The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, Daniel Hyde, Director of Music
King’s College, Cambridge, 2xCD
The Street, Nico Muhly’s first collaboration with Alice Goodman, a librettist best known for her work with John Adams, presents a modern retelling of the Stations of the Cross. The first CD sets the mood for the drama to come, with performances of the Bach C-minor Partita No. 2 and the instrumental version of The Street by harpist Parker Ramsay. Ramsay is a gifted performer – his recordings include a fluent rendition of the Goldberg Variations. His interpretation of the partita revels in glissandos and ornaments, both befitting the harp. The Sinfonia displays luxurious rubato, while the Allemande, Courante, and Rondeau jubilantly dance. The isolation of polyphony is particularly clear in the Sarabande, and the Capriccio provides a virtuosic conclusion.
Playing a solo harp version of The Street, Ramsey brings out the pathos of the Stations of the Cross in a supple emotive performance. On its own, the harp is compelling and communicative; even more so as part of the full version which follows.
Goodman’s text moves between ancient and contemporary voices who describe the barbarity of Jesus’s tormentors and the varied responses of the crowd and his followers. I found this distillation of a ritualized text at the core of Lenten observances as part of a modern discourse to be affecting. It describes the capacity for good and evil that the everyday person, meaning all of us, wrestle with today. Rosie Hilal’s narration is exquisitely enunciated, providing each of the stations with its own narrative resonance. Muhly’s incorporation of chant melody, performed by the Choir of King’s College, directed by Daniel Hyde, supplies a liturgical anchor that complements the instrumental and recited portions of the piece. The choir provides its customary sonorous delivery, allowing the chant lines to breathe and take on a gradual portentousness.
Muhly began his musical career as a chorister and his affinity for liturgical music is on display here, as is his expert writing for the harp. It is one of the composer’s most compelling works to date.
On October 28, 2022, Greyfade released Filters, a debut album of solo piano music by Phillip Golub. Based in New York, Golub has been performing for decades in both classical and improvisational settings. In Filters he explores the intersection of musical repetition and improvisation. The album consists of four piano ‘loops’, each about 8 minutes long. Each loop is a series of repeating phrases that maximize expression by the performer while severely limiting harmonic and rhythmic changes. Careful listening allows discernment of the unique contributions of the performer without distraction. As Golub writes: “When we know the repetition is not mechanical, there’s a certain feeling of needing to stay very focused with the performer, to be there with them.”
How does this sound? The piano phrases are simple, consisting of a few notes and chords played at a moderately slow tempo. The phrasing seems halting, even syncopated at times, and are not constrained to a strict beat. The pitch set is limited with only a few changes as the sequences proceed. There is a generally reflective feeling in these loops, marked by an absence of technical flash or drama; a sort of unsettled rumination. The phrases are similar upon repetition, but never identical – always with the same interior feel, but never tedious. At first this seems to be a variety of classic minimalism, but the variations in the cells are more subtle. Steve Reich wrote that his minimalist phrasing was varied by adding or subtracting a note or two in the cells after a certain number of repetitions, allowing the overall pattern to dominate while introducing variations gradually.
Golub takes this one step further in that the variations are introduced by the performer in the playing and not by the composer in the scoring. There are small changes to the timing of the rhythms, a change of emphasis on the individual notes and very slight differences in tempo. All of this results in subtle alterations of the musical surface and micro-acoustic detail – in other words, the variations are all driven in the moment by the pianists ‘touch’. The loops presented in Filters are just eight minutes long, but they are meant to be played as long as desired. Each 8 minute loop in the album is an edited subset of a 45 minute recording and some of Golub’s live performances have extended for several hours.
More specifically, Golub writes: “Each loop on Filters contains two ‘streams’ of music. The outer stream consists of a single high note and a single low note on the piano, always struck together. The inner stream is a succession of simple major or minor triads — with an occasional suspended fourth or added seventh — that continually re-contextualize the color of the pitches of the outer stream. Something mysterious and magical happens here that is unique to the resonance, decay, and overtones on pianos. I think that this blending of the louder outer stream with the quieter and denser inner music is at the core of the effect.”
Each of the loops, while similar in construction, have their own distinctive emotional character. Loop 1 is typical with a quietly moderate tempo and repeating phrases. These are very similar, but are heard to be slightly different in each sounding. The small variations in the phrases are not obvious, but invite close attention so that the repeating sequences engage the listener and are never boring. There is a warmly introspective feeling that is also welcoming to the ear. Loop 3 is similar, having the same reflective feeling with perhaps a bit of optimism. Loop 4 has a more ambiguous feel; its character is full of uncertainty and questioning. The most contrasting track, Loop 5, is pitched in a somewhat higher register and includes enough dissonance to produce a sense of disquiet in the listener. A bit elliptical and mildly frustrating at times, Loop 5 a departure by being more anxious than introspective.
Filters is a cutting edge album that illustrates how the performer can exert the critical creative input from within the confines of a strictly minimalist framework. The subtle variations in the repeated cells of these loops arise in the moment from the inventive touch of the pianist and are not the result of formal structures. With Filters, Phillip Golub has restored creative primacy to the individual musician, even within the heart of a highly process-oriented music.
From Wilderness – A Meditation on the Pacific Coast Trail
Choral Arts Initiative, Brandon Elliott, conductor; Kevin Mills, cello
Navona CD/DL
With From Wilderness, Jeffrey Derus has written a soaring and eclectic full length work for Choral Arts Initiative, an ensemble committed to new music with nearly twenty commissions and seventy premieres under their belts. Their previous recording, music of Dale Trumbore, supplied significant exposure for her laudable choral works. One imagines that From the Wilderness will do the same for Derus.
Derus has an intimate connection with the environs of the Pacific Coast Trail. He takes the listener on a musical journey that includes choral movements with cluster chord modal harmonies, meditative crystal singing bowl interludes associated with the chakras, solo turns as spirit animals by soprano Anna Kietzman, alto Genie Hossain, tenor Taylor Jacobs, baritone Kirk Averitt, and bass Timothy Cervenka, and powerful cello solos from Kevin Mills. Many composers juggling this many elements might make a less than compelling mashup of them. Derus instead highlights the pathway along his spiritual journey in a keen synthesis of these various elements.
The composer doesn’t try to programmatically depict nature along the trail. His impressions and, more importantly, the cathartic response Derus has to journeying are the main topics of From Wilderness. The use of singing bowls is quite beautiful, creating clusters of harmony that presage the use of similar harmony in the voices. “Cajon Pass” is a case in point, with rich verticals and cascades of vocal overlap. Choral Arts Initiative performs with a powerful sound, strongly resonant from top to bottom. Mills plays a poignantly lyrical solo on “Sierras 1,” soon augmented by upper voices creating glinting shards of sound. There is then much interplay between cello and the upper and lower voices ricocheting back and forth. When all come together, with the cello playing in the altissimo register, it is a glorious sound.
Buffalo Philharmonic and its music director JoAnn Falletta brought their considerable world class talent downstate to Carnegie Hall on Monday. The hall was full, despite persistent rain and the fact that the program was entirely dedicated to a composer whose name and music are not familiar to the casual music fan.
The celebrated composer and conductor Lukas Foss (1922-2009) put his indelible stamp on Buffalo when he was music director of the Philharmonic, 1963 – 1971. With programming that included a healthy dose of new music, he paved the way for a taste for contemporary works in Buffalo. He made a deep impression on JoAnn Falletta, whose association with him goes back to Milwaukee Symphony where she was his assistant conductor in the 1980s. It’s evident from the way Falletta talks about – and performs – Lukas Foss, that she reveres the man and his music.
This year, the centennial of his birth, brought some of his brilliant and neglected works to the stage, five of which were featured this evening. The ensemble performed the music as if it were in their DNA, although, as I later learned, the works were new to these players.
JoAnn Falletta (credit David Adam Beloff)
The program, while full of collaborative performers, allowed the Buffalo Philharmonic to shine on its own in the first and last pieces on the program. Foss said of the first work on the program, Ode, that it represented “crisis, war and, ultimately, ‘faith.’” It was appropriately heavy and ominous with BPO’s brass shining through with impressively dense chords.
BPO’s concert master, Nikki Chooi, took center stage as soloist for Three American Pieces, a work which seemed to shout “Americana!” Chooi’s warm tone and heartfelt playing were evident throughout. In fast passages, Chooi showed off his virtuosity as his bow bounced rapidly on the strings, a spiccato effect. Elements of jazz and country fiddling were woven into the composition; Chooi made the most of each of these styles, supported by various orchestra soloists, notably William Amsel’s jaunty clarinet.
The flutist Amy Porter was featured in Renaissance Concerto, a composition commissioned by the BPO in 1986 for the flutist Carol Wincenc. Foss called it a “loving handshake across the centuries,” and in the process of writing the work, tapped Falletta to help gather lute songs for his inspiration. The orchestra navigated fast riffs in excellent intonation, supporting the soloist. Foss cleverly plays with rhythms, delaying a beat to create a jagged rhythm in the second movement. In the third movement, the soloist’s portamento pitch slides affirm the work’s modernism; a passage which was echoed by principal flutist Christine Lynn Bailey with a nicely matched tone. Porter navigated the extended techniques with aplomb, generating percussive sounds meshing in duet with tambourine. With a dramatic flair, Porter inched her way off the stage as she played the final measures.
BPO was joined by The Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Downtown Voices, for Psalms, a work written in 1956. Tenor Stephen Sands (who is also Downtown Voices director), and soprano Sonya Headlam delivered solos that were spot on and especially moving; beautifully punctuated by harp, tympani and strings. Fugal passages were well-executed, and, with Falletta’s encouragement and direction, never overpowering. The singers had the spotlight to themselves for Alleluia by Foss’s teacher Randall Thompson, an a cappella work that was stunningly gorgeous and reverently performed.
Symphony No. 1, written in 1944, was the earliest work on the program. Textures in the orchestration evoked the sound and style of Copland, mixed with Bernstein, mixed with Hindemith; a sound parallel to the “midcentury modern” style of architecture and furniture. The third movement displayed an appropriate amount of swing, and each of the principal string players were radiant in their respective solo passages in the final movement.
The Lukas Foss Centennial Celebration at Carnegie Hall was a fitting tribute to this under-recognized American composer. Next week, Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic head to the recording studio, and an album of the entire program will be released by Naxos next year.
The program so sincerely produced on the labor of forgetting, the debut release from False Azure Records, reminds me of Pauline Oliveros, who once said, “Listening is selecting and interpreting and acting and making decisions.” Indeed, the music of Katherine Balch (b. 1991) and Dante De Silva (b. 1978), in the handling of soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon and pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough, underscores the agency of listening as a process in physical flux, even when its subjects are fixed in time and space. The aural objects herein, as grandly interpreted as they are intimately assembled (if not the reverse), bend details into hooks on which we are invited to hang the keys of our distractions while not forgetting the darkness nipping at our heels.
De Silva’s Shibui (2009) opens in mourning, paying respects to Deborah Clasquin, a mentor for both De Silva as composer and McCullough as performer. The piece’s title, lifted from the Japanese tongue, refers to the tartness the latter might taste, but also to a quiet sense of understatement or even a sullen look. As an invisible integration of Bartók’s Élegy op. 8b no. 1, it barely bends under the weight of its allusions. Gentle chords are hammocks for the heaviest emotions, all of which are given rest until they can stand on two feet.
Four Years of Fog (2016) for just-tuned piano follows with a gaze into early adulthood. The whimsical tuning, contrived yet unabashedly beautiful, illuminates as much as it obscures. Subtitles like “Blissfully Ignorant” and “Sickness and Exile” read familiarly to anyone who has lived (or is living) those inevitable stages. And yet, as the octave ails behind closed eyes, we open our ears to a healing sound, unbidden to dance because the notes dance for us. Thus, are we born again, slapped in the rear like the piano at the end into self-awareness.
“Only once did she feel loved by a man / on what we might call / the wash of the cellular level.” So begins Balch’s estrangement (2020), which sets the poetry of Katie Ford (b. 1975) in an astonishing song cycle. Intended as the dark side of Schumann’s Dichterliebe, it turns the paradigm of north-bearing love into a spinning compass. Fitz Gibbon renders a body through her voice and McCullough the molecules it inhales and exhales. As in the textual play of György Kurtág, though with more attention to punctuation, Balch holds every syllable accountable for its unfolding, allowing the mind to fantasize and count it for reality. Fitz Gibbon clothes the words mindfully, flipping the operatic switch on and off at will, morphing from lullaby to whisper to microtonal shiver to aphasic slur without hesitation. This lends the bearer of language power over the flesh being described or unwritten. The fifth movement is especially impactful in its restraint, as is its successor, “the film,” in which the mise-en-scène of a relationship is repeated to the point of fallacy. The tenth movement, “only the song,” is the most visceral for its stops and starts, as if challenging sustained beauty as an illusory complex.
The final movement concedes that sustain, darkening it with images of disunity: “Sometimes she thought of her love for him / like a donated heart / preserved in a jar.” Hearing De Silva’s Shibui (reprised in just intonation) in closing, we feel the caps spun onto the jars of our own hearts. Birds in the background remind us of where we are and, more importantly, where we were never meant to go. We are always alone in our hearts, thus sung until the lungs of our identities empty themselves and move on without us.
If any of this seems morbid and hopeless, it’s because the honeycombed hardships of its upbringing are proven for their sweetness. Fitz Gibbon and McCullough, like the artists animating their throat and fingers, understand that the upswing of retrospection is fruitless without falling into lessons of self-reckoning. And while we may tell ourselves the pandemic is behind us, any act of restoration in its rubble is a lie without the mortar of care. Let this album be one slather in the right direction.
On Saturday, September 17, 2022, the Meng Concert Hall at Cal State Fullerton was the venue for the world premiere of Why Women Went West, a new chamber opera by composer Pamela Madsen. The opera was presented in concert format, performing the musical elements and including the supplementary videos and electronics. Brightwork newmusic provided the main instrumental accompaniment from the stage with supporting musicians stationed all along the perimeter of the hall. Stacey Fraser, the acclaimed soprano, was the vocal soloist.
Why Women Went West is the story of Mary Hunter Austin, who left her Midwestern hometown in the late 19th century for a pioneer life in California and New Mexico. This is not a bawdy Calamity Jane-type send up of the wild west, but rather a deeply personal journey of self-discovery and hard-won independence. The story is filled with all the challenges and trauma experienced by self-reliant women of the time. Through this process, Mary Austin became a feminist, conservationist, writer and advocate for Native American and Spanish-American rights. The program notes state that the opera “…chronicles Mary Austin’s escape from persecution to transformation of white women’s privilege and passion for preservation of nature, history and indigenous culture.”
Why Women Went West is a two-act opera, with seven scenes in each act for a total running time of almost 90 minutes. Act I is titled “Leaving Home-Earth Horizon” and the first scene is “Echo: Empathy Superimposition.” This introduces the setting of the opera with a multimedia presentation consisting of video, sound track and electronics. The recorded accompaniment includes soprano Stacey Fraser, Aron Kallay on piano and the CSUF New Music Ensemble. The black and white video by Quintan Ana Wikswo shows scenes of mountains, forests and streams; a western landscape that is at once familiar, but at the same time fiercely primal, with a definite undercurrent of menace. Scenes of rough outdoor camping vividly depict the difficulties of traveling in such harsh terrain. The music here is ghostly and surreal, perfectly matching the images projected on the screen. Mary Hunter Austin’s journey through the west was clearly no vacation.
Subsequent scenes in Act I built on this sense of danger and the ominous. The musicians, having taken their places on stage at the close of the introductory video, begin with loud drumming and dark piano lines. The soprano vocal starts off in a low register but the overall feeling becomes a bit brighter with the entry of a reassuring violin passage that combines nicely with Ms. Fraser’s clear articulation and strongly expressive singing. More dark scenes follow, sometimes with video and other times without – often with the soprano voice but at other times with just the instrumental ensemble. “The Birds Here”, scene IV, features a video of hawks hunting above a mountain stream, “Owl’s Breath” was next and featured some really frightening scenes of young white owls. The instrumental ensemble, dominated by the bass clarinet of Brian Walsh, created a skittering cacophony of sounds that added to the unnerving imagery. Clearly, traveling through the 19th century American western wilderness was a formidable undertaking both physically and spiritually, forming the crucible for Mary Austin’s re-invented identity.
Scene VI, “The Necessary,” opens with video of a tree-filled landscape featuring roots and leaves in a series of darkly Gothic images. There is spoken text and the Brightwork ensemble enters, with soft vocals from Ms. Fraser underneath. The video ceases; it is as if the great weight of a difficult westward journey has finally been lifted. The acoustic ensemble now dominates, adding a welcome measure of optimism. The sweetly sung vocal line weaves in and around with beautiful harmony and the overall feeling becomes resolutely hopeful. High arcing soprano lines, confidently sung, add to a sense of deliverance and attainment – the long westward odyssey has been successfully completed. The final scene is stronger still, with stirring music that brings Act I to it’s reassuring conclusion.
The buoyant finish of the final two scenes of Act I, after what had been a long series of darker settings, makes for a contrast that is all the more striking for the listener. Composer Madsen’s expressive sense of harmony and control of texture is brilliantly fluid, with each scene carefully crafted so that the shadows in the music are not tedious or oppressive. The affirming relief felt in the music of the last two scenes of Act 1 proves most effective and is all the more gratifying as a result.
Act II has the title “The Land of Little Rain – California to the Land of Journey’s Ending-New Mexico”. The music of the opening scenes immediately establishes an exotic feel with a maraca and spoken text that describes an arid and inhospitable land. The feelings from these opening scenes in Act II, however, are more settled and secure, as if the trials of surviving in the wilderness are past and Mary Austin Hunter has now arrived and is successfully embedded into new cultural surroundings.
“Prayer for My Daughter” Scene III is especially powerful with Ms. Fraser’s expressive soprano voice paired with a lovely violin accompaniment. There is the pathos of powerful loss in this, but at the same time strength in the soprano line that rises ever-upwards, bringing out Ms. Fraser’s masterful command of her voice through all registers. This piece is perhaps the most moving of the entire opera and was beautifully effective. “57 Buzzards”, part of Scene IV, features sharp twittering from the woodwinds, percussion and the musicians surrounding the audience. There is a confused feeling to this and the instruments seem to be in opposition to the spoken text, with the bird sounds representing chaos.
The climax of the opera occurs in Scene V, “The Consecrating Mother / Mary, Mary by Herself.” A softly pensive piano and cello accompany Stacey Fraser singing the words of Mary Austin Hunter. The feeling is now one of accomplishment and hopefulness, it is as if Mary has finally arrived at the conclusion of her spiritual journey, having worked out her sense of independence and identity. The singing is beautiful, confident and dramatic with accompaniment to match. “Going West”, the final scene, is a stately summing up of the protagonist’s resolve to discover herself through the physical challenges of the wilderness and by assimilation into a new cultural context.
Why Women Went West, as given in this concert format, builds a solid musical foundation for the future staged production. The scoring, playing and singing are all on a very high order as are the video, electronics and sound engineering. Why Women Went West was funded with support from the National Endowment of the Arts, Opera America and the Wurlitzer Foundation. The libretto and text were by Pamela Madsen (after Mary Austin Hunter) and Quintan Ana Wikswo. Additional texts by T.S. Eliot, Terri Niccum and W.B. Yeats. Jen Kutler realized the electronics.
Pamela Madsen will be the featured guest composer in residence at Operation Opera, Cal State University Sacramento next year. A fully staged premiere of Why Women Went West is in the planning stage for their Opera Festival, to be held in early June 2023.
A video of the concert version is now available here.
Brightwork newmusic is: Sarah Wass, flute Brian Walsh, clarinets Shalini Vijayan, violin Ashley Walters, cello Nick Terry, percussion Aron Kallay, piano
The CSUF New Music Ensemble Eric Dries and Pamela Madsen, directors
Kirk Knuffke, cornet; Matthew Shipp, piano; Michael Bisio, bass
Tao Forms
Cornetist Kirk Knuffke plays his instrument with equal versatility to the more common trumpet, presenting a wide range of compass, dynamics, and articulations that leave his work continually fascinating. On Gravity Without Airs, a title taken from Marcus Aurelius, he joins with pianist Matthew Shipp and bassist Michael Bisio. Many of the compositions on the recording are Knuffke. The other pieces are spontaneous improvisations. There is a permeability between composed and improvised selections. Knuffke brought the music to the recording date without sharing it with his collaborators first. Reading from the stand provided inspiration for the subsequent free play, making Gravity Without Airs of a piece.
The title track is an odyssey that reveals the simpatico nature of the trio. Knuffke unthreads long phrases of melody. Partway through, this is replaced by shorter motives that Shipp responds to in counterpoint. Soon things get fiery and move uptempo, with Bisio pressing forward with a walking line. Shipp supplies cascading descending chord progressions to counterbalance Knuffke’s flights aloft. A syncopated repeated chord provides a little bit of space before the descending progression is resumed, this time with Knuffke following Shipp’s suit and changing the direction of his own lines downward. Ostinatos from Bisio and Shipp provide accompaniment to altissimo playing from Knuffke, closing out the piece far away from its beginning.
Another piece on which they stretch out is “Birds of Passage.” It has a dramatic opening, with Bisio playing glissandos, Shipp dissonant chords that at times near clusters, and Knuffke wailing in his upper register. His facility with sixteenth notes is impressive and his soloing moves in different tempo relationships to Bisio and Shipp. All of a sudden, the storm subsides to a single repeated note from Shipp, who shortly begins to create a slow, single line solo over spacious voicings. Knuffke rejoins, channeling the early jazz tradition of the cornet with flourishes that eventually move back into greater angularity. Shipp continues to develop repeated note ideas while Bisio explores smaller ranges of sliding tones. The trio moves downward, Bisio inhabiting the bass’s low register, Shipp creating whorls of harmony, and Knuffke eventually responding with a mysterious, lyrical solo. The piece ends with an enigmatic twist.
“Sun is Always Shining” takes the trio into more hard bop terrain. Knuffke plays keening lines over fifths and octaves repeated by Bisio and fluid countermelodies; tangy harmonies, and oscillations in the bass register are contributed by Shipp. “Another River” moves the trio away from bop to free playing with incisive attacks and angular overblowing from Knuffke eliciting adventurous playing from his colleagues. The group excels at intensity, but their ballads are sumptuous too. The slow sustain of “Paint Pale Silver” provides a miniature utterance akin to the Wandelweiser group.
Knuffke, Shipp, and Bisio know each others’ playing well, and it shows on Gravity Without Airs. That said, they demonstrate that they still share musical terrain to explore. Recommended.
Ironically, the first concert of flutist Claire Chase’s reign as Richard and Barbara Debs Creative Chair at Carnegie Hall in the 2022-23 season focuses on a dead composer. In honor of the groundbreaking composer and accordionist Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016), on January 21, 2023 Chase and friends perform an all-Oliveros concert. In addition to Chase (credited as performing “air objects”), instrumentalists include percussionists Tyshawn Sorey and Susie Ibarra and Manari Ushigua, leader of the Sapara Nation in the Ecuadorian Amazon, who has the intriguing credit of “Forest Wisdom Defender”.
Oliveros was hugely influential on the contemporary music scene. She was especially noted for “deep listening,” a term that Oliveros herself coined, referring to an aesthetic based upon principles of improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation.
The performance will be in Zankel Hall, reconfigured to a theater-in-the-round setup with the performers in the center of the hall. Several other contemporary music program in January will take place in the “Zankel Hall Center Stage” milieu, including performances by yMusic (January 19), Third Coast Percussion (January 20), Rhiannon Giddens (January 24) and Kronos Quartet (January 27).
“I’m honored to be the 2022-2023 Richard and Barbara Debs Creative Chair at Carnegie Hall this season,” wrote Chase on Facebook. “Each of the projects on this series has collaboration at its core, and I’m gobsmacked to get to share the stage with some of the most inspiring musicians in my orbit—people who have changed the way I play, changed the way I listen, and who continue to blow the roof off of the imaginations of everyone in earshot.”
Chase is fortunate to have Carnegie’s backing for this season’s chapter of her 24 year-long commissioning and performance project, Density 2036. Beginning in 2013, Chase has commissioned a new body of solo flute repertoire every year; she’ll continue the process through 2036, the 100th anniversary of Edgard Varèse’s groundbreaking flute solo, Density 21.5. The decades-long project has given a unique framework for Claire Chase’s performance career.
The two “Density” programs are highlights of the entire Carnegie season, and they’re worth waiting for. On May 18, Chase performs Varèse’s Density 21.5 alongside works for flute and electronics that she commissioned over the past ten years, by Felipe Lara, Marcos Balter, Mario Diaz de Leon, George E. Lewis and Du Yun. The sound artist and percussionist Levy Lorenzo handles the live electronics. On May 25, Chase, along with cellists Katinka Kleijn and Seth Parker Woods, pianist Cory Smythe, and electronics artist Levy Lorenzo performs the world premiere of a Carnegie Hall commission by Anna Thorvaldsdottir.
The Paris-based Ensemble Intercontemporain, in its first Carnegie Hall performance in two decades, appears on March 25. The ground-breaking group, founded in 1976 by Pierre Boulez, brings a program that includes the New York premiere of Sonic Eclipse, by EIC’s music director Mattias Pintscher, alongside Dérive 2 by Boulez; and the ensemble reaches back a century to include Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra.
I’ll never forget the first American Composers Orchestra concert at Carnegie that I attended, over 20 years ago. I marveled at the fact that every composer was in attendance (except Charles Ives, and he had a good excuse). Since then, I’ve eagerly looked forward to ACO’s offerings at Carnegie. On October 20 the orchestra, led by Mei-Ann Chen, gives the world premiere of a new work by Yvette Janine Jackson (co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall), and brings a host of guest performers to the Perelman stage: Sandbox Percussion (performing Viet Cuong’s Re(new)al -you’ll be seeing his name more and more, mark my words), the Attacca Quartet (performing an as-yet untitled new work by inti figgis-vizueta), and cellist Jeffrey Zeigler (featured in the New York premiere of Last Year by Mark Adamo). On March 16, Daniela Candellari conducts premieres by George Lewis, Ellen Reid, and Jihyun Noel Kim, and Modern Yesterdays by Kaki King, with the composer on guitar. As far as I can predict, none of these composers will have an excuse as good as Ives if they don’t show up.
The long-lived quintet-of-color, Imani Winds performs new and recent music at Zankel Hall on April 25. Vijay Iyer continues to prove his mettle as a versatile composer with Bruits; also on the program are The Light is the Same by Reena Esmail, and Frederic Rzewski’s Sometimes.
There are many other concerts that showcase living composers at Carnegie this season, including a good number of regional and world premieres commissioned by the institution itself. Composers from Thomas Adès to Caroline Shaw to Michi Wiancko are featured; details are at this link. A complete calendar with program details and ticket information is at this link.
Duo Bruno Bavota and Chantal Acda have released a teaser track from their forthcoming album, “A Closer Distance” (Temporary Residence). The recording is out on October 7th. In the meantime, one can revel in Acda’s gentle singing of short phrases and keening overdubs alongside Bavota’s post-minimal arpeggiations. They are a well-suited musical pair.
Jack Curtis Dubowsky has been a familiar presence in Los Angeles contemporary music for many years. He may be best known for his original scores for vintage silent films, as well as for performing them live while projecting the movies in various outdoor venues around town. Dubowsky has also scored feature films, orchestral and chamber works, as well as choral music including the acclaimed Harvey Milk: A Cantata. He is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the author of three books.
Bolsa Chica Calm is Dubowsky’s latest electro-acoustic album, and he writes that this music “…references ambient, environmental, and experimental music, from vaporwave to Wendy Carlos’ Sonic Seasonings.” The album comprises two 30-minute pieces – Bolsa Chica Surf and Bosa Chica Rain – both inspired by the composer’s avid passion for surfing and the Orange County coast.
Bolsa Chica Surf opens the album and appropriately begins with the calming regularity of waves lapping on the beach. Synthesized instruments soon enter in their turn, with gentle harmonies and simple melodies. The new phrases are independent and repeat so that each entrance adds a new layer of sound to the growing texture. Some high-pitched electronics whirl in the air, and might be sea birds calling across a beach. The soft, pulsing undercurrent of the surf forms a foundation on which the instruments are heard, and this produces a pleasing California sensibility. The repeating phrases of the music complement the patterns in the surf – seemingly the same but each having individual differences. This synchronization of the musical with the natural engages the listener in the same way as standing on a beach watching the waves roll in – all similar in form but separately distinctive.
As the piece continues, a harp is heard repeating a simple ascending phrase, accompanied by lower register electronics and the surf sounds. Three-note bell tones are soon heard dominating at the top of the texture. The tempo has increased slightly and there is a more purposeful feeling as the acoustic instrument sounds enter, each with its own repeating phrase. This pattern produces a feeling of quiet meditation on the beach, even as the piece is one long crescendo, building as instruments join in with new sounds.
At about the halfway mark everything fades to a moment of silence, then a new piano phrase is heard with the harp. There is a steady repeating phrase in each voice with only elementary harmony in the simple piano chords. A cello begins with rich deep tones in slow, stately passages. A flute enters on top, arcing above and there is a more conventional feel to this section with familiar instrumentation and fewer electronics. At 24:33 a distinctive electronic voice enters with sustained tones, changing the mood a bit. Towards the finish the percussion enters, and the feeling becomes one of expectation. A broad tutti chord is a final flourish, and then only the surf sounds continue for a few moments more.
Bolsa Chica Surf is a minimal, but pleasant rending of a quiet day on a California beach. The patterns of the waves and the music imitate one another and merge in the ear to form a continuum of music and nature. This is not dramatic or technically flashy, but is rather a peaceful echo of nature that leaves room in the mind of the listener for quiet meditation.
Bolsa Chica Rain is similarly structured, but evokes an entirely different range of emotions. The sound of a steady rain softly drumming on a metal roof is accompanied by some marvelously liquid percussive sounds. Violins and a cello join in with a mournful melody that perfectly captures the disappointment one feels at having to change outdoor plans because of the weather. At about 3:00, what sounds like a dulcimer enters with repeating phrases that float above sustained tones from synthesized horns. A wood block adds a strong beat as the rain has now receded into the background. Repeating bell-like phrases are heard at the top of the texture and a series of descending notes by the keyboard add to the layers of sound. By 7:00 these sounds have faded and after a momentary pause, the keyboard issues a run of solitary chords that create a slightly more somber mood – like when you feel trapped indoors by the rain. Electronic tones now offer a slightly brighter feel and new layers appear in simple, but uplifting passages. The strings enter again, now providing real optimism as if you have found something interesting to do indoors. As Bolsa Chica Rain continues on, it imparts that sense of liberation you might feel upon realizing that being stuck inside all day because of the rain isn’t so terrible after all.
The architecture of both pieces in Bolsa Chica Calm is similar; they are built up with layers of changing and independent phrases as various instrumental groups enter and fade out. This makes for accessible and engaging music without being boring or repetitive. The patterns in the music mirror the patterns of nature, and this imparts a welcoming sense of serenity. Bolsa Chica Calm is just that, and much needed in our often frenetic lives.
