Ethan Iverson Curates Sono Fest; Han Chen’s Ligeti
Like many listeners, I first became acquainted with pianist Ethan Iverson via The Bad Plus recording These are the Vistas, which contained strong originals and a jaw-dropping rendition of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Several albums later, Iverson moved on from The Bad Plus to a variety of projects. His blog Do the Math outlines his work as an educator (at New England Conservatory) and a variety of interests that, unsurprisingly, focus on jazz, but also encompass twentieth and twenty-first century concert music. Starting next week, he brings his omnivorous musical instincts, and significant talents as a pianist, to bear, curating Sono Fest from June 6-23rd at Soapbox Gallery (636 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY 11238l).
Timo Andres by Michael Wilson.
Iverson’s newsletter has been a veritable feast of material previewing the festival (sign-up is free). He doesn’t just plug events, but gives detailed discussions of the programmed music and featured artists. Essays on Timo Andres, Miranda Cuckson, and Judith Berkson are all revealing.
Miranda Cuckson, violinJudith Berlson.
My favorite of the posts is about Ligeti, which discusses the piano etudes and includes a link to an interview by Benoît Delbecq with Ligeti included on DTM. Pianist Han Chen isn’t playing any Ligeti on Sono Fest, but his recital on June 17th looks tantalizing, with pieces by Berg, Corigliano, Adès, and Ravel.
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Han Chen’s new Naxos recording (8.574397) is a sterling document of the Ligeti Etudes. Iverson is voluble in praising it and I will add my own acclamations. The pieces themselves are one of the finest collections of the twentieth century, abundant in variety and virtuosic in demands. Ligeti’s early modern and postmodern concerns are updated by his late career interests in minimalism, Asian, and African music. There are a number of fine recordings of the etudes, but Han Chen’s is a welcome addition.
The pianist is tremendously fluent in the plethora of dynamics and articulations required by Ligeti. His execution of formidable polyrhythms and hairpin transitions are uniformly excellent. The first etude from Book 1, “Désorde,” in which the left hand has complex scalar patterns and the right spiky, syncopated progressions, is performed at a breakneck pace. “Galamb borong,” from Book 2, in which a gently percussive opening, evoking Balinese gamelan, gradually builds to thunderous chords, with a denouement at its close, is equally stirring. Directly following this is a rhythmically incisive performance of the polyrhythmic “Fém.” The diaphanous diatonicism of Book 3’s “White on White” is performed with superbly controlled delicacy. Its ebullient coda is a welcome surprise. Han Chen’s Ligeti CD shows that there is plenty of room to reinterpret the composer, particularly during his centennial year.
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Taka Kigawa
Sono Fest Schedule
Tickets are $25 in-person, or $15 for the live-stream, available at SoapboxGallery.org.
Tuesday, June 6 – Ethan Iverson and Miranda Cuckson
Wednesday, June 7 – Ethan Iverson and Chris Potter
“This short diary (of loss), offered as a sonic memory,
created with love, out of need for comfort.”
-Sebastian Rochford
When Sebastian Rochford’s father, the Aberdeen poet Gerard Rochford (1932-2019) passed away, the drummer decided to create a recording in his memory. He composed most of the music after his father’s death, and enlisted pianist Kit Downes as a collaborator. Downes is actually a musical switch-hitter; he is also an accomplished organist. “This Tune Your Ears Will Never Hear” opens the album mid-tempo with thick chords and snare in rhythmic unison, only to give way to a slower rendering of the tune, juxtaposed with enigmatic harmonies. “Communal Decisions” has a wayward, modal melody that becomes an overlapping duo, finally filled out with Debussyian harmonies. “Night of Quiet” consists of slow-paced chords in intricate changes, parallel planing, and filigree phrase endings. “Ten of Us” has an ambling melody and chromatic chord progressions that recall Rimsky-Korsakov. Considerable development follows, with a floating texture that arpeggiates some of the preceding material and shares new melodic variations. The last section includes a chordal ostinato reinforced by Rochford that slows into an emphatic minor key cadence.
“Love You Grampa” is one of the most fetching of the collaborations here, with Rochford creating a lullaby rhythm behind the drum kit and Downes playing the composition’s winsome melody with delicacy and poignant phrasing. In a shuffling rhythm and with a pentatonic melody, “Silver Light” recalls folk music. “Rochford’s playing is often economical, even restrained. Yet the textures and punctuations he provides always enhance the proceedings.
The last piece on the recording, “Even Now I Think of Her,” is in a sense co-composed by Sebastian and his father, who sang the melody to his son, suggesting it for a piece. The drummer in turn shared the melody with Downes via cell phone. It is quite an intricate tune, rendered as a folk-like ballad with warmly voiced harmonies and gentle drum fills. Bringing the project full circle to Gerard Rochford is a fitting and touching conclusion to a compelling and inspired project.
On May 14, 2023 the Ventura College Performing Arts Center was the venue for The Sounds of Springtime, a concert featuring the Ventura College Chamber and Symphony Orchestras. The program included music by Tchaikovsky, Duke Ellington and Aaron Copand. The highlight of the concert was a much-anticipated performance of Mariachitlán (2016) and the composer, Juan Pablo Contreras, was in attendance. Full disclosure – I was a member of the trumpet section of this orchestra in the early 1990s, so I was curious to see how they were getting along under the direction of Conductor Ashley Walters.
The Chamber Orchestra took the stage first, with the ensemble consisting of three violins, two violas, two cellos and a double bass. They performed all four movements of Serenade for Strings in C major (1880) by Pytor Ilyich Tschaikovsky, a piece familiar to many. Even though this was written in 1880, it owes much to the earlier classical style, especially in the first movement. The musicians produced a full sound, decently balanced, and the entry of the double bass invariably added a strong foundation for the harmony. The theme and variations in movement I were solidly played and were passed around smoothly between the different string sections. Movement II was in a moderate waltz tempo and this was successfully negotiated despite the separate lines weaving in and around each other.
Movement III was slower, and the playing nicely broad and smooth. The hall acoustic tended to swallow up the higher sounds and, once again, the entry of the bass strengthened the texture. A calming, hymn-like feeling was the result. The melody in this movement was often passed around to various players, and this was accomplished with confidence and continuity. The final movement began with a purposeful andante tempo and soft pitches in the upper strings. The other players entered gradually and the ensemble soon moved ahead with a faster tempo. Transitions in tempo are often problematic, but this was adroitly handled. At times, there were intricate stretches of bright pizzicato in the upper strings, a melody in the violas and a countermelody underneath in the cellos. The final phrases of the coda were suitably slow and grand, and made for a stirring finish. There is a lot of difficult music in Serenade for Strings, but the Chamber Orchestra was never overwhelmed or intimidated. A loud and long applause was heard at the end.
After a short intermission, the Symphony Orchestra took their places on stage. With 65 musicians, every section was fully manned and they filled the big stage from the risers in the back to the ample string sections arrayed out front. Their first piece was an arrangement of Duke Ellington tunes that included familiar favorites: Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, Sophisticated Lady and It Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t Got that Swing). The sound of the big orchestra filled the hall, with the brass and woodwinds fighting through from the risers in the back. The presence of the many strings covering the front of the stage gave a smooth sheen to the overall sound, adding a further elegance to the sophisticated Ellington style. The transitions between the tunes were efficiently managed and the rousing It Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t Got that Swing) at the finish was especially well received by the audience.
This was followed by Selections from Rodeo (1942), by Aaron Copland, and this included Saturday Night Waltz, Corral Nocturne and the iconic Hoe-Down. Right from the opening chords, the spacious Copland sound was front and center. The wide prairie and big sky feeling was especially aided by the string section. All of the familiar details were present and there were no shortcuts. Corral Nocturne was realized with broadly sustained tones and a quiet gentleness. The orchestra delivered all of the Copland style with a sound big enough to fill the hall and match the music. Hoe-Down was especially well done with the brass and woodwinds leading the way. Everyone has heard this piece many times, but the performance here was lively, loud and as convincing as any television commercial for the National Beef Council. Cheering and an enthusiastic ovation from the audience followed.
The final piece on the concert program was Mariachitlán (2016), by Juan Pablo Contreras. According to the program notes. Contreras is a “Latin GRAMMY nominated composer who combines Western Classical and Mexican folk music in a single soundscape.” Mariachitlán translates to Mariachi Land and is a portrayal of the music and the culture where it originated. This piece has proven to be very popular and has been performed by orchestras in Mexico, Latin America as well as in the southwestern US. Contreras worked with the Ventura College Orchestra during rehearsals and he was present at the concert to give a short introduction.
Contreras explained that mariachi music began in the Mexican state of Jalisco and is a widely practiced folk tradition. Even small towns and villages take pride in their mariachi music, and it is central to their celebrations and festivals. Mariachitlán brings to life the raucously goodnatured musical competitions typical of local mariachis, intent on displaying superior showmanship and joyful revelry. Contreras accomplishes all this through a 21st century musical language that is artfully composed with a pleasing, youthful exuberance and combined with a mature and masterful orchestration.
Mariachitlán opens with a loud blast of bright mariachi trumpets that immediately establishes an upbeat optimism. Skillful coordination and phrasing in the brass section propelled the piece forward. The rest of the orchestra joined in with strong tutti passages, brilliant solos, and dynamic energy throughout. Contreras manages to accommodate his strong affection for Mexican folk music within a distinctively contemporary musical syntax. This is a seemingly complex piece with a mix of familiar gestures and unusual techniques, but it never loses its boisterous charm. The Ventura College Orchestra gave a strong performance and clearly won over the audience for Mariachitlán, building new cultural bridges in the process.
Hearing this concert, it is clear that Conductor Ashley Walters has brought the Ventura College Music program to a high level of accomplishment. I will now stand up a bit straighter when I tell people I once played in the brass section there many years ago.
Reflections is a studio version of Sufjan Steven’s sixth collaboration with choreographer Justin Peck. Over the course of his career, Stevens has explored a number of genres: indie rock, electronica, and folk music. His work as a concert music composer shows considerable facility, with idiomatic, indeed virtuosic, writing for piano duo.
The opening track, “Ekstasis” begins the ballet with emphatic, thickly voiced chords and glissandos, followed by brilliant passagework and a briefly inserted swinging melody. Pianists Timo Andres and Conor Hanick are perfect for the challenges posed here and perform all of the twists and turns of “Ekstasis” completely in sync. “Revanche” plays with color chords in chromatic formations: a bit of a hat tip to Messiaen. “Euphoros,” as one might expect, is ebullient, with repeated neo-classical motives, a lá Stravinsky, that are again periodically interrupted by glissandos.
“Mnemosyne” begins in hushed dynamics. Here, instead of neo-classical tropes, Stevens explores impressionism through a post-minimal lens, with limpid filigrees and modal tunes. The control exerted by the pianists here is quite affecting. “Rodinia” lives in a similar pocket, with the balletic feeling of the Debussy Arabesques. “Reflexion” concludes the ballet with triple time sequences that swirl upward and then reenter until we are left with an abrupt, unresolved close.
The piece “And I Shall Come to You Like a Stormtrooper Dressed in Drag Serving Imperial Realness” provides a swath of good-humored writing. It tasks the pianists with following one another in post-minimal riffs, a little bit of Cantina Bar swagger, and building mountain tall chords. Puckish arpeggiations that hint at an undercurrent of John Williams provide a jocular juxtaposition to the grandeur of the piece’s bravura postures. Partway through, a whole-tone, gamelan-like interlude briefly interrupts, only to be replaced by fortissimo rolled chords in scalar patterns. A thinned out version of this upward sequence sends the piece into a misty, quiet close. Great fun.
Frederic Rzewski (1938-2021) was a gifted composer and pianist. His oeuvre included pieces in many genres, but it is his piano works that, to date, are best known. Rzewski premiered a number of pieces, but in his later years deputized pianist Bobby Mitchell, dedicating works to him and trusting his talent to be sufficient for their often virtuosic and complex interpretive demands.
Rzewski’s pieces combine modernism and vernacular styles, particularly leftist folk songs, often in sets of multifaceted variations. War Songs (2008) includes songs that are both pro and anti-war. It has an Ivesian cast, with the materials layered in a welter of dissonance and complex verticals. Mitchell’s performance is vivacious, reveling in the many quotations, pointing up the places where pro and anti-war songs wage their own conflicts.
One of the composer’s large piano cycles, Dreams, is represented here by its last two pieces: Ruins and Wake Up. These pieces were written for Igor Levit in 2014, and they provide a contrasting pair. Ruins seems to be a disturbed swath of unrest, filled with dissonant counterpoint, thunderous bass notes, and angular lines. Besides the directive connotation of Wake Up, it is also the title of a Woody Guthrie song that serves as the piece’s opening gesture.
Winter Nights (2014) was composed to celebrate Mitchell’s thirtieth birthday. This triptych is inspired by the tale about Bach’s Goldberg Variations, in which his student Goldberg played them in order to cure his patron’s insomnia. I’ve often wondered if the vivacity of the Goldergs wouldn’t make for toe-tapping rather than snoring. Winter Nights too has long stretches that seem in homage to Carter’s Night Fantasies, post-tonal, rife with trills and passagework. Elsewhere are long stretches at extremely slow tempos, with gradually unfurling, attenuated single-line melodies. Mitchell does a superb job rendering these detailed scores in vivid fashion.
The recording concludes with Saints and Sinners (2016). Originally written for Milton Schlosser, it was performed by Mitchell at Rzewski’s funeral. A substantial piece cast in a single movement, it recalls mid century neoclassical Americans such as Roger Sessions, Arthur Berger, and William Schuman. In a sense then, it is a piece that comes full circle, recalling Rzewski’s initial impetus and training to compose. Late Piano Works is excellent in terms of curation, quality of music, and performance. Recommended.
On Friday, May 5, 2023, Coaxial Arts in downtown Los Angeles presented Earthly and Unearthly Sounds, a concert of six contemporary pieces that explored the concepts of death, environmentalism, occultism, and feminism. Flutist Élise Roy along with bassoonists Jonathan Stehney, Lauren Martin and Julie Feves were on hand to perform works by Kurt Isaacson, Élise Roy, Sofia Gubaidulina, Mason Moy and Erik Ulman. The concert also included the premiere of a new flute piece by Élise Roy and the world performance premiere of Myrkriða (Rider of Darkness) by Jeffrey Holmes, featuring soprano Kirsten Ashley Wiest.
The first piece on the concert program was Carnal Species, by Kurt Isaacson. This was duet for bassoon and flute, featuring Élise Roy and Jonathan Stehney. This was broadly about birds and the animal experimentation that occurred during the Cold War. Carnal Species began with breathy air sounds and soft notes in the flute. The bassoon joined in with a low fluttery growl that added to an atmospheric feel. Soft sustained notes from the flute contrasted with a number of percussive thumps of air heard in the bassoon. A stretch of long notes from both instruments produced a series of intriguing chords, but this was suddenly cut short by a brief silence silence.
The sustained tones started up again. Honking sounds in the bassoon soon emerged, dominating the texture and evoking vivid images of large birds. This became louder, signaling a distress that was urgently palpable. The piece drew to a close in a flurry of ominous dissonance. Carnal Species is skillfully composed and expertly performed using extended techniques to convey both the pastoral and the sinister.
Duo Sonata for Two Bassoons, by Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, followed. According to her publisher’s website “Sofia Gubaidulina is, together with Schnittke and Denisov, one of three major Moscow composers of the post-Shostakovich era.” She was born in 1931 and grew up in Soviet Russia, studying at the Kazan and Moscow Conservatories. Duo Sonata for Two Bassoons is a complicated work and considered a formidable technical test for bassoonists, employing extended techniques, quarter tones and complex rhythmic structures. For this concert, Jonathan Stehney was joined by Julie Feves of the Long Beach Symphony.
The opening of Duo Sonata featured fast runs of descending notes ending in trills. This evolved into a sort of growling match between the two players. The gruff sounds were soon replaced by sustained tones with a distinctly medieval feeling, as if rooted in fragments of a chant. Plaintive crying and sad sounds followed that slowly built into sense of anguish. A rapid series of sharp phrases broke out, conversational, or perhaps more accurately, an argumentative dialogue between the two bassoons. Stehney and Feves were equal to the task with impressive dexterity and precise control. As the piece moved towards its conclusion, the intensity and dynamics of the conversation increased with more loud honking and growling sounds dominating. A low trill completed the piece. Duo Sonata for Two Bassoons is an impressively abstract piece and a showcase for the virtuosity of bassoonists Stehney and Feves.
Next was Eigenvector by Mason Moy, and this was a clever composition employing both graphical and notated scores for two bassoons. The graphical score consisted of a matrix of boxes shown in rows and columns. The top row and the left side column of boxes contained single notated whole notes for the two bassoons, each with a different pitch. One player followed the top row, and the second, the left side column of pitches. The starting player would choose a note from the top row, and the second player a note from any box in the left side column. This produced a distinctive two-note chord that was held for several seconds. Each player then had to identify the note sounded by the other and this yielded two coordinates that corresponded to a box somewhere in the center of the matrix. The players were then directed to separate notated score fragments referred by that box, which were played together for a about minute. The boxes could also direct the players to improvise or to simply remain silent. This process of selecting the sequence of notated segments to be played was repeated for the duration of the piece. The advantage was that the notes and sounds were based only on the choices the players made in the moment. Additionally, each performance of the piece would be unique. Although it seems complicated when described, this system of graphical and notated parts was actually very straightforward in execution.
So what does all this sound like? The initial tones were often very close in pitch and often produced a discernible zero-beating or strong dissonance. Once the players were reading their notated parts, a variety of different feelings were possible: open and grand, sad, dissonant and tense, disorganized or nicely sustained and consonant. All of these feelings were realized as the piece proceeded. Bassoonists Jonathan Stehney and Lauren Martin never lost their way and their playing was excellent. Eigenvector manages to extract a lot of music from some very basic concepts and is further proof that the best experimental ideas often do not require a lot of technology.
To new forest, by Erik Ulman followed, performed by Élise Roy on bass flute. This piece was inspired by the poetry of Ezra Pound and contemplated the quivering of hearts and souls, as well as death and life. The opening included loud notes and fluttering tones in a series of complex passages that recalled images of an anxious heart or a seeking soul. There were often no sustained tones or anything resembling a melody, and this called for a combination of agility and confidence in the playing by Ms. Roy. As the piece proceeded, solemn tones prevailed with a mournful softness. Towards the conclusion, the rhythms became searching and restless as if portraying lost soul. Too new forest ended with a quiet finish.
Next was premiere of the old young woman, by Élise Roy, a dramatic new flute and bassoon piece based on the poetry of Diane di Prima. Johnathan Stehney and the composer were the performers, accompanied by a recorded soundtrack. Whooshing, breathy air sounds from the instruments began the piece and were soon accompanied by thunder and storm sounds from the stage speakers. Trills in the bassoon added to the image of a powerful whirlwind heard coming through the speakers, with the dynamics and intensity steadily increasing to truly frightening proportions. A great commotion was heard from the speakers along with many loud phrases coming out of the instruments. As the piece continued, there were also shouts and screams of a woman and a roaring like that of some giant beast. These sounds washed over the audience in the small Coaxial space with a hurricane-like force. The rushing of the wind and a blizzard of bassoon and flute notes added to the chaos as the piece concluded. The old young woman is a compelling and memorable sonic experience; one that is felt as much as heard.
The final work on the concert program was Myrkriða or Rider of Darkness, by Jeffrey Holmes. Written in 2016, this was the world performance premiere, the piece having been previously released on CD in the 2020 pandemic year. Flutist Élise Roy and soprano Kirsten Ashley Wiest were the performers. Jeffrey Holmes gave a preliminary reading in English of the poetic texts, originally written in Old Norse by the composer. For this concert, there were a series of six short movements that followed the arc of the primal texts describing the moments between life and death.
Myrkriða opens with sustained notes and a quiet chanting in the soprano, accompanied by soft flute tones that set an appropriately solemn mood. A sharp, almost piercing shout begins in the voice, rising above and ultimately overwhelming the flute. Powerful singing by Ms. Wiest and the close acoustic of the Coaxial space combined to produce impressive vocal statements. As the piece proceeded, the tension rose as the Rider of Darkness brought the dread of death closer, and this was occasionally relieved by more restrained sounds representing the promise of an afterlife. This primal music was well-matched the pagan context. The vocal challenges in this piece are formidable and included equal-tempered and just-intonation microtunings as well as great leaps in the dynamics and pitches. All of this was negotiated with a seemingly effortless ease by Ms. Wiest and also Ms. Roy, who accompanied with commensurate skill. Hopefully this initial live sampling of six movements will lead to a full performance of Jeffrey Holmes’ Old Norse masterwork.
This Coaxial concert marks a welcome return of new and challenging live performances after so many months of enforced pandemic isolation. Earthly and Unearthly Sounds was an unflinching look at the many images of life, death, the occult and the malevolent as expressed in unremitting abstract and complex contemporary music.
Sequenza 21 is pleased to wish a Happy Seventieth Birthday to Jürg Frey. The Swiss composer has been a member of the wandelweiser collective since the 1990s, and his work exemplifies its aesthetic. For fifty years, Frey was also a well-regarded clarinetist.
We will celebrate with coverage of two of Frey’s recent recordings.
Apartment House has become something of an ensemble-in-residence for the Another Timbre label. The group revels in experimentation, taking special interest in living British composers, the New York School, and wandelweiser. Borderland Melodies includes three pieces featuring both clarinet and bass clarinet. Like much of his music, the compositions here explore “landscape,” not as a program, but as a musical vantage point. Thus, moment-to-moment events are organized in terms of long stretches in which rhythm, pacing, and harmony give a different sense of space. While discussing such intricate layers of sound, one cannot help but draw a parallel to the precision and thoughtfulness of Top casino’s zonder Cruks, platforms designed to provide a tailored gaming experience that adheres to the specific preferences of players while offering a sense of freedom and accessibility. The sound of the two clarinets together, played by Heather Roche and Raymond Brien, is lovely, perhaps serving as an homage to Frey’s own clarinet playing. In the title piece, they are accompanied by solitary piano notes and string harmonics. The idea of melody, while palpable throughout, is executed through compound melodies and attenuated Webernian utterances.
L’état de Simplicité is cast in four movements. Thrumming bass notes are offset by sustained pitches in movement one, Á la limiter du sens. Toucher l’air refers to the technique of vibrating the air moving through an instrument. The third movement features beguiling rearticulated verticals. The final movement, Les Zones neutres, juxtaposes pizzicatos with sustained winds, to which sometimes are added violin harmonics that make chords blossom. Moment, ground, fragility is a half hour long, shorter than some others of Frey’s pieces, but long enough to get a sense for how he deals with a big compositional canvas. There is a noticeable economy of means, with repeated pitches and intervals moving around one another like an orbital process. Percussion is part of the ensemble here, providing a slow tactus that, rather than feeling like a downbeat accent, is accompanied by isorhythmic structuring in the other instruments. Those who wish to start with a piece by Frey might consider Moment, ground, fragility as a point of entry.
“If I were a pianist, I would play my music like Reinier would play it.” — Jürg Frey
Frey has written a great deal of piano music. It has been performed by Dante Boon, Philip Thomas, and the pianist here, Reiner van Houdt. Lieus d’ombres was written over a long period of time, from 1984 to 2016. Yet the seven compositions are of a piece: Pianissimo, closely voiced verticals and single pitches that float at a slow and steady tempo. These are interspersed by section-punctuating silences. Changes in pacing then seem all the more significant. The language is primarily triadic, with shifts between pitch centers that retain the overall chordal spacings. It is a blissful listen.
I first met Hayes Biggs in Venezuela in the 1990s, at a contemporary music festival in Caracas. We bonded over a street artist’s unique t-shirt designs, and over the performances by musicians from all corners of the Americas.
Since then, Biggs has been a regular fixture at new music concerts in New York City, as well as on stage with C4, the Choral Composer/Conductor Collective ensemble. He has been on the faculty of Manhattan School of Music teaching theory and composition since 1992. On May 31, 2023, four long-time champions of contemporary chamber music – violinist Curtis Macomber, violist Lois Martin, cellist Chris Gross, and pianist Christopher Oldfather – perform Biggs’ works in recital in a composer portrait at Merkin Hall in New York City.
In advance of the concert, I asked Biggs about the evolution of his compositional style and his career path. Here is our interview.
Gail Wein: In addition to your work as a composer and as a teacher at MSM you are also a choral singer. How does that experience inform your instrumental compositions?
Hayes Biggs: I strive to write beautiful melodic lines, harmonies and counterpoint. Studying voice as a college student, singing in choirs, and accompanying singers and choral groups has had a profound effect on all the music I write, in whatever medium or genre. More than once it has happened that bits of my vocal music (and occasionally that of others) have found their way into my instrumental works. For example, my String Quartet: O Sapientia/Steal Away (2004) is based to a great extent on two such pieces: a choral motet for Advent that I wrote in 1995, and the African American spiritual Steal Away. I had sung the latter in my college choir in William Dawson’s magnificent arrangement as a freshman in college, and that version was the inspiration for the last movement of the quartet.
GW: The piano preludes on your May 31 program are inspired by poetry. How do these preludes reflect the poems?
HB: Only the first three of the preludes (commissioned by Thomas Stumpf) have specific connections to poems, and I would see them as suggestive of certain general moods rather than as attempting to depict literally any events or images contained in the poetry. In No. 1, “The Secret that silent Lazarus would not reveal,” on Billy Collins’s “The Afterlife,” where the poet imagines the dead all going wherever they imagined they would go after death, I had the idea of a kind of jazzy march, tinged a bit with blues and gospel, as they all parade off in their separate directions. The second, on Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things,” seems to me to move from a mood of sadness and anxiety to one of serenity. The third prelude, on one of Rilke’s Annunciation poems from DasMarienleben, is dedicated to the memory of my mother-in-law Lois Orzel, and is intended to convey the quiet strength of the Virgin Mary and the awe in which the powerful angel Gabriel regards her. The fourth prelude is simply a short, playful study in rhythm, with bright major triads and crisply articulated eighth notes in shifting meters alternating with a heavier, bluesier, swinging triplet feel. It is dedicated to my friends David Rakowski and Beth Wiemann.
GW: The selections on the May 31 program are all fairly recent works. Tell me about your compositional style and approach, and how it has changed over the years (or not).
HB: I’m as eclectic as they come, kind of a musical omnivore. I tend to view stylistic purity as highly overrated. As far as my love of classical music is concerned, I think that initially I was knocked sideways by Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart, and then became enthralled by Chopin, Brahms, Schumann, Wagner, and later, Richard Strauss. I fell in love with harmony, the richer the better.
The first modern music I responded to was in an American idiom inspired by Stravinskian neoclassicism and Hindemith, including Persichetti, Bernstein, Copland, William Schuman, and others. I later discovered the Second Viennese School and the late works of Stravinsky. Two favorite composers of mine, Alban Berg and Stravinsky, both exemplify something that has preoccupied me for years: the reconciliation of tonal and non-tonal elements in the same work. Being diametrically opposed in their respective aesthetics, they approach this reconciliation in very different ways. Berg goes for a seamless fusion of atonal elements with Romantic gestures and tonal-sounding harmonies, in a language that evokes Mahler, while Stravinsky in a work like Agon, seems to embrace discontinuity, the juxtaposition of seemingly incongruous musics in the same piece.
GW: As New Yorkers, we sometimes forget there are other areas of the United States with rich, vibrant and interesting cultures. How has growing up in Alabama and Arkansas influenced your compositional style, your career path and your work?
HB: I was born in Huntsville, AL, but only because my dad happened to be stationed there when he was in the Army; our family wasn’t there for any significant amount of time. After that we lived in Memphis until I was four, when we moved to Indiana for one year. After that my dad got a job as the radiologist at the hospital in Helena, AR, where we lived from the time I was about 5 until I graduated from high school in 1975.
There were limited opportunities to hear classical music in Helena, though I do remember a concert series where touring artists performed in the Central High School gym. Later, another series, the Warfield Concerts, was founded after a wealthy man named S. D. Warfield died in 1967 and left a lot of money to be used for bringing famous performers and ensembles to Phillips County. The series continues to this day. I was able to see a number of classical performers, including Van Cliburn, the U. S. Air Force Band, the National Symphony conducted by Arthur Fiedler, as well as touring opera and ballet companies. More opportunities for such events, however, were available about an hour and a half away, in Memphis, which has its own symphony orchestra, as well as an opera company.
When I was young the Metropolitan Opera went on tour every spring and Memphis was one of its stops. I was eleven in 1968 when I saw my first opera during one of those tours, Carmen, with the late, great Grace Bumbry. Memphis also had a lot of churches with fine music programs that presented organ and choral concerts, as well as a fine community theater, Theatre Memphis.
The whole area where I grew up — the Mississippi Delta — was of course the home of many celebrated vernacular musics: gospel, rhythm & blues, country, rock & roll, and others. Famous people from near where I grew up include baritone William Warfield, Conway Twitty, and Levon Helm. B. B. King and Elvis were of course ubiquitous presences in that region. While Helena has become a center of Delta blues with its annual Blues Festival, I recently discovered how this cultural richness parallels the excitement found in goksites met de beste uitbetaling, where players seek platforms offering optimal rewards, much like the Delta’s artists seeking the perfect note to captivate their audiences. It’s a rich cultural and musical heritage, but I think it’s only been fairly recently that I’ve started to allow influences of pop, rock, jazz, and blues to filter into my own music.
GW: When did you first become aware of your interest in music? How and when did you realize that you enjoyed writing music?
HB: It’s a very corny story; while I had sung in choirs from the time I was very small, I started piano lessons quite late, at the age of nine. My mother had been quite a good pianist when she was young but would never have had a chance to pursue it professionally. My dad had no formal musical training apart from a few trumpet lessons when he was about 10, but he and my mom both loved classical music, which was heard in our house regularly, along with Broadway shows and other popular music, including jazz.
The first music I can remember hearing was the original cast album of My Fair Lady, which had opened on Broadway about a year before I was born. My parents played it a lot, along with other original cast albums, movie soundtracks, what used to be called “highlights” albums from favorite operas, and many standard classical pieces. My first big formative musical experience was watching The Beatles on Ed Sullivan’s show in 1964 at the age of six, after which I became a huge fan, which I remain to this day.
About a year after beginning piano lessons, my classmates and I were assigned to read a story about Mozart in a fifth grade reading class at Helena Elementary School. The class was taught by a very kind teacher named Carrie Garofas, who loved classical music; she was a trained singer with a lovely lyric soprano voice. Soon after we read a story about Gershwin, and another about Beethoven, and I was hooked.
I became fascinated by the idea of composing and with musical notation, though I had little idea about how it worked. I was brought up in a fundamentalist evangelical tradition — I call myself a “recovering Southern Baptist” — but my first piano teacher was a nun, Sister Teresa Angela, who taught at the local Catholic school. She readily observed that I was very interested in the manuscript paper she kept in a drawer and used for writing out scales and exercises for students. She also quickly figured out that a good way to get me to practice was to promise me a few sheets of it as a reward for a lesson well played. Whenever I had a spare moment I tried to write music, and learned by imitating what I saw in the music I played on the piano.
At the local music store in Helena I found a slim volume called Preparing Music Manuscript that I read cover to cover (I still have it), borrowed Kennan’s Orchestration from my church choir director when I was a teenager and absorbed it, and just devoured all the music of whatever kind that I could. Soon my mind opened to modern music by way of my high school band director N. Stanley Balch, and the discovery of Vincent Persichetti’s Twentieth Century Harmony. My Christmas list for many years included recordings of classical works almost to the exclusion of anything else. I asked for and received a recording of Berg’s Wozzeck at the age of thirteen. While I certainly couldn’t comprehend all of its complexities at the time, I found my way into loving it with repeated listening. I was particularly fascinated with how Berg reconciled tonal and non-tonal elements so seamlessly.
I continued playing the piano, singing in choirs at church and at school, and accompanying vocal solos and choral music. When I got to college (at what is now Rhodes College in Memphis, TN) in the fall of 1975, I was a piano major, but also took voice lessons, sang in the choir, and continued accompanying, mostly voice students. I learned a tremendous amount about how voices work from those experiences. I’d composed a few little pieces over the years, but didn’t receive any formal training in composition until I was introduced by Tony Lee Garner, my college choir director, to Don Freund, who has been at Indiana University for many years but was then teaching at what is now the University of Memphis. Don took me on as a private student, as there was no composition program at Rhodes. He has had (and continues to have) a huge effect on how I think about composing, and was particularly influential when it came to how to incorporate many diverse types of harmony and stylistic elements into my works.
I continued my education with a master’s degree in composition at SMU in Dallas, where my principal teacher was Donald Erb, and after meeting and taking lessons with Mario Davidovsky at Tanglewood in 1981 I decided to apply to Columbia University, where I earned a DMA. Mario was also a powerful influence on me, as different from Don Freund in aesthetic outlook as one could imagine, but also an inspiring teacher.
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB), Enno Poppe, conductor
Quatuor Diotima
Juliet Fraser soprano,Klangforum Wien, Bas Wiegers, conductor
NMC Recordings
Berlin-based British composer Rebecca Saunders often creates pieces with the capacities of specific collaborators in mind. Her latest recording for NMC, Skin, features three of her “calling card” pieces from the 2010s, performed estimably by their dedicatees. Saunders is one of the composers sometimes described as part of the Second Moderns, creators who revitalize the tenets of modernism in the light of Postmodernism and New Complexity. Pieces consist of a plethora of extended techniques, alternating aggressive gestures and what Tom Service has described as “evanescent shimmer” with music of “violence, stillness, and violent stillness.” Saunders often references the tactility and embodiment central to her work: the pressure on a bow, the weight of different attacks on the piano, the breath, and even the pressing together of shoulder blades before playing the accordion.
The orchestra piece Void is performed here bypercussionists Christian Dierstein and Dirk Rothbrust and Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, conducted by Enno Poppe. They do an excellent job rendering and balancing the complex textures of the work. The prevailing ambience is eerie, led by shimmering metallophones and forceful drumming. In creating their parts, Saunders worked closely with Dierstein and Rothbrust, which is apparent in the complex choreography of shifting instrumental combinations they execute. Brittle harmonies in the strings, angular trumpet lines, and soft wind chords shadow the soloists, combining to create a varied accompaniment.
Unbreathed includes a number of quotes as its performance note, a list of by Saunders:
This is followed by quotes by Marukami and Beckett, who is a particular touchstone for the composer. Performed by Quatuor Diotoma, Unbreather frequently employs glissandos, often overlapping, to create a fluid, microtonal surface. An abundance of special techniques are used, aggressive attacks and alternations of bow pressure prominent among them. The juxtaposition of dynamic levels, from vicious fortissimos to near-silence, as well as the unpredictability of gestures, lends to the idea of a diffuse form. The conclusion is hushed, suggesting a use of anti-climax that too is Beckettian.
Skin, for soprano and 13 players, is the first piece that I heard by Saunders. It remains inspiring and surprising every time I have listened to Juliet Fraser’s performance of its tour-de-force vocal part. Virtuosity is ubiquitous, with wide-ranging lip trills, sprechstimme, and high-lying sung passages all requiring tremendous control. Fraser delivers, in a robust reading that belies the demands that Saunders requires. Klangforum Wien, conducted by Bas Wiegers, both supports and interacts with Fraser. The trumpet, in particular, often doubles the soprano’s held notes, only to distress them with microtones. Emphatic percussion, frequent glissandos, and spectral chords create an ominous atmosphere.
Saunders has written a number of compelling pieces, but the selections on Skin are some of her very best. The disc serves as an excellent introduction to her music. Recommended.
“A Guide to Rebecca Saunders’s Music,” by Tom Service. The Guardian, 5 November, 2012.
Arlington Garden in Pasadena was the venue on Sunday, May 7, 2023 for Urban Birds ‘23, an afternoon of sunshine, synthesized sound experiences and live outdoor performances presented by Synchromy. A number of Los Angeles-based composers and performers were on hand and the audience was encouraged to simply wander through the garden to take in the sound installations and stop by the scheduled performances. The weather was perfect and the event program also listed “bird demonstrations by Wild Wings, crafting stations by local artist groups, and hands-on activities for all ages.”
Entering through the main gate to Arlington Garden and following the gravel footpath soon brings you to a clearing with chairs, benches, umbrellas and tables. This was the venue for Hornbill, a continuous sound installation featuring sustained ambient tones and a few high-pitched electronic beeps and boops. This was soft and calming, and conjured a convincing electronic metaphor for wild birds chirping in a garden. Further down the footpath was Feast + Famine, a demonstration of some live worms (zophobas atratus) capable of eating and digesting plastic. If you were brave enough to have a look inside, a few very small creatures could be seen crawling over some styrofoam flakes, apparently enjoying a hearty meal. A speaker emitted a sort of low gnawing and crunching sound that was actually the amplified chewing of the worms.
Nearby was an elegant performance by Sharon Chohi Kim who acted out the part of a bird in the wild. Her movements were slow and deliberate with eyes darting about as if on the hunt or wary of predators. Ms. Kim’s dress was long and loosely hung, suggesting folded wings at her side. Although brightly colored, she blended nicely into the garden underbrush as she stalked about. Kim issued bird-like calls that added to the convincing illusion. All of this was improvised in the moment and very effective. Ms. Kim deployed a graceful control of her movements and was truly channeling her inner bird.
Further on there was a demonstration of live owls by Wild Wings. It was hard to believe these birds were not mechanical, especially when they turned their heads almost full circle. The barn owl, in particular, seemed particularly dignified. Nearby was another sound installation, Twa Corbies, and this consisted of speakers mounted inside two wooden keepsake boxes that frequently emitted loud bird calls and squawks.
In a clearing at one end of the garden was Stellate Hexany Earth Chimes and this consisted of two tubular chime stands standing about 40 feet apart with two players at each. The chimes were fashioned from steel tubes and trimmed individually to pitches conforming to a Just Intonation tuning scheme. There was a written score for each of the four parts and the playing was synchronized by timer. Four for Twenty, composed by Daniel Corral, was the piece performed on these chimes. This began with solitary tones ringing out, each in turn, releasing sounds that seemed to hang effortlessly in the air. The tuning of the chimes and the careful striking with mallets produced a series of gentle and calming sounds. As the piece progressed, a call and answer pattern developed between the two chime sets that was very effective. The rate of striking the chimes increased gradually towards the finish and the garden air was filled with what might have been the ringing of distant church bells. After the piece concluded, Daniel Corral was available to discuss his techniques of chime construction and tuning as well as the interpretation of the notated score.
In another part of the garden, the fully electronic Nightjar:, by Kelly Heaton, was performed by Christina Lord. A beautifully crafted circuit board in the shape of a bird was the centerpiece of Nightjar:. This was populated with a number of electronic oscillators that randomly emitted bird calls from various species. These sounds were sampled and mixed in a PC using synthesizer software so that the performer could improvise the texture around the chirps, squeaks and squawks coming from the bird. The result was a surprising and convincing electronic sound picture that nicely captured the organic feeling of live birds calling in the wild. This was no doubt partly due to the power of suggestion – the electronic circuit board/bird sculpture was so appealing to the eye that its sounds were uncritically perceived by the brain as coming from a living bird. Even so, Nightjar: is an impressive combination of electronic craft in the service of musical art.
Urban Birds ’23 is a pleasant outdoor musical experience that will be all the more appreciated after the long and wet Southern California winter. Urban Birds ’23 moves to the Audubon Center at Debs Park, Los Angeles, for a repeat showing on Saturday, May 13
Audubon Center at Debs Park 4700 Griffin Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90031
Synchromy is:
Ashton Phillips, Carolyn Chen, Daniel Corral, Kelly Heaton, Cassia Streb, Tim Feeney, and Thadeus Frazier-Reed.
