Chamber Music

Chamber Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music

Happy Almost-Birthday, Chapel!

Steve PetersSteve Peters quietly came to Seattle in 2004, after running the non-profit performance organization Nonsequitur out of Albuquerque for 15 years. After a stint at Jackstraw he was finally ready to get back to what he does best (besides making his own wonderful music/sound-art): creating an inviting and flexible space and then filling it up with vital performances. Very soon after its inaugaration this year, the Chapel became probably the premiere initmate space in Seattle for catching new music.

An actual chapel in the beautiful, old Good Shepherd Center (a former home for young girls), tucked into a great park in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood, the Chapel accomodates performances from across the musical spectrum, with nary a miss among the bunch. A glance back at an amazing first year:

The ChapelAnimist Orchestra  // Jessica Catron, cello & Johnny Chang, violin: The Microscores Project // Visual/Sound/Digital Poetry (Subtext Reading Series) // Death Posture butoh // Colin Andrew Sheffield & James Eck Rippie, Phil Hendricks, and Rebreather, electronics // Vanessa Skantze, spoken word/theater performance // Tom Baker Quartet + Sunship // Paul Hoskin, contrabass clarinet // Seattle Composers Salon // Eric Barber, sax & Tom Varner, horn // Duo Juum // Dean Moore, gongs & Bill Horist, guitar // DX ARTS group show // Doug Haire, field recordings // However, poetry + music // Byron Au Yong, voice, piano, percussion & Christopher Blaisdel, shakuhachi // Jeffrey Allport, guitar & Tim Olive, percussion + Cristin Miller, voice & Jason Anderson, electronics // Milind Raikar, Indian violin & tabla + Hell’s Bellows, accordion quartet // Dennis Rea & Stuart Dempster // Lisa Moore, piano // Francisco Lopez & Matt Shoemaker // Piano Christening: Gust Burns, Dawn Clement, Duo Juum, Wayne Horvitz, Julie Ives, Johanna Kunin, Victor Noriega, Amy Rubin, Cristina Valdes // Marathon: 40 artists in 10 hours (Nonsequitur, Jack Straw, Clear Cut Press, Subtext, Phonographers Union, DoubleSharp, WA Composers Forum, Seattle Composers Salon) // Chris Chandler, Paul Benoit, Ela Lamblin, Vishal & Ushwal Nagar // Gust Burns + Julie Ives, piano // Moraine + Snapbite // Gretta Harley, choral/spoken word performance // Duran/Schloss/Mitri Trio + Paul Rucker Quinte // Jim Haynes, sound art + Eric Lanzillotta, analog synth // Gregory Reynolds, sax & Gust Burns, piano // No West Festival of Improvised Music & Dance // Matthew Postle & Derek Terran + Michael Owcharuk Trio // Bling! + Figeater // Yann Novak & Son of Rose // Reptet + Ziggurat Ensemble // Dean Moore & Sha’ari Garfinkel, gongs // Satoko Fujii, piano & Natsuki Tamura, trumpet // Gamelan Pacifica // Diego Piñon butoh // Seattle Latin American Music Festival // Flute Force, flute quartet // Greg Sinibaldi // EQlateral Ensemble // Keith Rowe & friends, improvised guitar etc. // Andrea Parkins, accordion & electronics + Lesli Dalaba, trumpet & Rob Angus, electronics // Gino Robair, improv opera // Trevor Watts & Jamie Harris & Reuben Radding & Jane Rigler // Wally Shoup Quartet & Gust Burns Trio (Earshot) // Tom Baker Quartet // Metal Men, electronics, noise // Malcolm Goldstein, violin // Alexei Pliousnine, guitar // Iva Bittova, violin & voice // October Trio // Margaret Brink, piano + Tom Baker Quartet // Seattle Harmonic Voices // Tiffany Lin & Motoko Honda, piano // Tim Root // Philip Arnautoff, harmonic canon + Christopher Roberts, guqin // Shulamit Kleinerman & friends, medieval violins // Alison Knowles // John Butcher, sax, Torsten Mueller, bass, Dylan van der Schyff, drums // Katsura Yamauchi, sax and Arrington DeDionyso, bass clarinet // Impressions of Romania, chamber music // Paul Rucker Quintet // Sean Osborn, clarinet & Greg Sinibaldi, sax & electronics // Sunship // Wally Shoup Trio // Jhababa & Eric Lanzillotta

Whew! The Seattle scene has always been more-or-less alive-and-well, through places like the plucky Gallery 1412, but the Chapel provides a much-needed venue for new and experimental music that takes it out of the back alley and gives it a place where people can respect the space as much as they already do the music and artists. Even if you’re not a Seattlite, keep an eye on their blog for even more wonders this year (or sign up for the mailing list). Major Kudos to Steve P., and wishes for a wonderfully full year to come.

Chamber Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Piano, Scores

Winter Music

Renewable Music‘s long-time American-in-Deutschland, Daniel J. Wolf, had the idea of inviting composers to contribute to an album for piano, simply centered around this moment and season. No publishers, no glitzy “call for works”, just a friendly invitation for any interested. The result is the A Winter Album, twelve piano pieces of quite diverse hues, for each and everyone of us to freely peruse in our gray and inclement hours. The composers may not be known to you, but all the better; they’re a stellar bunch in my book: Dennis Báthory-Kitsz, Jon Brenner, Steed Cowart, Elaine Fine, Hauke Harder, Ben.Harper, Jeff Harrington, Aaron Hynds, Lloyd Rodgers, Jonathan Segel, Charles Shere, and Daniel James Wolf himself. Pianists, warm yourself over these embers; and thanks, Daniel. (photo by Ian Britton)

Chamber Music, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, Experimental Music

Sounds Postitively…Anti-Social

Dear Jerry,

You are cordially invited to a program featuring the music of Pat
Muchmore
as performed by the erstwhile and talented members of Anti-Social Music. The gala shall be held at the Ukrainian National Home at 2nd Ave between 8th & 9th streets on December the Thirteenth, where the finest beers and vodkas will be available to soothe the savage humours stirred by the oft-acrid tones emanating from the stage. Also available: pierogies and other Ukrainian delicacies–some of which may be forcibly shoved down the gullets of less attentive patrons.

A number of works excreted by Muchmore’s fecund mind will be played, all of which sport titles that are either incomprehensible, not fit to be uttered in polite society, or both. The fine musicians of ASM will then venture into the studio to record these works for an upcoming release on laser-etched binary Audio-Disk, courtesy of the fine folks at the American Music Center and their wondrous Aaron Copland Fund.

Other cool people involved in making this night of pleasure happen include The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, NYSCA, and the Meet the Composer/JPMorgan Chase Fund for Small Ensembles.

cheers,
Andrea La Rose
Anti-Social Music

Anti-Social Music Presents:
Muchmore Music–Muchmore Pierogies
Thursday, Dec. 13th – 8PM
Ukrainian National Home ( 140 2nd Avenue bet. 8th & 9th Sts)
6 to Astor Place/R-W to 8th St/F-V to 2nd Ave/L to 1st or 3rd Ave
http://antisocialmusic.org

Chamber Music, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Philadelphia

The Less I Say the More My Work Gets Done

galen.jpgHere’s some great news for the Sequenza21 community.  The super-hot Philadelphia-based chamber ensemble Relâche is presenting a concert of new works, including the premiere of our own Galen H. Brown’s Waiting in the Tall Grass, at the Greenwich House Music School in downtown Manhattan on November 30, followed by a repeat performance the following night at the International House in Philadelphia. The concert will also include new pieces by Duncan Neilson, Brooke Joyce and, Paul Epstein.

Says here in the press release (Galen is much too modest to make a call or send me a heads-up e-mail himself) that

…Brown’s music has been described as “bright, passionate music for a brighter, more passionate new day” by Kyle Gann, former critic for the Village Voice. With roots in both Minimalism and electronic rock, he writes rhythmically driven music where melodic riffs and fragments shift against each other, evolving an intricate counterpoint beneath a surface which is sometimes propulsive, sometimes placid.

Describing his new piece, Brown says “While this piece isn’t at all programmatic, the title Waiting in the Tall Grass is intended to evoke the sense of a sort of purposeful stasis, with perhaps a hint of foreboding. The ‘tall grass’ is, of course, where the predator lies in wait for its prey.”

Brown lives in New York City. He holds a Masters degree from New England Conservatory, where he studied with Lee Hyla; his other primary teachers were David Rakowski and Jon Appleton. A contributing editor at Sequenza21.com, he regularly reviews concerts and CDs, and writes on issues ranging from compositional techniques and history to aesthetic philosophy to the structure of the music industry. Sequenza21 won an ASCAP Deems Taylor award in 2005.

Founded in 1977, Relâche has been a significant force in new classical music for 30 years, from co-presenting the landmark New Music America festival in 1987 to annual performances of Phil Kine’s classic Unsilent Night. The new works on this concert are the latest in a rich history of commissions from composers such as John Cage, Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, and Pauline Oliveros.

Well done, Galen.  As we say down in Appalachia where I grew up:  “We’re right proud of you.”

There’s a sample of the piece here.  The rather strange picture was taken by me in the Sequenza21 office at Starbucks on 57th between Eighth and Ninth.

Chamber Music, Click Picks, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Steve’s click picks #38

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, with so much good listening online:

sound. from SASSAS (Los Angeles)

Rüdiger CarlIn 1998, L.A. artist Cindy Bernard and friends started a series of concerts and installations that became the non-profit organisation SASSAS, the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound. Their goal is “to serve as a catalyst for the creation, presentation, and recognition of experimental art and sound practices in the Greater Los Angeles area”.

Most of the concerts are held at the landmark Schindler House, a mid-century experimental home that has sliding walls opening the whole structure up to the back garden area. It provides an airy, casual and free-flowing space for both the artists and audience. Lately SASSAS has also been able to run a few concerts as well at both the Ford Ampitheater and REDCAT.

Mitchell/JarmanThe list of performers is long and varied, from Pauline Oliveros and James Tenney to Chas Smith and Rick Cox; Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman to Jessica Rylan and Tom Grimley; Harold Budd, Petra Haden, Tetuzi Akiyama, Phil Gelb, etc… even my much-admired internet buddies Johnny Chang and Jessica Catron. If you’ve been spending all your time sitting in the concert hall listening to Wuorinen, here’s you’re chance to loosen up — and catch up — on all kinds of other vital forms of new music in the here-and-now.

Because SASSAS hasn’t just been presenting these concerts; they’ve also been pretty diligent about documenting them with recordings, photos and even video! The link in the title of this post will take you to the sound. mainpage. There you’ll see links to streaming Quicktime archives of many of these concerts, plus scrapbooks of notes and photos from them as well. And over on YOUTUBE, you’ll find another whole archive of video, that’s just begun and is sure to grow.

Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

El paseo de Buster Keaton

Did you ever wonder why doctors think it’s a good idea for a bunch of sick people to wait together for their exams in a small, overheated, unventilated room?  Or why drugstores invariably put the cough medications in the aisle where people are waiting to pick up their prescriptions?  No?  Well, I do.  Think of these things, I mean.

But, I  digress and I’m late checking in today.   Here’s a new rule for those of you with frontpage posting ability.  If you don’t see something from me by noon Eastern, feel free to jump in there and mix and stir.  If you don’t have frontpage posting rights, let me know and I’ll sign you up.

Okay, here’s some exciting news.  Marvin Rosen is going to be airing another piece from last year’s Sequenza21 concert on his Classical Discoveries program.  On Wednesday, Marvin will be playing David Toub’s Objects in observance of WPRB’s first membership fund drive which is this entire week.  That, I guess, makes David the Andrea Bocelli of WPRB.

Marvin is scheduled to be airing Objects during the latter part of the 7:00 o’clock hour but the time may be slightly changed if the begging gets too exciting.

And if you happen to be near Indiana University on Thursday or Friday night this week don’t miss  the collegiate premiere performance in concert of the chamber opera Ainadamar or Fountain of Tears by Osvaldo Golijov.  Our amiga Carmen Helena Téllez, director of the IU Jacobs School’s Latin American Music Center (LAMC), and of the Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, will conduct the production which will take place on Oct. 11 at 8 p.m. in Auer Hall, with a repeat performance on Oct. 12 at 8 p.m. The performances are free and open to the public. 

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.
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

The Intimate Side of Philip Glass

Turning 70 is a big deal for most people, and especially so for Philip Glass, whose birthday is being celebrated worldwide big time. He’s just been feted in New York by Music At The Anthology (MATA), and Groningen, Holland, is putting on a Glass Festival.  The composer and The Philip Glass Ensemble performed his massive compendium of minimalist moves, Music in 12 Parts (1971-74), this summer in the Hague and the San Francisco Bay Area pays its homage with the world premiere of his SF Opera commission, Appomattox, this coming Friday, October 5.  

Glass is such a big name, and  pervasive influence–I caught a chord progression in a dance mix lifted straight from him in a bar–that it’s almost hard to see the trees for the forest.  But Glass emerged clearly from that penumbral place in Philip Glass: An Evening of Chamber Music, which kicked off San Francisco Performances’ season at Herbst Theatre on Friday night.  And all the frenzied Zeitgeist schtick on Van Ness– couples out on first — will there be a second?– dates, bobbing heads on cell phones, opera patrons running to catch the curtain, and monster traffic–was happily left outside. 

Glass, mike in hand, (“is it me, or the machine?) began by announcing a program change. He’d begin with 4 sections of the 5-part  Metamorphosis (1988), for solo piano, and not play either of the 2 Etudes (1994) planned. Metamorphosis, though it uses material from the composer’s score to Errol Morris’ doc The Thin Blue Line (1988), takes its title from the Kafka short story of the same name, for which Glass wrote scores for concurrent theater productions in Brazil and the Netherlands. And though the music stands proudly on its own, its lines and harmonies suggest the haunted atmosphere of Kafka’s tale–Gregor Samsa’s alienation from the world, and his dogged journey to a kind of transcendence. 

And Glass, sitting erect at his Steinway concert grand Model D, brought its many beauties to light–the poignant hesitations in #1 struck the heart, he made the massive floating harmonies in #2 acutely affecting through discreet pedalling, his attacks gave the bell-like paralllel chords of #3 power, and his command of color gave #4 its dramatic weight. Glass has spoken of his drifting sense of meter, and this was certainly apparent throughout; pianists like Alec Karis and Michael Riesman would surely have been metronomically regular. Metamorphosis has sometimes been described as Satie-like, though the equally private worlds of Schubert’s Impromptus and Brahms’ Intermezzi, come strongly to mind. My first encounter with Metamorphosis live was when Glass played the entire set ,as Molissa Fenley danced, at The Unitarian Church, which is a little more than a stone’s throw from Herbst.  But what sticks most is how the music the composer has written in the intervening years has colored his gestures when he plays this piece now.  

Next came the West Coast premiere of Songs and Poems for Cello, which Glass wrote for NY-based new music star Wendy Sutter of Bang On A Can fame, who plays a wide range of works from uptown –actually West Village people like Elliott Carter–to downtown composers. This is a thoroughly demanding piece, which Sutter played from memory, and which, with its sense of duende–Lorca”s term for anything  springing from deep within– seemed to evoke music as various as Bach, bits of the Suites for Cello (BWV 1007-12), and Brandenburg 6 (1721), as well as Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello (1920-22), and Dohnanyi’s Cello Sonata (1899), which Martha Graham choreographed as Lamentation, without ever resembling any of  these.  Its seven sections–applause broke out in one–were mostly grave, intense, deeply sonorous, and completely lacking in easy effects.  Sutter negotiated its myriad technical–long sustained lines, double-stopping, pizzicati, and focus on different registers, usually sequentially–and expressive difficulties with almost superhuman ease.  

Four interconnecting episodes, or “Tissues”, from Godfrey Reggio’s third and final installment in the QATSI trilogy, Naqoyqatsi (2002), scored here for Glass, piano, Sutter, cello, and PGE percussionist Mick Rossi, followed. One was struck by the cello writing’s resemblance to that in Songs and Poems for Cello, the ultra soft sounds from the keyboard, and the floating sounds Rossi achieved on marimba and celeste. Naqoyqatsi never got the attention it deserved in its initial theatrical release, though Glass’ tour with his ensemble here last year–the film and score were performed by him and his PGE live at Davies–helped to right that wrong. 

Equally atmospheric were the last two offerings–The Orchard, a kind of slow sarabande from Glass’ score for JoAnne Akalitis’ 1991 theatre production of Genet’s The Screens, transcribed here for piano, cello, and percussion, from its original incarnation for flute, clarinet, piano, percussion and cello, and Closing, from Glass’ 1981 record debut on CBS, Glassworks, misunderstood as a pop/crossover piece then, and probably now as well, which Glass and his two fellow musicians played with both point and affection. “How can such a quiet person write such powerful music?” I said to my companion, who sat stock still, hands folded, throughout. Who knows?  But this concert proved beyond the slightest doubt that Glass has always been and remains a chamber musician intent on speaking to his listeners in the most intimate terms. Appomattox, which struck this listener as almost unbearably intimate, when he heard most of its first act at a Sitz-Probe 2 September, will likely fall into this exalted class

Chamber Music, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical

Cage at 95; Bowles & Oteri at 8:30

Tomorrow would have been John Cage’s 95th birthday and to mark the occasion, Avant Media Performance is staging two multimedia realizations of works by Cage at the The Kitchen,  512 West 19th St. beginning at 8.

Four6 (for any way of producing sounds) will be performed in an electro-acoustic realization featuring Patrick Davison, video; Randy Gibson, electronics and percussion; Mike Rugnetta, guitar; and Megan Schubert, voice. The second half of the concert promises to be a real hootenanny with Winter Music, Atlas Eclipticalis, and Song Books realized for singers, actors, videos, and lighting being performed simultaneously. Randy Gibson’s “One Wall – for John Cage” will be also be premiered, assisted by Mike Rugnetta and Guy Snover.

To really make it a special day, Frank Oteri and I are going to be live (or as live as it is possible to be having gotten up at 5 o’clock) on Marvin Rosen’s Classical Discoveries program tomorrow morning in Princeton from around 8:30 am to 11   Don’t know what Frank has planned but I’m hoping to get Marvin to play as much music from the S21 concert last year as we can squeeze in.   If you’re awake and in the mood, you can listen in on the Internets.  I will playing the pieces in the order that I enjoyed them so if you want to see who Daddy likes best you’ll have to tune in.