Contemporary Classical

Dispatch from Juilliard: Chinary Ung

One of the many pleasures of the brief (but free) all-Chinary Ung concert given earlier today at Juilliard by the Da Capo Chamber Players was the absence of any blathering about “East meets West.” I’m sure part of the reason for the absence was a simple lack of time for blathering altogether: the performance was given in conjunction with the school’s Composers’ Forum which apparently keeps to a pretty tight schedule. But whatever the reason, such cross-cultural discussion would have been out of place. Ung’s music does not sound eclectic; it does not sound as if it had some agenda of cross-cultural reconciliation. His music sounds like music written by someone from a different musical culture who has found a way to manifest that culture with Western instruments. And the sound of Western instruments in such gifted Eastern hands is disarming, refreshing, and exciting. Ung’s command of extended techniques and his sensitivity to blending instruments must make him (with Tristan Murail) one of the foremost masters of tone color around. Ung’s ability to draw consonant intervals out from dense currents of heterophony, and then to place them back gently into the stream, was amply displayed in “Oracle,” “Luminous Spirals,” “Spiral VI,” and “… Still Life After Death,” the pieces on tonight’s program. While I thought most of the pieces were a little too long, the beautifully tapered endings did not lack impact, and the extra time to savor the sonorities pouring forth from the stage was welcome.  A highlight was the concluding vocal duet from “Still Life” between Lucy Shelton and the violinist (David Bowlin). Ung calls upon the violinist to stand and lowly chant an old Buddhist text while the singer whispers and stammers away into another life. This could have been nonsense, but instead it was the most moving music I’ve heard in months.

P.S. The Da Capos are currently recording a CD of Ung’s works. The label? Bridge. (Of course.)

by David Salvage
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Festivals

Man of the Week–Lawrence Dillon

It’s a monster week for our gaucho amigo Lawrence Dillon whose music will be showcased at the Music Now Fest 2007, February 21, 22 and 23 at Eastern Michigan University.  This is EMU’s 15th biennial new music festival and it gets underway on Wednesday at 8 pm with a concert of pieces by EMU composers Whitney Prince and Anthony Iannaccone as well as works by Steve Reich, Alberto Ginastera and others. Faculty artists include David Pierce, Willard Zirk, Garik Pedersen, John Dorsey, Kimberly Cole-Luevano, Kristy Meretta, Julie Stone, Kathryn Goodson and guest Cary Kocher.

On Thursday, there will a composer convocation and welcome at 11 AM at Pease Auditorium where Mister Dillon will speak about “Furies and Muses: Composing in the 21st Century.”  (My money’s on the Furies.) The lecture will be followed by open student ensemble rehearsals with Dillon and the EMU Symphony Orchestra and University Choir.  Open rehearsals with the Wind Symphony and Symphonic Band are scheduled for Friday.

On Thursday night at 8 pm, there will be a faculty recital of the chamber music of Lawrence Dillon, including the aforementioned Furies and Muses, Dunigan Variations, Big Brothers and Facade. Winning composition(s) in the New Chamber Works for Horn competition will be premiered by sponsor Willard Zirk.

On Friday, there is a Meet the composer gig in the afternoon followed by the Festival finale a 8 pm–a concert by EMU’s major performing ensembles who will play Dillon’s Blown Away and Amadeus ex machina. Other works include Ogoun Badagris by Christopher Rouse; Spiel by Ernst Toch, Symphonic Band; and a piece by Anthony Iannaccone.

Presumably, on Saturday, Lawrence will go home and take a nap.

by Jerry Bowles
Contemporary Classical

Reading the Saturday Paper

Gordon Wright, a conductor who championed obscure composers and made music across the chilly climes of Alaska as founder of the Arctic Chamber Orchestra, was found dead on Wednesday on the porch of his cabin in Indian, Alaska. He was 72. [more]

In the autumn of her life, decades after she had last performed in public, the British pianist Joyce Hatto was rediscovered by a small group of musicians and critics who contended that her recordings of Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Liszt and others ranked alongside those of the 20th century’s most exceptional virtuosos…But now Ms. Hatto’s reputation for excellence and originality has been shaken by a charge of plagiarism. Gramophone, the London music monthly, has presented evidence that several of the recordings issued under her name were in fact copied from recordings of the same music by other pianists. [more]

“The Fly” is about to become an opera.  [more]

by Jerry Bowles
Click Picks, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music

Steve’s click picks #17

Our regular listen to and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since they’re nice enough to offer so much good listening online:

Caroline M. Breece (b.1977 — UK/US)

Michael G. Breece (b. 1971 — US)

Michael and Caroline BreeceMike over at Avant Music News this week purely by chance beat me to posting about Caroline. I’d planned showing off her and her husband Michael, ever since I bumped into them on Myspace last summer. A number of married composer couples come to mind, but few if any will have the story that’s Caroline’s and Michael’s. A lot of it may only be known to them, but the part we see shows the real possibilities in what might at first seem the improbable.

Caroline, until recently a British native, has the “official” classical education and experience. Playing, studying and composing from a very early age, touring with the Suffolk Youth Orchestra, degrees from the University of East Anglia… all the standard classical upbringing. Yet there’s something in how she relates these and other details (found in her site’s generous writings), and in how her own music works, that is anything but standard.

Michael on the other hand, starts right out of the gate as anything but standard, and there’s every indication that he should have rightfully just kept careening down that highway to oblivion. Hard life in a tough blue-collar non-musical family, serious emotional hurdles, not much if any financial or educational support… Yet part of that mind, against everything that says culture and environment shape us, grew its own seeds of artistic awareness. Schooled by instinct and the resources of the Indianapolis Public Library, he found something incredibly important in the work of composers from Debussy through Varèse and Cage, all the way up to the avant-garde of today. And something told him that he had to not just listen, but *make* this stuff, using whatever means he had.

The meeting of the two? I don’t have a clue. But somehow the English composer with her fresh MMus degree ran into this thundercloud of a self-made musician, and the next thing you know she’s in America. It’s definitely not a fairytale yet; Caroline and Michael both work as janitors to pay the bills, stealing whatever free time they can to create what they have to create. Yet there’s nothing “poor” about either’s music; there’s an incandescence and a real sense of discovery in there. You can hear for yourself when you visit their websites, since they’re both offering entire CDs for free download (though you can do the right thing and send them a few reasonable bucks for a full-spectrum CDR straight from their hands to your ear). And take the time to read through; nothing I write can tell you anything better about them than a few paragraphs in their own words.

by Steve Layton
Contemporary Classical

Last Night in L.A.: the Argento

Last night’s Never-on-Monday Evening Concert at LACMA presented the Argento Chamber Ensemble in its sampling of German music.  Lanier Sammons wrote a nice review of the concert’s performance in New York.  As performed here, the program had a different sequence, separating the two pre-Expressionist works so that the Schoenberg Kammersymphonie ended the first half and the Wagner transcription ended the second.  Despite Lanier’s good review (and that from the NY Times), I felt the concert made a strong argument that an ensemble of five strings and ten winds does not make for good balance and clean textures.  Listening to the Liebestod made me think of a transcription for concert band, one with a few strings thrown in.  I did enjoy the Rihm and Haas performances, both of which were West Coast premieres, and I thought that the performance of the Kleine Harlekin of Stockhausen was a delight, and a very good concert-opener.  Fortunately, the new management of the music programs at LACMA did away with the slide-show of art during the concert.  I hope the management also learns that it’s better to plan and organize what you’re going to say when you come to talk to the audience while the stage is being set up.

by JerryZ
Contemporary Classical

An Interview With Golijov

On Sunday, Argentinean composer Osvaldo Golijov won two 2007 Grammy awards—Best Opera Recording and Best Contemporary Classical Composition—for his opera, Ainadamar (Fountain Of Tears) starring soprano Dawn Upshaw and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra with conductor Robert Spano. In August of last year, WGBH  Classics in the Morning host Cathy Fuller sat down with Golijov at his home in Brookline, MA and discussed this award winning opera, his first. This exclusive, in-depth interview—complete with excerpts from the moving opera—can be heard online at wgbh.org/osvaldo.

Ainadamer tells the story of dramatist Federico García Lorca and his muse, Catalan stage actress Margarita Xirgu (in a twist, Lorca is played by a woman) and incorporates Arab, Jewish, and flamenco elements.

Classics in the Morning with Cathy Fuller airs weekdays, 9am-12noon on 89.7 FM in New England and streams live worldwide at wgbh.org/classical.

by Jerry Bowles
Contemporary Classical

Guilty Pleasures

We’re having an ice storm in the Center of the Universe this morning.  Good day to be old and vested although it’s not really the thrill you think it’s going to be.  Especially the old part.

The last time Master Salvage and I took a meeting in the S21 Starbucks HQ the subject of guilty pleasures came up.  You know what I mean, Steve and Eydie, Karen Carpenter, Alvin and the Chipmunks.  But, applied to non-pop music.  David confessed that there were parts of certain Michael Nyman pieces that sound pretty darn good.  I owned up to an affection for Hovhaness.  Now, it’s your turn.  What’s your guilty pleasure.

I sure hope nobody says Philip Glass.  I’m listening right now to a new recording of Music with Changing Parts (Orange Mountain)  by the brilliant English group Icebreaker.  No need to be embarassed about liking this one; it’s as good as it gets.

by Jerry Bowles
Contemporary Classical

“Wilson’s Ivory-bill”

WilsonsIvoryBill.jpgTimes have been good for my old composition teacher Lee Hyla. After many years on the composition faculty at Boston’s New England Conservatory, he has been hired into an endowed chair at Northwestern University, where he will take up residence in the coming academic year. His impending departure has precipitated a flurry of activity in Boston, including a lengthy and glowing profile in the Boston Globe in mid January and a farewell retrospective concert at New England Conservatory a few days ago. And in November, John Zorn’s Tzadik label released his latest CD “Wilson’s Ivory-bill.” Samples of three of the four works on the CD are available at http://www.leehyla.com/, if you’d like a taste of what I’m talking about here. (more…)

by Galen H. Brown
Awards, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Grammy

And the Winners (We Care About) Are

  • Classical Vocal Performance: “Rilke Songs,” Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (Peter Serkin), track from Lieberson: Rilke Songs, The Six Realms, Horn Concerto.
  • Classical Contemporary Composition: “Golijov: Ainadamar: Fountain of Tears,” Osvaldo Golijov (Robert Spano).
  • Opera Recording: “Golijov: Ainadamar: Fountain of Tears,” Robert Spano, conductor, Kelley O’Connor and Dawn Upshaw; Valerie Gross and Sid McLauchlan, producers (Women of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra).
  • Producer of the Year, Classical: Elaine Martone.
  • Classical Album: “Mahler: Symphony No. 7,” Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor, Andreas Neubronner, producer (San Francisco Symphony).
    Classical Crossover Album: “Simple Gifts,” Bryn Terfel (London Voices; London Symphony Orchestra).
  • Engineered Album, Classical: “Elgar: Enigma Variations; Britten: the Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Four Sea Interludes,” Michael Bishop, engineer (Paavo Jarvi and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra).
    Orchestral Performance: “Mahler: Symphony No. 7,” Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor (San Francisco Symphony).
  • Choral Performance: “Part: Da Pacem,” Paul Hillier, conductor (Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir).
  • Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance(with Orchestra): “Messiaen: Oiseaux Exotiques (Exotic Birds),” John McLaughlin Williams, conductor; Angelin Chang (Cleveland Chamber Symphony).
  • Instrumental Soloist Performance(without Orchestra): “Chopin: Nocturnes,” Maurizio Pollini.
  • Chamber Music Performance: “Intimate Voices,” Emerson String Quartet
  • Small Ensemble Performance: “Padilla: Sun of Justice,” Peter Rutenberg, conductor (Los Angeles Chamber Singers’ Cappella).
by Jerry Bowles