Author: Christian Carey

Concerts, Events, File Under?, jazz, New York

Trygve Seim makes NYC debut on 9/11

Last year, saxophonist Trygve Seim and pianist Andreas Utnem collaborated on Purcor, a recording for the ECM imprint (Seim’s sixth as leader). Drawing on material from a wide range of sources, including settings of the Mass, folk music, and Seim’s own compositions, it was among the recordings in frequent rotation when I got home from the hospital this past November. Needing a calm environment in which to regenerate and reflect, I found Purcor to be the perfect listening to accompany a healing respite.

Meditative yet soulful, earnest yet elegant, gently articulated yet substantively thoughtful, Seim and Utnem craft a series of duets that are spellbinding. Consistently succor supplying and diverse in mood and musical approach, the compositions on Purcor inhabit both jazz and an ecumenical kind of musical liturgy.

Given what they’ve crafted on the recording, I have no doubt that Seim and Utnem will provide an affecting evening of music this Sunday. Those seeking solace in artistic expression during this weekend’s commemoration of the September 11, 2001 attacks have many options from which to choose, including a marathon we’ve also mentioned as an excellent option. Seim and Utnem will doubtless provide calm in the midst of storms of media frenzy, terror alerts, and turbulent memories. Recommended.

In Concert
Trygve Seim / Andreas Utnem
September 11th, 7pm
Norwegian Seamen’s Church
317 East 52nd Street
New York, NY 10022-6302
(212) 319-0370

Free of charge

Trygve Seim: tenor and soprano saxophones
Andreas Utnem: piano, harmonium

by Christian Carey
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York

Elbow Room




The US premiere of James Dillon’s Nine Rivers, a three evening long contemporary classical epic, will open Miller Theatre’s 2011-’12 season (details below).

I’ll be writing about the first evening of the piece for Musical America. That said, I’ve been assured by those in the know that you probably shouldn’t take this Gesamtkunstwerk as if it’s three separate evenings of music: it’s kind of like having your Siegfried without your Götterdämmerung.

Is Nine Rivers a postmodern retort to the Ring? Perhaps not in terms of narrative, but in terms of its ambitious scope and extended genesis, its not an inapt analogy. A Scottish composer associated with complex scores of penetrating intensity, Dillon has spent years creating this work for electronics, voices, strings, and brass. Nine Rivers also includes a strong multimedia component, with lighting by Nicholas Houfek and video design by Ross Karre. Steve Schick will lead the performers, a group of fifty musicians from the ensembles red fish blue fish, ICE, and the Crossing Choir. Without giving too much away, audiences will be in for quite a finale: all of the musicians perform at once in the last section of Nine Rivers.

Now I must confess that I had some small misgivings when I heard about the massed forces for the piece’s conclusion: call it the logistician in me. After all, I’ve never seen even close to fifty musicians on the stage of Miller Theatre! Will they all fit?

Fortunately, it appears that elbow room, while at a premium, will be adequate. I’ve been assured – via Miller’s twitter feed – that having choral musicians in the mix has been a space saver in terms of stage choreography: after all, they won’t be lugging instruments onstage. That said, the Crossing (also via twitter) reports that they still must contend with big scores that will require music stands. So, it’s likely to be cozy up there!

Below is a video of Steve Schick discussing Nine Rivers.



Event Details

    Nine Rivers by James Dillon

    Wednesday, September 14, 8:00PM

    Friday, September 16, 8:00PM

    Saturday, September 17, 8:00PM
    Columbia University’s Miller Theatre is located north of the Main Campus Gate

    at 116th St. & Broadway on the ground floor of Dodge Hall.

    All-access passes for Opening Night are now on sale online at www.millertheatre.com.

    Single tickets can be purchased online beginning August 15.

    The public may also purchase tickets through the Miller Theatre Box Office

    in person or at 212/854-7799, M–F, 12–6 pm beginning August 29.

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical, Contests, File Under?

File Under ? runs “Hurricane Playlist” contest

Hurricane evacuee Humphrey

Hurricane Irene approaches. We’ve got two extra guests this weekend: my Mom and Humphrey, her labrador retriever. They were evacuated from Long Island and are spending the weekend with us.

Waiting out a storm can be angst-producing and, eventually, boredom provoking – particularly without music.

So, File Under ? readers (the comments section is open and so are email, Twitter, Facebook, and G+), send us your “hurricane” listening lists – either in old-fashioned typewritten format or via the usual suspects (Spotify, Last.fm, etc.). The guidelines are wide open. It can be a themed list or simply musical “comfort food.”

Stay safe everyone!

“Winner” – my entirely subjective favorite gets a prize. Hey, why should Irene have all the fun?

by Christian Carey
Chamber Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Locrian Players after party

After a terrific concert – including pieces by Eve Beglarian, David MacDonald, Dan Visconti, Colin Holter, and Julia Wolfe, we had a lovely party to celebrate the Locrian Chamber Players concert this past Thursday.

Those pictured include composers Eve Beglarian, Scott Johnson, Don Hagar, and David MacDonald.

Hail hail the gang's all here! Photo: Glen Cornett.

Alan Kozinn seemed to enjoy himself at the concert too.

by Christian Carey
Composers, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Interviews, Video, Violin

Hilary Skypes with Max

Hilary Hahn. Photo: Peter Miller

We all know Hilary Hahn as Sequenza 21’s resident video blogger; oh, and she’s a world class violinist and DG recording artist.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_-fpVZ0hdw[/youtube]

Wearing both of those hats simultaneously, Hilary had a video chat via Skype with composer Max Richter earlier this week. Richter is one of 27 composers commissioned to write an encore for Hahn; she begins debuting the pieces this coming October. In order to spotlight the featured composers, Hilary’s planning to release a video interview with one each month. It makes us here at Sequenza 21 feel kind of special. After all, how many other websites have their video blogger booked two years out?

by Christian Carey
Boston, Chamber Music, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, File Under?

Tanglewood Highlights 3: Humoresque and Homages

Fred Ho's Fanfare. Photo: Hilary Scott.

Fred Ho, Fanfare for the Creeping Meatball: This brief yet buoyant brass fanfare got played at the beginning of every FCM concert. But its jazz noir ambience, jocular rhythms, and even its campy “B-movie scream” (which, on Sunday night, caused unsuspecting Tanglewood fellows assembling onstage to leap out of their seats!) never wore out their welcome. New music gatherings tend to take on a somber demeanor and earnest programming needs to be leavened with a bit of humor. Ho’s piece fit the bill perfectly.

________

Milton Babbitt, It Takes Twelve to Tango and No Longer Very Clear: During the Festival of Contemporary Music, Tanglewood celebrated recently deceased composer Milton Babbitt (1916-2011) with several performances in his honor. Alas, we arrived too late in the week to get to hear Fred Sherry’s rendition of the late cello composition More Melismata. But judging by Babbitt memorials earlier in 2011 at which Sherry has shared the work, we would have gladly heard it again.

It Takes Twelve to Tango (1984) was Babbitt’s contribution to Yvar Mikhashof’s tango collection. Pianist Ursula Oppens included it on her FCM solo recital on August 7th. The piece is more explicitly referential of a regular dance rhythm than is Babbitt’s usual wont; even more so than the veiled references to swing era jazz that sporadically occur throughout his catalog. Still, the piece provides plenty of twists and turns that upend the usual tango form in favor of bustling counterpoint and playful misdirection. And yes, true to the punning title’s promise, Babbitt doesn’t dispense with dodecaphony, allowing his rigorous approach to commingle with a bit of witty humor in this occasional work.

At the morning concert on Sunday, August 7th, Soprano Adrienne Pardee and a small ensemble led by conductor Stefan Asbury performed Babbitt’s No Longer Very Clear (1994), a setting of a poem by John Ashbery. This piece isn’t heard as much as some of Babbitt’s other vocal pieces: a pity, as it a thoughtful and nuanced treatment of an intriguing poem, with shimmering instrumental textures and a delicately spun vocal line. Pardee, a TCM fellow, demonstrated a lovely tone, impressive control, and rapt attention to the score’s myriad details: wide-ranging dynamics, tricky rhythms, varied articulations, and abundant chromaticism.  Both she and the instrumentalists did so well that Asbury, remarking that it was, after all, a short piece, asked them to repeat it; which they did, making the work’s charms even more abundantly clear.

by Christian Carey
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, Events, File Under?, New York

Music After Marathon

Composers Daniel Felsenfeld and Eleanor Sandresky are organizing a free music marathon to commemorate the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001. Music After will include a veritable who’s who of the New York new music scene, featuring performers and composers who were affected (and are still affected) by the terrorist attacks in Lower Manhattan on 9/11; see a list of some of the included composers below. The event will be at Joyce SoHo on September 11, 2011 from 8:46 AM until past midnight.

The organizers (and many of the participants) are donating their time; but it’s still proving a challenge to fund an event of this size. If you’d like to help out with a contribution of any amount, we’ve included some information below to facilitate that process.

1) Click here to give a small amount (even $2 or 3 helps)

2) Visit www.musicafter.com to give through Vision Into Art, who have generously offered to be our 510(c)3 fiscal conduit.  This is done through PayPal.

3) If you want to give a more substantial amount, send a check (made out to Vision Into Art) to: Music After, 336 Park Place #3, Brooklyn, NY 11238

 

Music After Composers: Annie Gosfield, Carter Burwell, Charles Waters, Dafna Naphtali, Daniel Felsenfeld, David Bowie, David Byrne, David Del Tredici, David First, David Lang, David Linton, David Soldier, Don Byron, Eleonor Sandresky, Elliott Carter, Elliot Sharp, Eve Beglarian, Hans Tammen, Harold Meltzer, Joan LaBarbara, Joanne Brackeen, John King, Jon Gibson, Judd Greenstein, Judy Nylon, Julia Heyward, Julia Wolfe, Julie Harrison, Justin V. Bond, LaMonte Young, Laurie Anderson, Laurie Spiegel, Lou Reed, Matthew Shipp, Meredith Monk, Michael Friedman, Michael Gordon, Mohammed Fairouz, Morton Subotnik, Nico Muhly, Patti Smith, Phil Kline, Philip Glass, Phill Niblock, Robert Ashley, Rosanne Cash, Rufus Wainright, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Steve Bull, Steve Reich, Steven Trask, Stewart Wallace, Sxip Shirey, Tim Mukherjee

by Christian Carey
Boston, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, Festivals, File Under?

Tanglewood FCM Highlights Part Two

David Fulmer plays his Violin Concerto at FCM. Photo: Hilary Scott

David Fulmer, Violin Concerto: Written in 2010, Fulmer’s chamber concerto revels in complexity. Those who have heard his performances of the music of Brian Ferneyhough or that of his teacher Milton Babbitt, which sizzle with hyper-virtuosic playing, can readily understand such predilections. Fulmer’s performance as soloist on the Sunday morning FCM concert (on 8/7) was imbued with similar intensity.

Compositionally, it’s an abundantly promising work: but it isn’t perfect. Occasionally, one feels that a bit of crowd control might be brought to bear on the thickly scored busyness of the orchestration, to better clarify the angular counterpoint that propels the proceedings. Also, the inclusion of three keyboard instruments for one player – piano, harpsichord, and celesta – (without terribly extended parts for either of the latter two) seems an impractical choice that may limit the number of ensembles who will mount the piece. That said, Fulmer’s compositional language and performance demeanor exemplify an edginess and gutsiness notably in short supply among many of his contemporaries in the emerging composer realm.

Marie Tachouet plays the solo part in Felder's Inner Sky. Photo: Hilary Scott

David Felder, Inner Sky: Tanglewood is blessed with excellent student performers. And while there were a number of fellows who distinguished themselves on the festival, the standout for me was flutist Marie Tachouet. A member of the New Fromm Players, Tanglewood’s SEAL Team Six equivalent for contemporary music, Tachouet played on several FCM concerts. But she took her solo turn on its finale, an orchestra concert held in the evening on Sunday, August 7th.

The flutist was featured in David Felder’s Inner Sky. Composed in 1994 and substantially revised in ’99, this piece requires the soloist to perform on four flutes: piccolo, concert, alto, and bass flute. The trajectory of the piece is charted by the move from high to low flutes, which is registrally mimicked by a supporting quadraphonic electronics part that features both distressed flute samples and synthetic sounds. An “analog” surround effect is also created by an even distribution of strings and percussion across the stage.

Inner Sky is an immersive listening experience. It’s also a highly sophisticated colloquy between soloist, ensemble, and electronics; one that achieves a carefully choreographed balance of elements, both acoustic and musical: a balance that is all too rarely found in works for orchestra plus electronics. It certainly helped to have Tachouet’s sensitive performance and Robert Treviño’s fine direction of the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra.

Later this year, Inner Sky sees release in both stereophonic and surround-sound formats. I’m looking forward to checking it out again (hopefully in both versions!).

by Christian Carey
Boston, Chamber Music, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Orchestras

Tanglewood FCM Highlights (Part One)

Those who’ve read File Under ? for a while may know that, two years ago, my wife and I went on our honeymoon to Tanglewood. We celebrated our first anniversary at the 2010 FCM (composers take note: if your prospective partner doesn’t mind taking in a contemporary music marathon as part of your honeymoon, he/she is a keeper!) Due to work obligations, Kay and I weren’t able to attend the first three days of the 2011 Festival of Contemporary Music. Those who’d like to read excellent coverage of the beginning of the festival should head on over to New Music Box for Matthew Guerrieri’s review. But we did make it up to Lenox, MA for the final two days of the festival. And our short weekend was action packed; we heard five concerts and saw a play (a rather uneven performance of Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare and Company).

Kay at Shakespeare and Company.

Pierre Jalbert, Music of Air and Fire: The Boston Symphony often does a contemporary work on one of its concerts during the week of FCM as a nod to the festival. This year, it was Pierre Jalbert’s Music of Air and Fire (2007), which the orchestra, lead by BSO assistant conductor Sean Newhouse, performed at the Shed on August 6.

Jalbert was a Tanglewood fellow back in the 1990s. A professor at Rice University, he’s now in demand as a composer, both of works for large orchestra and for smaller forces, as this month’s NMB profile attests.

This six minute overture was premiered by the California Symphony; it is Jalbert’s first piece on a BSO program. Music of Fire and Air is a lively and well-paced curtain-raiser, with deft writing for percussion and vivid neo-tonal harmonies from strings and winds. Apart from a small excerpt available for streaming on Jalbert’s website, it is as yet unrecorded. Given the bang-up job the BSO did with the piece, dare we hope they’ll commit it to disc sometime soon?

Karchin leads TMC Fellows. Photo Hilary Scott

Louis Karchin, Chamber Symphony: Karchin’s Chamber Symphony (2009) was the closer of FCM’s 10 AM concert on August 7 (one of three given in Ozawa Hall on the festival’s final day). Cast in three movements, its  features limpid, flowing francophilic lines, daubed with tart counterpoint, as well brilliantly colorful verticals and bold Straussian horn calls. Despite leading an ensemble comprised primarily of student performers (albeit very talented student performers), Karchin’s conducting elicited a bright and assured rendition that rivaled its premiere by pros that I heard back in 2010. FCM should invite Karchin to return, both to hear his own works performed and to work with the students on contemporary repertoire.

by Christian Carey