Author: Jerry Bowles

CDs, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Woke Up. It Was a Chelsea Morning.

The Metropolis Ensemble is getting set to record the complete collection of chamber orchestra concerti of Avner Dorman with producer David Frost but you don’t have to wait to hear it; the best little orchestra in New York will be performing the same repertoire live and in color next Thursday night, October 11, at  the Angel Orensanz Foundation Center for the Arts (172 Norfolk St, between Houston and Delancey), commencing at 8 pm.  On tap are the American premieres of Dorman’s Concerto in A and Concerto Grosso, the New York premiere of Piccolo Concerto, and an encore performance of Mandolin Concerto. Soloists Mindy Kaufman of the New York Philharmonic, Avi Avital, and Eliran Avni will join the Metropolis Ensemble led by conductor Andrew Cyr.  If you haven’t heard the Metropolis in action you’ve missed something pretty special.  These cats seriously cook.  (Just showing my age for a moment.)

Meanwhile, Miller Theater opens its new Composer Portraits series tonight with a program devoted to the music of Esa-Pekka Salonen.  Performers include Darrett Adkins, cello; Tony Arnold, soprano; the wonderful Imani Winds; Blair McMillen, piano and artistic director and Jeffrey Milarsky, conductor.  Unlike dilettantes like, say Michael Tilson-Thomas, Salonen is a serious composer and I want very much to love Salonen’s music someday.  I’m not there yet which is probably my failing rather than his.

Speaking of liking something, Tina Turner’s cover of Edith and the Kingpin on Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters is nothing short of revelatory.

UPDATE:  This just in.  Frank J. Oteri writes:

Thanks to fellow Sequenza21 blogger Elodie Lauten, the 2005 Lithuanian premiere of my Fluxus-inspired performance oratorio MACHUNAS, created in collaboration with Lucio Pozzi, will be projected on a wide screen at the Hamilton Fish Branch of the New York Public Library, tomorrow – Saturday, October 6, 2007 – at 2 PM. Admission is FREE.
by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical

Out of the Rabbit Hole With David Del Tredici

Philip Glass is not the only composer who turned 70 this year.  Among other newly-minted septuagenarians is David Del Tredici, a “maverick” composer in the great American tradition, and while his attainment of elder statesman status has attracted much less fuss than Glass and Steve Reich, there have been some small, quiet celebrations, one of which was reviewed in the NYT this morning by Alan Kozinn.

I have not heard a lot of Del Tredici’s music but what I have heard I have liked.  I would be happier if it was presented with less explanation, not simply because his “subjects” sometimes make me a little squeamish (not homophobic, just squeamish, in the way that some of Robert Mapplethorpe’s pictures make me reflexively cringe), but simply because I think that money and sex are topics that people ought to keep pretty much to themselves.   Call me an old-fashioned libertarian; I don’t believe there is “women’s music” and “gay music” or even “black music.” There is music. 

I also have the feeling that while wordless music may “mean something” concrete to the composer, it is an abstraction to the listener.  That’s why I find Peter Maxwell Davis’s lavish, prissy, poetic program notes to be laugh out-loud funny. 

Well, that should be enough red meat to get us started.

by Jerry Bowles
Contemporary Classical

What Did You Do During the War, Daddy?

roybowles.jpgThe rabid right has worked itself into a state over Ken Burns’ extraordinarily fair, balanced and altogether pro-American documentary series, The War.  Partly it’s the fact that it is on PBS and it it is an article of faith among conservatives that PBS is run by a bunch of commie, pinko surrender monkeys who use taxpayer dollars to grind out streams of anti-American propaganda.  Forget the fact that most of money comes from such dubious sources as General Motors, Anheiser-Busch, Bank of America and generous foundations established by thoughtful capitalists of the past.  Keep those kids away from PBS; they might see a gay cartoon character.   

Another part of the problem is that Burns himself has said he wasn’t making a celebratory documentary and that he took care to frame his subject (in the words of one veteran) as a “necessary” war, not a “good” war.  This infuriates the true belivers to whom war, any war that America gets involved in, is a good war simply because we’re in it.  Saying anything to contrary is like, well, suggesting that Ronald Reagan was human-born and put his pants on one-leg at a time.

On the lack of celebratory zeal front, the most curious offering came from Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal who was particularly offended by the downbeat original music created for the series by Wynton Marsalis:

The dolorous jazz arrangements by Wynton Marsalis that run throughout the film were, the credits tell us, created especially for this production. Who would doubt it? Don’t ask about the background music for D-Day. Moving on, we see the archival footage of U.S. soldiers advancing through German streets — it is 1945, the troops are among the first Americans to have made it across the Rhine, and victory is, if not in sight, close at hand. By way of an accompaniment to this moment, we hear on the soundtrack some faintly mournful twitterings.

I’m not a huge fan of Marsalis as a composer and I think Burns overused him in his previous jazz films but it seems to me that in this case his restrained, thoughtful, unobtrusive musical texture is a perfect fit for the intimate, personal and very emotional stories the subjects are telling.  When Burns moves away from the personal to the sweep of history view he inevitably turns to familiar tunes by Artie Shaw or Glenn Miller or other period music that serve as a kind of shorthand for the American experience of the World War II.  And, Burns best efforts notwithstanding, that music is always sad, nostalgic, and, yes, celebratory for those of us whose lives touched the war. 

Rabinowitz has some particularly nasty words of America’s current queen of pop:  “When it comes to the dolorous, to be sure, there’s nothing quite equal to the effect of the dreadful “American Anthem” (1999, sung here by Norah Jones), whose sodden notes sound at regular intervals.”  True, the song is sappy but then so was “I’ll See You in My Dreams” and Alice Faye.  Sometimes, sappy is right.

The War is an incredible tribute to the Americans who lived through it and to those who fought and died.  By focusing on the little stories that were epic to those who lived them, the film touches the heart in ways that banal glorification can’t.  Inevitably, it celebrates the resilience of the American character, even if it’s trying not to. 

This is a case of people listening to what Burns said he was doing and not watching what he has actually done.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Critics

The Sun Also Rises

Adam Kirsch, writing in today’s New York Sun:

The critic of the serious arts — poetry, painting, music — is addressing readers who are not just indifferent to new work, but feel justified in their indifference. The critic’s first job, then, even before he evaluates individual works, is to make the reader feel uneasy about his ignorance—to convince him that the art in question is vital and serious, deserving of complex attention. A reader who has always heard that classical music is dead must first be convinced that it is alive.

 

No critic at work today does this better than Alex Ross, who writes about music for the New Yorker.

Can’t say much for the Sun’s politics, but its arts coverage is spot on.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical

MacArthur Stiffs Composers

Alas, no composers among the MacArthur geniuses named today but Dawn Upshaw, who probably makes a decent living at this singing and recording business, will be getting a check for $500,000.  (I’m not saying she doesn’t deserve it, mind you, just that there are probably equally deserving singers who could use a boost at this point in their career but, then, Ms. Upshaw has had a tough couple of years and could probably use a boost, too, so forget everything I’ve said up to this point.

Let’s pretend that you’re a MacArthur judge.  Who would you give the award to?

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Practice, Man. Practice.

AbelsColor_lowres.jpg“Music should either touch your soul or make you dance,” Michael Abels says, and though he admits there is a lot of music out there that doesn’t do either, those should be the goals.  “I always ask my students ‘what is the purpose of your music?’  You can’t create it unless you know what you want it to do.”

Abels, 45, is a Los Angeles-based composer and educator who heads the Music Program at the progressive New Roads School in Santa Monica, a private K-12  school that–upscale zip code, notwithstanding–has a very diverse student population, with nearly half of the students on scholarship.   For Abels, that’s one of the things that makes New Roads a special place.  

“Although blacks and Latinos make up 25 percent of the U.S. population, they comprise only about 4 percent of the country’s professional orchestra musicians,” he says.  “Part of this is economic; a professional music education costs a lot, but a lot of it is cultural.  Promising minority kids often don’t get the encouragement or mentoring they need to push them to next level.”

Abels, whose own background is as all-American as apple pie and ribs, has certainly done his part.  He spent the first of two Meet the Composer grants on a three-year New Residencies program at the Watts Tower Arts Center in South Central Los Angeles where, in addition to composing the music  for the community-oriented Cornerstone Theater, and a work for the USC Percussion Ensemble, he  began a mentoring program for disadvantaged youths in music technology and production techniques.

More recently, Abels has been partnering with the Sphinx Organization, a non-profit organization dedicated to building diversity in classical music, and with the Harlem Quartet,  an ensemble comprised of 1st place Laureates of the Sphinx Competition for young Black and Latino String Players.  The Quartet is a  group of young musicians who spend as much time bringing music into their communities as they do performing in concert halls.  All of which is  part of a nationwide movement to help increase the number of Blacks and Latinos in music schools, as professional musicians, and in classical music audiences. 

Abels’s piece Delights and Dances, (Think the love child of Stravinsky and Copland with a bit of Gershwin for garnish, one longtime S21 reader describes it)  written to celebrate the Sphinx Organization’s 10th anniversary, will be played by the Harlem Quartet at its annual Sphinx Laureates concert Tuesday evening, September 25, at 6:00 pm, on Carnegie Hall.   

I can’t wait to see if it makes me cry or dance.

p.s. (There will also be music by some cats named J.S. Bach, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson,  Astor Piazzolla, joaquín Turina and Duke Ellington).

 

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by Jerry Bowles
Cello, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical

Andromeda’s Strains

bio-page-photo.jpgReview in yesterday’s NYT of a novel called The Spanish Bow by a Chicago-born, Alaska-domiciled writer with the unlikely name of Andromeda Romano-Law.  The teaser is this:  “In a dusty, turn-of-the-century Catalan village, the bequest of a cello bow sets young Feliu Delargo on the unlikely path of becoming a musician.”

Reminds me that I don’t think we’ve done a list of novels in which music, or musical instruments, have played a key role.  I’ll start the list with the distinctly unfriendly to the little people Annie Proulx’s Accordian Crimes.  Who’s next?

by Jerry Bowles
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Music Events

What’s Happening This Season?

The season is underway in New York and, as usual, there are a number of promising looking performances coming up.  Here are a few things to look for:

Margaret Garner, Richard Danielpour’s operatic collaboration with Toni Morrison, is in mid-run at City Opera and, judging from the ads, there are plenty of seats to be had.  I can’t quite stir myself enough to drag up there and sit through an evening of misery about a runaway slave who murders her daughter rather than have her captured.  Doesn’t stop me from having an opinion, though.  Morrison is too sanctimonious and self-important by half and Danielpour should write an opera about Omar the Tentmaker.  Samuel Barber’s Vanessa opens on November 4.

Chance Encounter, On September 28, Lisa Bielawa, Susan Narucki and the new-music chamber group the Knights, will commandeer East Broadway near the Seward Park Library to perform a 4-hour work based on overheard conversation, collected over the last year and set to music.  Details at Lisa’s blog.

Kronos Quartet – The indefatigueable quartet is slated for BAM’s Next Wave festival with collaborations with two Finnish composer/musicians: Kimmo Pohjonen, an accordionist and singer, and Samuli Kosminen, an accordionist and manipulator of electronic sounds.  Oct. 3, 5-6.

Esa Pekka-Salonen – Another famous Finn is the subject of a Composer Portrait at Miller Theater on October 5.  Performers include Imani Winds, cellist Darrett Adkins, soprano Tony Arnold and pianist Blair McMillen.

Berlin in Lights –  Life is a carbaret, old chum, with a bunch of cultural events scattered around town between November 2 and 18.  The centerpiece is the Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall on November 13 and 14.  Simon and gang will be doing the U.S. premiere of Marcus Lindberg’s Seht die Sonne on the 13th and Thomas Adès’ Tevot on the 14th.  Adès, who Simon sez is also a spectacular pianist, is doing an entire recital that will include (without electronic or mechanical assistance) Conlon Nancarrow’s fiendish  Three Canons for Ursula.

That takes us up to mid-November.  We’ll pick up there over the weekend.  What’s hot in L.A., San Francisco, London, Grand Rapids?  Give us a report.

 

by Jerry Bowles