score, she may be better able to put more fire into the second movement.

With Salonen in the audience, the 18 Phil musicians (5 strings, 2 percussion, piano, harp, and 9 winds) were conducted by our new Assistant Conductor, the 21-year-old Lionel Bringuier.  He also conducted the work that served as a prelude to the concerto, Piccola musica notturna (1954) by Luigi Dallapiccola.  This perfect introduction to the Saariaho is a charming work for eight musicians (3 woods, 3 strings, harp, celesta) evoking the sounds of an enchanted night. 

The first half of the program comprised two works for solo instrument plus electronics, each supplemented by video art reflecting the feelings of that work.  The video artist was Jean-Baptiste Barriere.  I first saw his work in his conception and creation of representations of Saariaho’s music in his CD set Prisma which contains two of the works performed last night.  First was the evocative work Six Japanese Gardens (1993-1995) for percussion with electronics.  The visuals are not necessary to “see” the tone pictures Saariaho paints in simple, unbombastic percussion, made deeper by the electronic additions.  Steven Schick was the percussionist.  This was followed by NoaNoa (1992) for flute supplemented by electronics.  This work was named for a series of ten woodcuts of Tahiti by Paul Gauguin, made during his brief return to France; the drawings had been intended as examples of the illustrations he thought of for a wished-for book on his experiences in Tahiti.  Catherine Ransom Karoly was soloist and pulled off all of the technical challenges of the work, including vocalizations.  That Barriere’s video supplements seem so attuned to Saariaho’s music may be partially explained by the fact that they are married.