Contemporary Classical

Contemporary Classical

Happy Birthday, Samuel Barber. Here’s Your New Documentary Called “Absolute Beauty”

Samuel Barber, one of America’s most celebrated composers, was born on this day (April 9) in 1910.  The young filmmaker  H. Paul Moon has made a full-length documentary about Barber that will be released later this month.

“I went out on a limb with this project, self-distributing, keeping it independent, making sure I got things right without compromise,” Moon says.

The 3-minute trailer below lines up some famous people with their insights on Barber, in this order:  William Schuman, Thomas Hampson, biographer Barbara Heyman, Leonard Slatkin and Leonard Bernstein.

by Jerry Bowles
Contemporary Classical

The Stone is Moving (and It’s Not Easter)

The Stone, the landmark non-profit performance space founded in 2005 by John Zorn and dedicated to the experimental and avant-garde, will move to The Glass Box Theater at Arnhold Hall on 55 West 13th Street, in the heart of New York’s Greenwich Village. Arnhold Hall is the performing arts hub for The New School, housing the three performing arts schools of The College of Performing Arts: Mannes School of Music, The New School for Drama, and The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.

Beginning in March 2018, The Stone at The New School will operate five nights a week, presenting one show a night in The Glass Box Theater, a ground level performing arts space surrounded by windows to the street and Arnhold Hall lobby and designed as part of the gut renovation of much of Arnhold Hall, led by the architectural firm Deborah Berke Partners.

“I think that what John Zorn has created in The Stone is a real deal miracle. The value of providing a sort of temple to serious music making for serious audiences, in an intimate environment without any interference as to what is performed is perfectly aligned with the long-term values at The New School. What is more, the broad range of artists of the very highest quality, who also happen to be masters of experiment and improvisation, is a perfect fit for the three schools of the College of Performing Arts. I have been a friend and fan of Zorn’s for many years and I am extraordinarily grateful to him for making The Stone at The New School possible.”

Starting this June, in anticipation of the formal move to The New School, The Stone at The New School will present two shows a week on Friday and Saturdayevenings (schedule attached).

John Zorn will continue to serve as artistic director, overseeing all of the programming. The devoted network of volunteers who help to run The Stone will remain in place, supplemented by support from The New School staff and students. The Glass Box Theater will provide for the exact same number of seats as the present venue for The Stone, preserving its intimate, affordable, no nonsense, music first ethos.

“I am really excited about this next phase of The Stone. Dean Kessler, Provost Marshall, their team, and I put together a framework for The Stone to continue serving as an artist-centric home and community for experimental and avant-garde artists, where they can perform what they want without any interference. We will continue all of the traditions of The Stone, moving it to greatly improved space, and opening up significant opportunity to draw energy from the students at Mannes, The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, The New School for Drama, and the entire New School.”

 

by Jerry Bowles
Contemporary Classical

Work in Progress: Judah Adashi’s Moving Tribute to Kalief Browder

In 2010,  a 16-year-old African-American child named Kalief Browder was accused of stealing a backpack. a crime he insisted he hadn’t committed. Because his family couldn’t afford bail, he endured three years on New York’s notorious Rikers Island and his case was postponed 31 times before it was dismissed. While being held, Browder spent months in solitary confinement, missed the last two years of high school, and become so despondent that he tied his bedsheets into a noose. In June 2015, Browder committed suicide by hanging himself.  Last year, the New York Legislature passed a bill known as “Kalief’s Law” to ensure that persons arrested receive a speedy trial.  It’s the least they could do.

Composer Judah Adashi is working on a new piece about the Kalief Browder tragedy called Unseen.   This is an excerpt from that work called  “Last Words” which imagines Browder’s final hours, on the night of June 5, 2015. The text comes from a conversation that Browder’s mother, Venida, shared with Jennifer Gonnerman of The New Yorker. Gonnerman writes: “his mother explained that the night before [he took his own life], he told her, ‘Ma, I can’t take it anymore.'”

“Venida Browder fought relentlessly for her son’s release, and, after his suicide, shared his story in support of criminal justice reform,” Adashi writes.  “She died of heart failure in October 2016 at the age of 63. “Last Words” is dedicated to her memory.”

This demo recording features vocals by Matthew J. Robinson, photos by Zach Gross, and audio of Venida Browder, courtesy of The Marshall Project. Unseen is funded by a grant from the Johns Hopkins University Berman Institute of Bioethics.

 

by Jerry Bowles
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles

Cold Blue Music Concert at Monk Space

On February 21, 2017, Tuesdays@MonkSpace was host to Nicholas Chase and Robin Lorentz, in Los Angeles to perform Bhajan, their latest CD from the Cold Blue recording label. Ms. Lorentz played the electric violin and Chase was at the controls of the computer and various audio interfaces. This occasion marked the premiere performance of Bhajan. Both were barefoot and clad completely in white, a refreshing departure from the solid black so often seen at new music concerts.

Bhajan consists of four roughly equal sections totaling some 47 minutes and is based on Hindu devotional music. For this performance all four sections were played continuously and the violin score extended over four music stands.  The first section is Bindu and this begins with a soft oscillating sound from the electronics followed by a few seconds of silence. More beeps and clicks accompanied by a high, repeating Eb violin pattern that anchors the listener against the otherworldly feel in the electronics. The electronics here are performed by Nicholas Chase on a playable interface programmed for the various sounds, but also responsive to the touch. The score is loosely organized to allow the violin to lead, and the coordination between the two players resulted in an unexpectedly tight ensemble. The violin played sustained tones against an electronic counter melody and this allowed some intriguing harmonies to develop as the final moments of Bindu took on a more serene feeling.

Drshti, the second section, has a more reverential feel with a deep drone coming from the electronics and a growling from the violin that approximates the patterns of a chant. There is an air of mystery in this and the interplay between the violin and the electronics borders on  conversational. The third section, Japa, has an almost conventional melody line in the violin. At one point the electronics are initiated by a series of buttons that trigger the sounds accompanying the violin, but the ensemble remained as tight as ever. The remarkable playing of Ms. Lorentz brought even the prerecorded sounds into a full partnership with the violin melody.

This expressive playing culminates in Bhajan, the final section. A quiet electronic drone sounds in the upper registers while the contemplative violin is heard below, and a warm, settled feeling pervades throughout. The electronics are again played by Nicholas Chase, and there is a subtle reprocessing of the violin in real-time that adds to the warm texture. It is the extraordinary playing of Robin Lorentz, however, that lifts this section to sublime sensitivity. The violin leads with extended phrases and the feeling is like drifting quietly away on a flowing stream. Nowhere is there the flash of complex technique, but the virtuosity of touch is unmistakable and transfixing – this section could go on for an hour and not be boring. Eventually the lovely playing fades away, and leaves the audience in a respectful silence.

Bhajan is an exquisite example of just how far skillful playing and computer-based electronics have become integrated. The high level of communication and ensemble in this performance was impressive, with each player contributing to the overall mood of the piece. Ms. Lorentz has an impressive resume and obviously understands all types of music, but none will exceed Bhajan for masterful interpretation.

Bhajan is available on CD directly from Cold Blue Music as well as at Amazon and iTunes.

by Paul Muller
Cello, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York, Piano

Couturier and Lechner at Greenwich Music House (Concert Review)

anja-and-francois-at-greenwich-house
Anja Lechner and François Couturier Greenwich House, NYC February 18, 2017. Photo by Claire Stefani

Francois Couturier and Anja Lechner

Greenwich Music House

New York

February 18, 2017

By Christian Carey

Five Things to Like About Francois Couturier and Anja Lechner in duo performance

  1. Versatility — These are two musicians who are able to play in a plethora of styles: classical, jazz, world music, et cetera. I first interviewed cellist Anja Lechner for a Signal to Noise feature about the bandoneonist Dino Saluzzi. I was impressed with her versatility then and remain so today. Pianist Francois Couturier is an eminently qualified performing partner for Lechner.
  2. Ensemble — Even though most of their set consisted of composed pieces — Couturier had sheet music on the piano throughout — the improvisational directions that they took the works featured a plethora of surprises and sharp turns into different musical terrain. The duo hardly needed to look at each other to turn on a dime into a new section or tempo.
  3. Variety — The concert included pieces by Couturier, with the back-to-back presentation of Voyage and Papillons creating a swirl of timbres and techniques. Federico Mompou also featured prominently, with renditions of three of his works on the program, including Soleil Rouge, a sumptuous encore. Komitas, Gurdjieff, and a transcription of an Abel piece originally for viola da gamba were other offerings. But the standout was Anouar Brahem’s Vagues, a work that the duo had previously performed with the composer. It brought out a tenderness and poise that was most impressive.
  4. Technique and effects — Both Couturier and Lechner demonstrated abundant performing ability. However, conventional playing was just a part of their presentation. The duo used a host of effects, Couturier playing inside the piano, Lechner supplying all manner of harmonics, pizzicatos, and alternate bowing techniques. This gave the abundant lyricism of their performance just the right amount of seasoning.
  5. Tarkovsky Quartet CD — Happily for those who missed this intimate event, or for those who heard it and want more, Couturier and Lechner appear as members of the Tarkovsky Quartet (which also includes soprano saxophonist Jean-Marc Lerché and accordionist Jean-Louis Matinier) on a new ECM CD, Nuit Blanche.

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by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York

NY Phil Premieres H.K. Gruber

Hi All. This fell off the blog for some reason. I am re-hosting it today.

New York Philharmonic Premieres H.K. Gruber

New York Philharmonic

Photos: Chris Lee

Avery Fisher Hall, New York

January 7, 2017

By Christian Carey

Five Things to Love About the NY Phil’s January 7th Concert

  1. Kurt Weill’s Kleine Dreigroschenmusik (Little Threepenny Music) for Wind Ensemble: A truly charming work that also demonstrates the composer’s affinity for early jazz orchestration, Little Threepenny Music showed off the wind section of the Philharmonic at their very best, and it was wonderful to hear banjo in the mix. Mack the Knife alone is worth many three-pennies!
  2. Emmanuel Ax playing H.K. Gruber: As Ax himself admits (see video embed below), his training is classical, not jazz-oriented. That said, he acquitted himself well in the premiere of H.K. Gruber’s Piano Concerto, spinning swinging fistfuls of notes into the air at a nearly relentless pace with his characteristic musicality.
  3. H.K. Gruber’s Piano Concerto: It is audaciously orchestrated, cast for a large orchestra with tons of contrapuntal imitation thickening the texture — yet somehow the piano comes through in brilliant fashion. There are elements of Weill’s early jazz, notably “shimmy music” from his opera Tales from the Vienna Woods. But the piece contains an even more pronounced strain of modern jazz: one could imagine the late Eric Dolphy fitting right in, taking a seat among the winds.
  4. Thoughtful programming: H.K. Gruber has performed works by Kurt Weill as a chansonnier. Schubert’s early Second Symphony hasn’t been performed since Kurt Masur was Music Director of the NY Phil (I saw that performance too; more about it momentarily).
  5. Alan Gilbert conducting Franz Schubert: When I heard Masur’s performance of Schubert’s Second Symphony in 1994, I was convinced that the teenage composer had the capacity to be a proto-Brahms with high Romantic spirits. Gilbert’s interpretation of the piece stands in stark contrast. It is much quicker, putting the strings through fleet-footed paces and distilling Schubert’s admiration for Mozart into each of the work’s movements. I wouldn’t want to be without either rendition, and am grateful to have heard them both. That said, January 7th’s masterful performance is just going to make me miss Alan Gilbert at the helm of the NY Phil even more.

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by Christian Carey
Chamber Music, Commissions, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York

Kronos at Carnegie Hall

KRONOS QUARTET
Photo: Steve J. Sherman

Kronos Quartet

Carnegie Hall – Zankel Hall

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Christian Carey

Six Things to Like About Kronos at Carnegie Hall

  1. Fifty for the Future Commissioning Project — Kronos used Saturday February 11th’s concert to showcase some of the early entries in their “Fifty for the Future” project. Not only is Kronos recording all of the pieces for young quartets to hear; their website also includes free to download PDFs of scores and parts. Thus, they are creating a new repertory for quartets eager to learn about contemporary music.
  2. Garth Knox — Some of the pieces, such as renowned violist Garth Knox’s “Dimensions” from Satellites, take on a didactic function. Knox features all manner of bowing techniques, including the surprisingly potent hissing sound of “air bowing.” It is a piece that is a catalog of special effects, but they are organically incorporated and the music is a brisk tour: it doesn’t overstay its welcome and stretch one’s appreciation of its charms.
  3. Malian percussionist Fode Lassana Diabate’s Sundata’s Time: The master balafonist joined Kronos onstage for the first completed “Fifty For the Future” composition: Sundata’s Time. Each movement spotlighted a different instrument, along with a few extra cadenzas for balafon thrown in. These were most welcome. Diabate plays with an extraordinary grace and fluidity that not only was stirring in its own right, but brought out a different character entirely in Kronos’s playing. It was a most simpatico collaboration.
  4. Kala Ramnath’s Amrit contains major scale ragas that craft a poignantly stirring work combining Eastern and Western gestures in a bold attempt to bring the two hemispheres’s musical traditions together.
  5. Rhiannon Giddens’s At the Purchaser’s Option brought blues and roots music to the fore, genres that Kronos has played eloquently since their inception. Perhaps the most attractive piece on the program in terms of musical surface, its message went deeper, serving as a sober reminder of slave trade in 19th Century America. Giddens has a new Nonesuch CD out this coming Friday, titled Freedom Highway.
  6. If Giddens’s piece was the most attractive on a surface level, Steve Reich’s Triple Quartet remained the weightiest in ambition and most thoroughly constructed of the programmed works. Written for Kronos, it features two virtual quartets on tape that accompany the live musicians (Kay and I are lobbying for more live performances of all three quartets, as that would really be something!). Overlapping ostinatos and stabbing melodic gestures provide a serious demeanor that resembles another piece played by Kronos with tape (of human voices): Different Trains. The rhythmic contours and syncopations provide ample amounts of challenges, but Kronos played seamlessly with the avatar-filled tape part. While “Fifty for the Future” is an important mission for Kronos, it is also heartening to hear some of their older repertoire being revived. The encore for the concert: an arrangement of “Strange Fruit,” the jazz protest song made famous by Billie Holiday.

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by Christian Carey
Cello, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles

Zoë Keating at the Shannon Center

zoek2On Saturday, February 11, 2017 Zoë Keating made a Southern California appearance as part of the ongoing Real New Music concert series at Whittier College. A large crowd filed into the Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts for an evening of improvisation combined with electronic looping and exceptional cello playing. The performance followed an hour-long demonstration session by Ms. Keating, held earlier that afternoon in the concert hall.

Tetris Head was the first piece on the program, and this illustrated something of the methods and form of Ms. Keating’s music. The cello was fitted with a small microphone and her chair was surrounded by a large mat with foot switches, a computer and another electronic box or two. There were a few neatly run cables to be seen, but not the excessive clutter common to so many systems. The first notes from the cello were short and spikey and these were recorded by the looping software and re-played into a speaker system. This formed a regular, rhythmic track and Ms. Keating then began adding a series of longer, smoother tones from the middle register of the cello that made for an agreeable contrast. As this second layer was looped, some double-stopped harmonies appeared adding a sense of depth. As new, faster melodies were built up, there was an overall feeling of purposeful movement as the piece proceeded. The looped segments would often reappear in a new combinations, subtly shifting the perspective and mood. Tetris Head concluded as the layers were gradually disabled by the foot switches, tapering down the texture and density of the sound before quietly trailing off.

Successive pieces increased in complexity, and this required new levels of precision to accurately interleave the layers. By the second and third pieces in the concert, intriguing counter melodies were heard against the looped sections. The variety of colors and emotions that were conjured from the looping process was also impressive. In Seven League Boots, a piece about her home near the coast in Sonoma County, Ms. Keating was able to evoke that appealing combination of rural redwood serenity and easygoing mellowness that we associate with the best Northern California sensibility. In Frozen Angels, the tone was decidedly darker, with dissonance and tension infused within the layers. Another piece, composed while Ms. Keating was staying in Quito, Ecuador, has all the images of the scene from her hotel window – clouds boiling up against the towering Andes and the vibrant movement of people in the market square below. The textures, tones and counterpoint created from the looped segments afford a rich musical palette with Ms. Keating always in complete control of their deployment.

Later in the concert even more intricate constructions were heard involving fast runs of pizzicato notes and rapid arco passages. The layers piled up, with a skill level that seemed to increase exponentially. There was no score evident for any of these pieces and Ms. Keating seemed to have the basic musical ideas for each segment committed to memory. She then worked out how they fit together by playing them and it was like watching someone improvise a fugue – always thinking a few steps ahead and in three dimensions. The combination of improvisation, rhythm, melodies and counterpoint is fascinating to hear and the appreciative audience responded with sustained applause at the end of each piece.

The final piece of the concert, by way of an encore, was an experimental work-in-progress that pointed to the future. A series of extremely high, thin pitches, followed by stronger tones in the middle registers, gave a remote, lonely feel to this. A rapidly syncopated pizzicato layer added complexity to the sense of isolation, while a low rumbling in the bass registers threw an ominous shadow across the texture. This final piece seemed to be drawing from the same well of inspiration as other contemporary composers lately, perhaps reflecting the tension and uncertainty of our present social circumstances. A prolonged and enthusiastic standing ovation followed.

Apart from the masterful playing and artful leveraging of looping to multiply the expressive power of her instrument, Zoë Keating is also in the forefront of 21st century promotion and career management. A long line of her followers formed up after the concert, filling the lobby, and Ms. Keating generously stood chatting with them for a long time. There was a table piled high with CDs – and she was giving these away to those who subscribed to her mailing list. Ms. Keating seems to have a keen sense of what works in today’s volatile performance marketplace; she understands her audience and they respond with genuine affection.

Photo by Shane Cadman (used with permission)

by Paul Muller
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York

Beat Furrer at Miller Theatre

Composer Portrait – Beat Furrer

Miller Theatre

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Either/Or Ensemble; Richard Carrick, conductor

By Christian Carey

 

NEW YORK – Miller Theatre has long had plans for a Composer Portrait evening of Beat Furrer’s music. In 2001, the event was disrupted by 9/11, which made it impossible to bring in the musicians slated to perform. After a long hiatus, the American ensemble Either/Or, conducted by Richard Carrick, was invited to undertake the first Miller portrait event in 2017, finally featuring Furrer’s compositions. The concert was masterfully performed and artistically satisfying. Alas, this time out, it was Furrer who could not attend. The Swiss-born, Austrian-based composer had taken ill and his doctors advised him against flying. One felt sorry that Furrer had missed a chance to hear his work at Columbia not once, but twice. What’s more, audience members were denied a planned onstage conversation with the composer about his work. Thankfully, Miller has continued to employ Paul Griffiths, one of the foremost writers on contemporary music, as their program note writer. Griffiths supplied a great deal of biographical background and information about the pieces, giving listeners a fine entryway into Furrer’s compositional aesthetic.

 

Carrick conducted the largest work on the program, the nonet linea dell-orizzonte (2012), which includes winds, brass, strings, piano, percussion, and electric guitar. Propulsive rhythmic activity underscored frequent glissandos. Rollicking gestures from Taka Kigawa’s piano, string harmonics, and guitar distortion, courtesy of Dann Lippel, created a hazy sound world, which gradually receded into syncopated brass, from trumpeter Gareth Flowers and trombonist Chris McIntyre, and percussion outbursts offset by rests, from Russell Greenberg and Dennis Sullivan.

 

Ira-Arca (2012), a duo for the unusual combination of bass flute and double-bass, was given a characterful performance by flutist Margaret Lancaster and bassist Ken Filiano. The piece frequently had the two mimic each other’s gestures, creating a nimble duet leavened with copious effects: exhalations, key clicks, flute and bass harmonics, slaps, and all manner of pizzicatos.

 

The quintet Spur (1998), for piano and string quartet, is one of Furrer’s most popular works. Kigawa played its repeated note gestures with fleet-fingered dexterity, while the quartet – violinists Jennifer Choi and Pala Garcia, violist Erin Wright and cellist Erin Popham – haloed the octaves, sevenths, and ninths of the piano part with pizzicato and altissimo lines, their sense of ensemble nicely complementing the keyboard ostinatos. In several places, the overall ascent of this central line breaks down into more diverse textures and gradual processes, but it is the piece’s inexorable drive and propulsive character that make it a strong entry in the composer’s catalog.

 

The second half of the concert was devoted entirely to the US premiere of one of Furrer’s most recent pieces – the clarinet quintet intorno al bianco (2016). It was in this piece that the composer most clearly demonstrated his affinity for spectral harmonies. Extended passages built out of overtones shimmering brightly. Clarinettist Vasko Dukovski blended seamlessly with the aforementioned string players, at times seeming to find the breath support to buoy impossibly long lines and performing with an enviably dulcet tone. The climax of intorno al bianco chimes chords with stratospheric highs before receding into a sumptuous denouement. It showed a different facet of Furrer’s music entirely. One felt that both his gestural and overtone-based pieces reveal potential avenues of further inquiry. While Miller tends to give composers a single portrait concert, another of Furrer’s music, this time with him in attendance to talk about it, would be most welcome.

by Christian Carey
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York

Juilliard SQ Premieres Davidovsky’s 6th SQ

Photo: Simon Powls
Photo: Simon Powls

Last night I heard the latest incarnation of the Juilliard String Quartet in recital at Alice Tully Hall. The program included performances of Mendelssohn’s first String Quartet and the juggernaut that is Beethoven’s Op. 130 with the Grosse Fuge finale, both pieces performed with suavity rather than abundant risk-taking. The highlight was the quartet’s New York premiere of Mario Davidovsky’s Sixth String Quartet, “Fragments.” 

Davidovsky’s description of the quartet is accurate in that it includes fragments of motivic material that are juxtaposed in a variety of ways. However, it is anything but fragmentary in terms of the consistent feeling of a long line’s presence and persistent through thought. The Quartet demonstrates the composer’s early experiences as a string player and knowledge of contemporary techniques, with all manner of harmonics, dampening, tapping, slapping, and regular pizzicatos set against the famous Bartók pizzicato. Davidovsky’s 6th is a beautiful piece that deserves a place alongside Carter’s 5th Quartet and Shapey’s 9th as a stirring example of a composers’ late style in the current era.

by Christian Carey