Tag: Andrew McIntosh

CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, File Under?

Favorites 2022: Andrew McIntosh – Little Jimmy (Recording Review)

Andrew Mcintosh

Little Jimmy

Yarn/Wire

Kairos

Composer and sound recordist Andrew Mcintosh has worked with Yarn/Wire, a quartet of two pianos and two percussionists, for over a decade, and this Kairos portrait CD demonstrates their keen musical connection. The title work references a special scene: recordings of Rosenita Saddle in Angeles National Forest, where Mcintosh routinely walked. It has since been ravaged by damage from wildfires. Sounds from wildlife, particularly wind, birds, and crunching underfoot during nature walks, connect Little Jimmy’s title work and solo piano piece “I Have a Lot to Learn” with feelings of the loss of the Little Jimmy trail camp and verdant memories of vitality.  

 

Pianist Laura Barger opens the CD with “I Have a Lot to Say” (2019). Harmonics provide ritualistic punctuations. These alternate with brief, widely spaced enigmatic chords. Russell Greenberg plays the solo percussion piece “Learning.” Featuring pitched percussion accompanied by environmental sounds and sine tones, the piece is a beguiling tone poem in which birdsong and mallet percussion create a sonorous treble register that the electronics halo with lower sonorities. The resultant blend creates a gradually evolving sound world that evokes connections between the natural world and the organicism of spectralism. 

 

“Little Jimmy” features all four of the performers in Yarn/Wire – Barger and Julia Den Boer, pianists; Greenberg and Sae Hashimoto, percussionists. Bowed vibraphone and quick altissimo runs from the piano begin the piece in tintinnabular style. In the second movement, wind and birdsong are haloed by slowly evolving pitches from bowed and pitched percussion; the pianos chime in with Messiaen-like birdsong of their own. The third movement is a brief interlude that brings back the initial treble gestures. The fourth movement, the longest at ten and a half minutes,  is intriguing. Here, bowed percussion and strummed piano strings combine to create shimmering, slowly evolving textures. The last section of the movement moves towards great aggressiveness, with a clangor of repeating patterns and low sine tones. It is well-crafted, but goes on too long with the same rhythmic attacks and dynamic relentlessness. Alternating piano chords and pitched percussion chimes elaborate the prior movements’ harmonic structure in movement five. All of the various materials from previous movements are combined, leading off with birdsong and electronics, then piano harmonics and mallets. Feedback against birdsong is an interesting choice, and it seems to foretell the tragic end of Little Jimmy Trail. Repeated piano harmonics, triangle punctuations, and the insistence of birdsong and sine tone underscore this portentousness. Chimes toll, wind howls, there is a crescendo in the piano drones and bowed percussion, but nothing can repress the insistence of the nature sounds. A last tolling closes the piece with a sense of mourning rather than closure. Andrew McIntosh is a multalented creator. Little Jimmy provides his multiple muses, the natural world and longtime collaborators, a chance to interact in myriad, often beautiful, ways. It is one of our Favorites of 2022.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Ojai, Premieres

Ojai Music Festival – McIntosh and Aucoin

On Saturday, June11, 2022 the Ojai Music Festival evening concert featured Little Jimmy, by Andrew McIntosh along with Deep Water Trawling and Family Dinner, both by Matthew Aucoin. The Libbey Bowl was mostly filled as was the lawn seating. A perfect evening, clear and warm, added to the pleasant Ojai atmosphere.

Andrew McIntosh is a Los Angeles-based composer and gifted violinist who is also an avid outdoorsman. Andrew has made it to the summit of several peaks in the Sierras as well as Mount Shashta, and he can often be found hiking the local trails. Little Jimmy is named for a popular backpacking camp on Mount Islip in the San Gabriel Mountains. McIntosh has written several chamber pieces for strings, an opera – Bonnie and Clyde – and several microtonal pieces. He has also composed I Hold the Lion’s Paw, a large-scale work for the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet.

Little Jimmy springs directly from McIntosh’s environmental muse. Perhaps not surprisingly, this is a quietly nuanced percussion piece from a widely accomplished string player. The Libbey Bowl stage was set with hanging metal tubes, a steel plate, a vibraphone, triangles, a series of cymbals and a brake drum that brought to mind the inventive creations of Lou Harrison. Jonny Allen and Mari Yoshinaga were the percussionists while Conor Hanick and Matthew Aucoin were stationed at two pianos on opposite sides of the stage.

Little Jimmy opens in a series of triangle and percussive piano notes that give a rough, spiky feel, as if one is walking over the gravel of the San Gabriel foothills. A moment or two of silence follows and then a low roaring sound is heard from the rubbing of a rock on a piece of slate. A field recording of local bird calls evokes the remote landscape around a small creek or mountain stream. The vibraphone adds a few mystical tones, perhaps a glimpse of the high mountains ahead. The vibraphone plates are then bowed, adding to the sense of a transcendent immersion in nature.

As the piece proceeds, the quiet organic sounds give way to a more purposeful feel in the piano phrasing along with a few solitary chimes, perhaps signaling an ascent along the trail. Drones materialize with the drawing of cords across the piano strings. This sound intensifies while soft mallets on the metal tubes summon the mystical pull of the mountain peaks in the distance. A sudden, loud gong is struck followed by dramatic, low notes from the piano, signaling that the high point with a majestic view has been reached. After a short stretch of repeating phrases, perhaps indicating a descent, the bird calls and rushing sounds first heard at the starting point return. The rock is now rubbed on the brake drum along with a bowed cymbal that intensifies the feeling of completeness. A single chime sounds at the finish – a benediction in the cathedral of nature.

The subtlety of the piece was a perhaps a bit confusing to audience at first, but the quiet nuance encouraged close listening and the understatement soon came to be appreciated. Little Jimmy contains all the metaphorical elements of a picturesque hike in the San Gabriel mountains and was convincingly conjured through the imaginative use of percussion and two pianos.

An intermission followed and Deep Water Trawling, by Matthew Aucoin was next. This was everything Little Jimmy was not – loud, urgent and realized with formidable musical forces conducted by the composer. Despite these differences in approach and style, Deep Water Trawling shares with the McIntosh piece a similar attitude on the environment. The program notes state that Jorie Graham’s text for Deep Water Trawling “…addresses the issue of humanity’s impact on nature and the climate, presenting the perspective of the ocean from beneath in response to the problematic practice of fishing with a trawl net.” Accordingly, deep cello tones are heard in the opening along with piano notes in the lower registers. The instruments enter boldly, vividly evoking all the drama, mystery and pressure of the ocean depths. The vocal line “Ask us anything” initiates a dialogue between humans in the soprano voice and the creatures of the depths in the lower voices. There is a spooky and surreal feeling to this; we are clearly being called to account for over-fishing and other environmental transgressions perpetrated by humans in the ocean. As the piece proceeds, full voices and accompanying instruments weave a compelling and cautionary tale. Deep Water Trawling cries out as a powerful indictment of our stewardship of the sea and warns of the ultimate effects on our civilization.

Commissioned by the Ojai Music Festival, the world premiere of Family Dinner by AMROC co-founder Matthew Aucoin followed. This is a large-scale work consisting of a series of ‘mini-concertos’ connected together with poetry readings, spoken anecdotes and toasts such as might be offered at a large family dinner. The muscular musical forces on the stage gave vigorous voice to Aucoin’s vision of “dialogue movements, songful outpourings and raucous dances.” The AMROC personnel that made up the ensemble proved equal to rigorous task before them and performed brilliantly throughout this extensive piece. The sounds called for by the score were highly varied, depending on the scene, but the instruments and voices were always on the mark. Given its impressive length and heft, Family Dinner can trace no doubt its origins to Aucoin’s extensive experience in the world of opera. The music was artfully composed and skillfully performed, but stayed close to conventional gestures and forms. A dazzling platform for virtuosity, Family Dinner delivers almost too much – like an out-sized Thanksgiving meal.

by Paul Muller
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?, Percussion

LA Percussion Quartet – Beyond (CD)

Los Angeles Percussion Quartet

Beyond

Works by Daniel Bjarnason, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Christopher Cerrone, Ellen Reid, and Andrew McIntosh

Sono Luminus 2XCD

Los Angeles Percussion Quartet performs on one of the most compelling releases of early 2017. Beyond (Sono Luminus, June 16, 2017) is a double-disc helping of new works for percussion ensemble by Daniel Bjarnason, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Christopher Cerrone, Ellen Reid, and Andrew McIntosh. All of these composers are up and coming stars in the new music world. Both Reid and Cerrone are New Yorkers (Reid is now based in NY and LA) who have taken Los Angeles by storm in recent seasons with opera and orchestra projects. Bjarnason and Thorvaldsdottir are Icelandic composers who both have a strong connection to the West Coast. McIntosh is very strongly identified with the LA scene, as a composer, string performer, and the guiding force behind Populist Records, one of the most interesting experimental labels out there (here is my recent review of a Populist release by Daniel Corral).

One of the fascinating things to hear on Beyond is the way in which each composer translates their musical approach to the percussive idiom. Thus, Bjarnason’s penchant for dynamic and scoring contrasts is demonstrated in Qui Tollis, a composition equally compelling in both its pianissimo and fortissimo passages. Thorvaldsdottir’s Aura maintains its creator’s fascination with pitched timbres and colorful clouds of harmony; these are deployed with a deft sense of ensemble interplay. Cerrone imports acoustic guitar and electronics in the five-movement suite Memory Palace. The places he references are familiar to New Yorkers, from the pastoral hues of “Harriman” to the tense ostinatos of “L.I.E.” (Long Island Expressway, for those of you who have the blissful fortune to be unaware of this stress-filled commuter highway), and his depictions ring true. Fear-Release by Reid presents a dramatic use of unfurling cells of rhythmic activity alongside pensive pitched percussion. Its coda for metallophones is particularly fetching; after all of the built up tension of the piece’s main body, it serves as a kind of exhalation.

The culminating, and most substantial, work on the recording is McIntosh’s I Hold the Lion’s Paw, a nine-movement long piece some three quarters of an hour in duration. Much of its composer’s music concerns itself with microtones and alternate tunings – he is experienced in playing both Early music’s temperaments as well as contemporary explorations of tuning. Thus it is no surprise that McIntosh’s pitch template for I Hold the Lion’s Paw is an extended one. However, this is just one aspect of a multi-faceted piece, which also makes extensive use of low drums and cymbals for a ritualistic colloquy. Still more ritualized, taking on an almost sacramental guise, is the pouring of water and striking of ceramics filled with water. Every percussionist I know loves an instrument-making assignment and McIntosh doesn’t disappoint: DIY elements include aluminum pipes, cut to fit. None of the elements of this significant battery of instruments seems out of place: despite the use of water, I Hold the Lion’s Paw is no “kitchen sink” piece. On the contrary, it is a thoughtfully constructed and sonically beguiling composition. Several excellent percussion ensembles are currently active: Los Angeles Percussion Quartet is certainly an estimable member of this elite cohort.

by Christian Carey
Chamber Music, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles, viola, Violin

Andrew McIntosh in Recital at The Wild Beast

mcintosh1On Tuesday, October 18, 2016 at The Wild Beast on the Cal Arts campus, a faculty recital by Andrew McIntosh featured no fewer than six different violins and violas, five sections of the Rosary Sonatas with period Baroque tuning, four contemporary pieces, and two world premiers. A good-sized crowd turned out mid-week to experience a wide range of music employing tuning practices from the 16th to the 21st century.

Embellie (1981) by Iannis Xenakis was first, a solo viola piece. Xenakis is quoted in the program notes: “I wrote this piece… trying to think only of the viola, with its low, beautiful notes and its particular voice lying in between those of the cello and the violin like a patch of more clement weather, a moment of calm during a storm…” The opening of Embellie was strongly assured, although perhaps tinged with a touch of anxiety, its complex texture and slight dissonances adding up to a sense of dissatisfaction. Lightly delicate phrases alternated with more forceful passages and McIntosh provided a finely controlled contrast in dynamics and color. At one point, a series of declarative phrases were succeeded by slow, continuously descending tones, unwinding like a far off siren. Rapid, skittering runs followed – requiring rock solid technique – and then some rougher, unsettled phrases that culminated in a high, wispy sound, like the soft whistling of the wind, as the piece quietly concluded.

Next was vla (2007) by Nicholas Deyoe. A version of this – vln – was written for violin, but this was the premiere performance for solo viola. Unlike the Xenakis piece that featured strong contrasts and a variety of textures, vla artfully occupied just a small subset of possible viola sounds. Deyoe noted that “The material is derived entirely from natural harmonics and pizzicato open strings on a retuned instrument.” Vla began with a continuous series of light, squeaky notes that floated insubstantially into the air, often leaving behind a questioning feel. The high, needle-like pitches were accompanied by similarly high pizzicato, deftly realized by the left hand of McIntosh, even as he bowed the arco parts. All of the familiar, rich tones of the viola were absent, but the dancing shimmer of pitches engaged the listener throughout. Vla convincingly evokes the hard sparkle of glass shards in a bright sunlight – from a most unlikely instrument.

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by Paul Muller