Composer James Romig’s previous piece for electric guitar, The Complexity of Distance, written for Mike Scheidt, was an overwhelming paean to distorted revelry. It was a swerve from Romig’s previous compositions, which were primarily for acoustic instruments, such as the Pulitzer-nominated piano work still and a number of pieces for percussion. His latest composition for electric guitar, The Fragility of Time, is played clean, sans distortion, and serves as a sort of companion to The Complexity of Distance.
The hour-long work returns to the gradual unfolding of still. Romig began his mature career writing serial music with rhythmic vivacity. In recent years, he has retained a constructivist mindset, but slowed down the tempo of his works. One is tempted to attribute some of this to his many residencies at national parks, where the scenery and time to create seem to have metabolized in a tendency for his phrases to breathe differently.
One could scarcely hope for a better advocate than Sargent who, in addition to recording The Fragility of Time, has performed it at several venues. The level of concentration required to render the piece’s asymmetrical gestures, moving frequently between regularly fretted single notes, verticals, and harmonics, is considerable. The dynamics are subdued for much of the piece, though as it progresses the texture is peppered with single forte gestures, and it closes with forte harmonics.The pitch language itself is post-tonal in design, but doesn’t eschew the use of tertian sonorities.
The Fragility of Time has a mesmeric quality.Listeners may attend to subtle shifts occurring throughout the piece or merely bask in its attractive sound world. Either way, The Fragility of Time is a rewarding experience: take time to savor it.
Steven Schick is an extraordinary musician, best known as a percussionist but also a formidable conductor. After decades of performing all of the important solo works of the percussion repertoire, Schick is creating a series of recordings, titled Weather Systems, documenting interpretations built on lifelong study. The first, A Hard Rain, includes works by the experimental and serial wings of American music, European modernists, and a tour-de-force rendition of Kurt Schwitters’ Ursonata (1932).
The double disc recording begins with 27’10.554” for a percussionist (1956), a nearly half hour long piece by John Cage. As with so much of Cage’s music, the use of silences between aphoristic gestures is often present. The instrumental complement includes a number of regular percussion implements plus several unconventional noise-makers: radios, whistles, pre-recorded sound, wooden and metallic materials. The pre-recorded sound plays a pivotal role. Schick’s realization of the piece is an eighty-four multitrack mix. Schick calls it “a rainforest of sounds.” The impression it makes is of a diverse, diffuse sound environment that moves between noise, nature, and more codifiable rhythmic structures.
Zyklus (1959), by Karlheinz Stockhausen, is an exciting, highly choreographed, graphic score, with the trick that, like the deployment of its instruments, it is circular in construction. The performer is allowed to enter the circle at any point and work through the piece from there. King of Denmark (1964) is far more intuitive, keeping the slow, soft, spare aesthetic of Feldman but transferring it to percussion.
Two American serialists are represented. Charles Wuorinen’s Janissary Music (1966)is an early example of the composer using serialized rhythmic structures. The pitch language also uses 12-tone techniques, the result a fastidiously designed piece that is muscular in its angularity.Schick went to University of Iowa, where William Hibbard taught, and thus his recording of Parsons’ Place (1968) is a return to one of the first solo percussion pieces he learned. Like Feldman and Cage, Hibbard allows space between entries with a generally soft dynamic. However, they are knotty and self-similar, the pitched percussion chromatic in pitch spectrum. The accretion of gongs, cymbals, and a drummed pulse provides a slow build to an interior cadence. Once again, the texture thins, with long rests interspersing brief eruptions, shimmering gongs joining pitched percussion. Gently articulated melodies interspersed with drumming creates a hybridized last section that becomes progressively more assertive, then drifts off in a shimmer of cymbals. Schick’s use of dynamic contrasts and nimble gestures make a strong impression. A compelling work that should be better known.
Intérieur I (1966) by Helmut Lachenmann takes the post-War modernism found in Zyklus and expands its instrumental and expressive reach. Glissandos on timpani and xylophone, brightly articulated melody on vibraphone, and disjunct arpeggiations on marimba are offset by long-sounding gongs and punchy non-pitched drum interjections. The whole creates a labyrinthine complex of alternating gestures and textures.
Kurt Schwitters’ Ursonata (1922-32) is one of the most important sound poems of the twentieth century. As the title suggests, the shape of the piece is sonata form, but the vocal sounds required are as far from traditional as can be imagined. Electronics composer Shahrokh Yadegari joins Schick for a virtuosic performance of the piece that includes echoes, layerings, and treatments of the voice. Schick provides a dramatic rendition of the Ursonata, rendering its tongue-twisters, repetitions, and non-sequiturs with flair and fluidity. I heard Schick perform the piece at the Park Avenue Armory, and while a stereo recording can’t capture the encompassing power of Ursonata live, it captures detail and an impressive amount of heft. A Hard Rain is one of 2022’s “must-hear” recordings. One waits with keen anticipation for its follow-ups.
Some of the artists at the 2022 Long Play festival
Two years ago, I was editing a 2020 interview with the composer David Lang about the new multi-day festival that Bang on a Can planned for that spring, Long Play, when I realized the significance of the festival title. The year 2020 would be Bang on a Can’s 33rd anniversary. Long Play = LP = 33 rpm. Very clever! Although the festival was delayed for two years, it retains its name.
The inaugural Long Play festival takes place on April 29, April 30 and May 1, 2022 at a half-dozen venues in Brooklyn, including BAM, Roulette, Littlefield, the Center for Fiction, Mark Morris Dance Center, Public Records and the outdoor plaza at 300 Ashland. Over 60 performances are scheduled. Some are free, but most are accessed via a day pass ($95) or a three-day festival pass ($195). Over a hundred performers range from the Sun Ra Arkestra to jazz pianist Vijay Iyer to bagpiper Matthew Welsh (complete list is here).
Lang, along with the composers Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon launched Bang on a Can in New York City in 1987 with a 12-hour concert in a downtown art gallery. The organization became known for its annual marathon concerts in New York, and later expanded to include a performance group (the Bang on a Can All-Stars), a commissioning program, education programs and festivals at MASS MoCA in the Berkshires, a record label (Cantaloupe), and an on-going extensive online series created when live concerts were cancelled during the pandemic.
Looking back on our conversation on February 25, 2020, most of what Lang and I discussed is still relevant to the rescheduled Long Play Festival. Here is the interview, edited for length and clarity.
Gail Wein Successful marathons have been your signature event for Bang on a Can for 33 years. So what prompted the creation of this differently-formatted festival, Long Play?
David Lang
David Lang Over the last couple of marathons we have tried to expand our reach to different kinds of music and to other kinds of communities. After a while of doing that, we felt like we were inviting people on to the marathon for slots of 15 or 20 minutes that we wished were an hour or two hours. And so we got interested in a lot of other kinds of music and it just seemed like we weren’t spending enough time with them.
I remember thinking – this is at the last marathon – people would come in and they would go, “That was incredible. Why am I only wanting that for fifteen minutes?” What we’re hoping to do with this is to say, we’ve uncovered all these incredible connections between all these different kinds of music. And now we really want to let people go deeper into what those connections do and where they go.
Gail Wein Of course, it’s a much bigger scope. Three days, and a bunch of venues. And instead of the marathon’s free admission, this one is ticketed.
David Lang There’s still going to be a bunch of free things, including some outdoor events, because we really like the idea that we have a wide doorway, that lots of different kinds of people can come through with no barriers. But it’s also true that when you start working with so many hundreds of musicians and so many different kinds of venues, that it’s just not possible for us to fundraise to make the entire thing free anymore. So we came up with this plan that, for essentially the price of one ticket, you get a pass which allows you to see everything and then you’ll just be able to go in and out of performances and check out music from all these different communities.
Gail Wein How does the aesthetic of the performers and the programs and the repertoire differ from that of the marathons?
David Lang I don’t think it differs at all.
We’re still looking for people whose definition of what they do is: they wake up in the morning and tell themselves that they’re innovators. They wake up and they say, there’s a kind of traditional music that’s involved in my world and I’m not doing that. That’s always been the way we’ve judged people to come on to the marathon. We wanted to find people who were pushing their fields. The difference here is that we’re able to go deeper into other kinds of communities like jazz and rock music and indie pop and ambient and electronica and be able to invite more people who are pushing their boundaries.
Gail Wein I was thinking about the longevity of Bang on a Can as an institution. Institutions come and go, organizations come and go, various folks have mounted series, marathons, festivals. But not that many have lasted a third of a century. To what do you attribute Bang on a Can’s longevity?
David Lang, Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe, the founders of Bang on A Can (photo by Peter Serling)
David Lang I’m sure some of it is just dumb luck. But also we have a kind of hippie mentality about what it is we do, where we want everyone involved in the organization to be as excited and passionate about it as possible. If something comes up that we are not passionate about, we don’t do it. Some organizations, they just begin to think, well, we have a payroll to meet. We’ve got to do this, and this is what we did last year.
One of the things that we’re really proudest of about this festival and also about our sister festival that we started in summer, which is the Loud Weekend Festival at Mass Moca, is that we’re able to change and get excited about other kinds of things and then turn the organization so that it can take advantage of what we’re all really excited about. Everyone who works at Bang on a Can is a musician; we only hire people who are musicians. And so when we talk about these things in the office, we really are sharing ideas of the things that we are all getting excited about. And so when you do something like this, when you say this is a new direction that we’re going in, or this is the kind of music we want to include, or this is a new initiative for something we’d like to do, it’s something that energizes everybody. That’s one of the reasons why we can stay fresh, because everybody understands how committed we all are to the mission of the organization.
Gail Wein I’ve been thinking about this: New York City is already one big music festival every single day.
David Lang It is.
Gail Wein So why do you think New York and New Yorkers need this festival?
David Lang One of the beautiful things about this is the pass, quite honestly. In New York, there are always 500 concerts to see every single night. And you pay your money and you go see it and you stick it out, right? And then you say, I know I’m going to see this one, I don’t know that other kind of music, so I’m going to go see the one I know because I have to pay the money and I have to sit there for the concert.
At Long Play, we have all of this music within a few blocks of each other, all in walking distance, in Brooklyn, all the concerts are scheduled to go on simultaneously. What I’m really hoping will happen is that people with the pass will be encouraged to check out things that they wouldn’t necessarily check out because they have the right to go to that concert. So that’s our thought of how to replace the thing that we loved so much about the marathon, which is to put this kind of music next to each other, so that someone would come out of watching twelve hours of the music at the marathon and having a kind of cross section of a huge swath of interesting innovative things. What we’re hoping now will happen is that because I’ve already bought a pass, I’m going to check it out. And if I don’t like it, I can get up in 10 minutes and go check something else out. I’m not obligated to spend $50 for a concert of stuff I don’t know.
Gail Wein How did you choose and curate the artists and the programs and the venues as well?
David Lang We wanted to find places that were all in walking distance. And of course, that means that we started talking to everybody a year ago in order to get on their schedules. And then we just went to every single person who works in Bang on a Can and asked, what do you want to see? People just thought, what’s the widest, most varied, most exciting bunch of things from a bunch of different musical directions that we can come up with?
Gail Wein What do you hope audiences will come away with after experiencing the Long Play Festival?
David Lang What I’m really hoping will happen is that people will think that the world is full of all sorts of exciting things going on right now. And and that it’s full of creativity and wildness and inspiration and and that the world is very large. You know, I think sometimes when you go to a concert that’s neatly packaged and everything fits and everything makes sense. You go, this is a complete experience andI don’t need anything else. What I’m really hoping will happen is that people will come to this thing and they’ll go. That was unbelievable. And the world is full of all sorts of things that I have to continue to check out.
I asked David Lang which of the artists and programs were his favorite. A message he sent in an email newsletter earlier this month sums up his thoughts about the 2022 festival.
April 5, 2022
LONG PLAY really reminds me of those choose-your-own-adventure books – you get to make your own musical path through each day.
That is why I am going to plot my course through the weekend, very very carefully – I want to make sure I build my schedule around the concerts that I really have to see. Such as:
Stimmung – Karlheinz Stockhausen – It is hard to imagine that a European modernist classic from the 1960’s is in reality a meditation on everyone in the world having sex with each other, but that is what it is. Ekmeles sings at the Mark Morris Dance Center at 5pm on Friday, April 29.
Iva Casian-Lakos plays Joan La Barbara – Bang on a Can introduced these two to each other on one of our Pandemic Marathons last year, commissioning a new work from Joan for Iva’s fiery cello playing. The result was so electrifying that they have made it into a show, and I need to hear how it has grown. At the Center for Fiction at 2pm on Sunday.
Vijay Iyer, Linda May Han Oh, Tyshawn Sorey – Their album UNEASY came out last year on ECM and it has been on heavy rotation in my studio ever since. It’s tuneful and moody and thoughtful, and I really want to hear them play together, live. At Roulette on Saturday at 8pm.
Eddy Kwon – composer, singer, violinist – their music is so beautiful and flows so smoothly across so many boundaries that is hard for me to even describe it. The songs feel like the hit arias from the foundational music of a culture I have never experienced before. Magic. Sunday at 4pm at the Center for Fiction.
Ornette Coleman – The Shape of Jazz to Come – Coleman was a motivator for so much forward motion in music. This legendary album from 1959 was a big part of that, and it is still pushing musicians to move forward. I want to be there when six composers show us how with their world premieres. At BAM’s Opera House 7:30pm on Sunday, May 1.
And then I have to figure out how to run between all the other shows, trying to see as much as I can.
Nona Hendryx! Arvo Pärt! Sun Ra! Éliane Radigue! ZoëKeating! Galina Ustvolskaya! Pamela Z! JG Thirlwell! Soo-Yeon Lyuh! Craig Harris! The Brooklyn Youth Chorus! More! Much more!
Plus I will try to see my own show (Death Speaks) with Shara Nova on Sunday at Mark Morris, if I can figure out how to fit it in.
Whatever the schedule ends up looking like, I have a feeling you are going to see me there with circles under my eyes, as I run from show to show to show to show to show.
The Glissando Headjoint for flute was invented by performer, composer, improviser, and inventor Robert Dick. Essentially, it adds a carrier tube to the standard C flute headjoint. The lip plate can be moved along the carrier tube to create true glissandi. Much of Dick’s work with the headjoint is in an improvisatory style; most of my work with it has been largely through commissioning works. One of the most rewarding things about this activity as a performer is seeing the variety of sounds composers require from the headjoint in their works. The minimal repertoire for glissando flute compared to the vastness of the rest of the flute repertoire across the centuries really highlights that the lack of precedent drives some pretty rewarding creativity. The first work that I performed with my newly-purchased headjoint in 2013 was Jay Batzner’s Dreams Grow Like Slow Ice. Written for glissando flute and electronics, it’s an evocative work that brings to mind an icy, barren landscape. I’ve had the pleasure of performing it fifteen times on three continents. I’ve worked with Jay on two other works involving the headjoint: Fire Walk, which is for solo glissando flute and is based on ideas from David Lynch’s Twin Peaks; and Used Illusions, a large work in three movements for glissando flute and concert band, based on Guns N’ Roses tunes. Andrew Rodriguez’s Highways for solo glissando flute brings to mind the sensations of driving at night: being lulled to sleep, occasional lights when traveling through towns, the mixing of dreams and waking consciousness. It’s a highly effective work that uses the glissando effect masterfully to blur the lines between being asleep and the reality outside the vehicle. The Dream Has Ended in Death by Aaron Jay Myers is based on a lithograph of the same name and uses a variety of sounds to create a mood representative of the visual art inspiration. It is particularly effective to project the lithograph behind the flutist during a performance. This work is also for solo glissando flute. Chamber music involving the Glissando Headjoint can also be effective. Wes Flinn’s Urban Legends X: Mothman is written for glissando flute and trombone, and the similar glissando effects are really heightened when utilized by both players. Similarly, Alan Theisen’s Pura Besakih, inspired by the temple complex in Indonesia of the same name, uses glissando flute and traditional C flute in a duet.
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When writing for glissando flute, there are helpful resources to help composers find the sounds they want to hear. Several documents on Robert Dick’s website (http://robertdick.net/the-glissando-headjoint/) include fingering charts, which explain the extended lower range. His website also includes a selection of demonstration videos. Most importantly, work with your performer either before starting the composition process or throughout it to confirm your ideas will work within the limitations of the instrument. For example, the headjoint extends the lower range of the flute to a low A, but it can’t be played very loudly. Another limitation is just plain physics. The headjoint can only move so quickly, so some combinations of notes and headjoint placement within the carrier tube are simply impractical. Keeping the lines of communication open with your performer will reveal any of these quickly.
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Tammy Evans Yonce, an Atlanta native, is a flutist, collaborative musician, writer, and professor. She is a dedicated new music performer who is particularly interested in the commissioning and teaching of new music. Dr. Yonce has commissioned over twenty works involving flute, many with a specific focus on creating new music for the Glissando Headjoint. She is Associate Professor of Music at South Dakota State University. Her recently-released album, Dreams Grow Like Slow Ice, includes several works for glissando flute. She can be found at tammyevansyonce.com and on Twitter @TammyEvansYonce.
NEW YORK – On February 10th, 2018, Architek Percussion and TAK ensemble presented five US premieres in the DiMenna Center for Classical Music’s Benzaquen Hall. The program, charmingly titled ArchiTAK, was composed entirely of new music by New York and Montreal composers. Walking into the hall expecting some sort of configuration to accommodate five percussionists, a flautist, clarinetist, violinist, and vocalist, I was instead greeted by nine chairs in a tight, even row behind nine microphones. I heard members of TAK ensemble behind me discussing the location of “the knives.” I was ready to expect the unexpected as the program began with Myriam Bleau’s Separation Space. The piece began with these nine performers manipulating electronically processed microphones with tapping, scratching, sandpaper, and yes, a chef’s knife. Adding to the rich amalgam building in the speakers, performers began to play pre-recorded media from cellphones, and two began to sing in a close, gently pulsing dissonance. The work was an excellent opening to the program. I found myself having a thought that I would return to many times throughout this program. New music can be strange, intimate, challenging, and moving, and in capable hands, can be all four at once. Taylor Brook’s Incantation left the stage to Architek Percussion, with each member of the quartet equipped with a hi-hat prepared with a small towel, two metals bars (each tuned to form a microtonal octachord spanning the width of about 2 semitones), a brake drum, and a violin bow. Early questions I raised to myself about the authenticity of their performance considering the handicap of headphones (presumably playing a click) were quickly replaced with a respect for these performers as they flawlessly moved through the aggressively fast and equally demanding piece with incredibly tight ensemble. The first half of the program concluded with A Song About Saint Edward the Confessor by Isaiah Ceccarelli, which again utilized the full complement of players. Opening as a vocalise before later unfolding into a proper song, the piece capitalized on vocalist Charlotte Mundy’s unaffected voice and pure tone, while still leaving her room to realize a richly expressive performance. While her diction was very clear and the hall was intimite, I felt that omitting the text from the program was a missed opportunity.
Moments into New York composer David Bird’s Descartes and the Clockwork Girl, I understood why this was programmed after a short break. I again found myself considering the strange, intimate, challenging, and moving as the piece worked through timbre pairings that were as conceptually attractive and musically effective. I am still particularly taken with Carlos Cordeiro’s performance, balancing passages that demand incredible dexterity with clean, sustained bass clarinet multiphonics. The program concluded with Taylor Brook’s Pulses. For the fifth time that night, I found myself almost entirely outside of time, so engrossed in the performance that I honestly could not give an accurate break-down of the roughly 90 minute program.
After the final piece concluded and members of Architek Percussion and TAK received a strong round of much deserved applause, a gesture towards the audience revealed that both David Bird and Taylor Brook were in attendance for this performance. For all these musicians did to curate and present moving and compelling works of new music, there were several missed opportunities in the presentation of the program itself that could have gone a long way to making the music more accessible. Given that each piece contained such evocative, programmatic titles, I have a feeling including program notes would have provided audience members with a better vocabulary to appreciate the work of both the composers and performers. With a composer present for three of the five pieces on the program, I feel it was a real missed opportunity not to hear about their work from them, especially considering the intimate nature of the venue.
ARCHITAK
Myriam Bleau —Separation Space
Taylor Brook — Incantation
Isaiah Ceccarelli — A Song About Saint Edward the Confessor
David Bird — Descartes and the Clockwork Girl
Taylor Brook — Pulses
Architek Percussion: Ben Duinker, Mark Morton, Ben Reimer, Alessandro Valiante
TAK ensemble: Charlotte Mundy, voice; Laura Cocks, flute; Carlos Cordeiro, clarinet; Marina Kifferstein, violin; Ellery Trafford, percussion
On Monday, November 20 in New York, Metropolis Ensemble percussionist Ian Rosenbaum will present an hour-long, seamless musical narrative culminating in Christopher Cerrone’s evocative work Memory Palace. Through electro-acoustic soundscapes, visual projections, and a fluid juxtaposing of unexpected techniques and instruments, works by Mark Applebaum, David Crowell, Tom Johnson, Scott Wollschleger, and Cerrone are interwoven to explore new, expressive possibilities for solo percussion.
Earlier this year, Rosenbaum released a recording of Cerrone’s Memory Palace, a work Rosenbaum has performed over 40 times since its premiere by Owen Weaver in 2012. An autobiographical work, the title refers to a memorization technique where one places mental signposts in an imaginary location and ‘walks’ through it. This 23 minute work is a construction of Cerrone’s life as a memory palace. Apart from three loose crotales, two glockenspiel bars, and a kick drum, a majority of Memory Palace is performed with homemade (or modified) instruments, such as slats of wood, metal pipes, and water-tuned beer bottles. The work also prominently features field recordings taken by composer.
Recorded in 2015 during a residency at the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center in Troy, NY, this film may be a suggestion of what lies in store, with theatrical lighting and video projection further elevating the natural chemistry between Cerrone’s work and Rosenbaum in this incredibly moving performance.
Most New Yorkers are walking about, minding their own business, completely oblivious to the international sonic earthquake vibrating through their midst all week: The New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF). The first wave of the festival (seven concerts) took place as part of the New York Philharmonic’s Biennial at National Sawdust in Brooklyn last week. Yet the lion’s share of the festival is happening right now: 28 more concerts during June 13-19, at Abrons Arts Center on Grand St., for a total of 35 concerts. Yes you read that correctly: 35 concerts of electroacoustic music, including some 350 works, by almost as many composers from all around the world! Indeed a mammoth undertaking organized, produced, and presented miraculously by Hubert Howe, Travis Garrison, David Reeder, Howie Kenty, and a highly dedicated energetic staff.
The variety on offer is astonishing. There are pieces for live instruments or voice and electronics (live processing or premade sounds); pieces for synthesized sound, sampled sounds, and both together. Some works feature video. Other works feature graphics generated through live video feeds of the performer, or graphics generated through movement. Concerts are heard alternately in two small traditional auditoriums and a cozy cocoon-like space with 16-channel surround sound, seating in the round, amongst stratospheric ceilings. Sound art and visual art installations are mounted in the hallways and foyers. The concerts are at 12:30, 2, 4, and 8pm; workshops and paper presentations on such topics as “Oral History as Form in Electroacoustic Music”, “Orient Occident: An Alternative Analysis,” and “Wireless Sensing” occur in the mornings, at NYU.
Among the international cast of composers and performing artists heard in the festival are Tania León, Ken Ueno, Alice Shields, Clarence Barlow, Elizabeth Hoffman, Simon Emmerson, Alvin Lucier, Shelly Hirsch, Annie Gosfield, Phil Niblock, Alan Licht, Judith Shatin, Michelle Jaffe, Maja Cerar, Marianne Gythfeldt, and Arthur Kampela. Most of them are on hand and the casual atmosphere is conducive to conversation with and among participating artists.
Togo seed rattle
One of the most interesting works I heard was Precuneus; Sonic Space no.8—Iteration No.4 (2016) by Michael Musick. This is a work for live performer and “sonic ecosystem.” And yes, it sounds as great as that sounds. During the performance, Mr. Musick gently wafted throughout the stage, as if in a trance, while playing sometimes a recorder and sometimes a Togo seed rattle and other percussion instruments. Meanwhile Mr. Musick’s software reacted in the most delightfully musical way. Its “digital agents” listen to the live sounds and spontaneously extract features from them and then generate new sounds sculpted by these features. These sounds percolated and jiggled all around the hall in a delicate lavander tornado for the ears.
Zhaoyu Zhang’s Night Snow brought my ears close up and inside mysterious objects and intriguingly close to strange materials in action—as though my ears were intimately touching the source of the sounds, quiet sounds of brushing, crushing, caressing, burning, scraping, and feathering. Deeper sounds were felt more than heard, creating an altogether visceral experience, evoking what the ancient Chinese poet Juyi Bai’s calls the four senses: tactile (cold), visual (bright), feeling (to know), and auditory (to hear)
On the same concert, Larry Gaab’s Weird Orbits Need Explaining seemed to use the lyrical gestures and sweeps of melody to steer the trajectories of other sonic material. An eerie yet friendly vocality emerged. So much I wish I could go back to hear again
violinist Maja Cerar in action
The highlight of the late afternoon concert was Xiao Fu’s Longing, a ravishing audio-visual kinetic spectacle that lasted nearly a quarter of an hour, involving two performers supported by a crew of four who manipulated hand-held projectors and sound. It is based on a song of the Huang He Ge from the Chinese Han Dynasty (202 BC-220 AD). Beautifully colored hand-painted animation of Chinese calligraphy was projected on a video screen with computeized sound before two women emerged in flowing costumes, gracefully dancing and singing (both). One of them later played the flute against the sonic digital backdrop while a new, and highly original, ornate style of colorful animation permeated the visual field, zooming and granulating. Strikingly colored calligraphic imagery punctured the progression toward a taut climactic episode in which the second performer dramatically played an accelerating drum pattern against flickering virtuosic lines of the flute.
AV artist Michelle Jaffe
The overflowing diversity of creativity witnessed in this festival is simply inspiring. What I described above is only a snippet of what happened on the first day. After today there are still five days left. So most of the highlights are yet to come. It’s well worth the trip to this somewhat neglected corner of Manhattan, between Chinatown and the Williamsburg Bridge.
While in the neighborhood, check out the gourmet ice cream shop Ice and Vice on East Broadway, or Cafe Petisco, also on East Broadway, Cafe Katja on Orchard, or Ost Café on Grand, one block east of Abrons.)
The New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF), June 13-19, Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand Street (at Pitt Street, near the F/M train Essex st. station) Each show $15 (evening shows $20); day pass $40; festival Pass at $160.
Friday, February 7, 2014 Piano Spheres presented The Intrepid Harpsichord, Part II, performed by Gloria Cheng at Boston Court in Pasadena. The concert included an intriguing mixture of early French and Italian Baroque works along with late 20th century pieces. The Marjorie Branson performance space at Boston Court held an enthusiastic crowd and was the perfect venue for an intimate evening of harpsichord music.
Along with Ms. Cheng, the other star of the show was the double-manual harpsichord constructed by Gloria’s husband Lefteris Padavos. The instrument took shape in their garage during 2012 and is based on a model created by the 18th century French master harpsichord builder Pascal Taskin (1723 – 1793). The tuning was, according to Ms. Cheng something of a compromise given the diversity of the program – the early Baroque and our modern equal temperament being distinctly different. The Vallotti tuning was adopted for this performance and the result was a warm, full sound that did not detract from any of the pieces played. The light amplification and good acoustics of the space also contributed, so that even the more subtle textures and passages with elaborate ornamentation were clearly heard.
The concert opened with Prélude non-mésuré (c. 1650) by Louis Couperin. This was a quiet, flowing piece with a wistful, nostalgic feeling. The tuning and acoustics complimented the music perfectly. Other early pieces by Frescobaldi and Rossi followed, and these had a more familiar harpsichord sound, with cascades of successively more complex phrases pouring out from the keyboard. Ms. Cheng explained that the notation of this period is very general, leaving much to the performer in the moment. The playing here was precise and unhurried, even when the passages were in a fast tempo and highly ornamented.
Trio Sonata (1994) by John Harbison followed, consisting of four short movements, all titled Fast. Beginning with a blizzard of notes and variously quiet, syncopated, halting or playful, this piece provided an interesting comparison to the music of the first part of the concert in that, when played on the harpsichord, it did not seem so far removed from the 17th century. Carolyn Yarnell’s Prelude and Fugue (1984) followed and this seemed brighter and more optimistic when compared to the formal Baroque pieces while equaling them in elaborate phrasing. There was, to my ear, at least, a sense of continuity between the centuries that was underscored by hearing these pieces played successively on the harpsichord.
More Baroque music followed, including La Marche des Scythes (1746) by Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer. This piece was very formal – almost pompous – and extremely dense at times. It was written as a musical description of barbarian cavalry and the tempo was often fast and furious as befits the subject matter. The playing was often difficult and taxing – the effort being appreciatively received by the audience at the finish. Les Baricades mysterieuses (1717) by Francois Couperin followed, and provided an excellent contrast to La Marche. Soft and lush, with expressive harmony, Les Baricades mysterieuses has a simple and endearing quality that approaches an almost romantic sensibility.
Three late 20th century works closed the concert. The first of these was Continuum (1968) by György Ligeti. This piece is built on repeated arpeggio phrases, with single notes often floating above, a form that prefigures the later minimalism of Riley, Reich and Glass. The effect as heard on the harpsichord is now lovely, now distressing, and now rising in tension. The playing soon becomes fast and intense and the harpsichord keys in the higher registers could be heard clicking under the strain. The tension and pitches ratchet higher and higher – the notes now pouring out – until the sudden ending, greeted by cheers and applause from the audience. This was followed by the more introspective Rain Dreaming (1986) by Toru Takemitsu, a composer whose work is informed by a love of nature and space. Rain Dreaming is quiet, spare, and filled with beautiful harmonies. It is at times solemn, lonely and seems to alternate between shadow and light. A feeling of uncertainty arises in this music that never quite leaves the piece, but it ends on a lovely warm chord at the finish.
The final work on the program was Phrygian Tucket (1994), a piece by Stephen Montague for amplified harpsichord and tape. A tucket is an Elizabethan musical phrase that means a flourish of trumpets and drums. The addition of the tape provided a series of deep chords in the lower registers that act to form a solid foundation for the melody in the harpsichord. The result is a strong, muscular sound as would be expected from a tucket. The bass tones coming from the tape seems to fill in between the more strident tones of the harpsichord and this adds a luminosity to the upper notes that is quite effective. As the piece progressed, certain of the passages in Phrygian Tucket acquired a more introspective feel. Soon , however, an increasing tempo and discord introduce a sense of building tension that is released in a dramatic full-keyboard arpeggio that ends the piece in sudden silence. The addition of the sounds from the tape definitely enhances the harpsichord and makes Phrygian Tucket an interesting blend of old and electronic.
The Intrepid Harpsichord, Part II was carefully programmed and impressively performed, combining old and new music as heard through the lens of the harpsichord. The audience responded with an extended ovation in appreciation. An encore followed by Ms. Cheng, a repeat of Les Baricades mysterieuses, the Francois Cuperin piece that nicely summed up the mixture of old and new that was the theme of the program.
Piano Spheres will next present a concert by Mark Robson at Zipper Concert Hall in Los Angeles on February 11.
Imani Winds: Jeff Scott, Toyin Spellman-Diaz, Valerie Coleman, Monica Ellis, and Mariam Adam. (Photo by Matthew Murphy)
(Houston, TX) Since the group’s inception in 1997, the Imani Winds have continued to expand the relatively small-sized repertoire for wind quintet by commissioning several works by such forward-thinking composers as Alvin Singleton, Roberto Sierra, Stefon Harris, Daniel Perez, Mohammed Fairouz, and Houston’s own Jason Moran. Moran’s four-movement work Cane, Moran’s first composition for wind quintet, appears on the Imani Winds’ 2010 album Terra Incognita, along with pieces by two other jazz masters, Paquito D’Rivera and Wayne Shorter. (The Imani Winds appear on Shorter’s critically acclaimed 2013 live quartet album Without A Net in a scorching performance of his 23-minute through-composed work Pegasus.) Imani Winds members Valerie Coleman (flute) and Jeff Scott (horn) also compose and arrange for the quintet. In concert, the Imani Winds present traditional classical fare alongside new works that explore African, Latin American, and the Middle Eastern musical idioms and performance techniques.
On Tuesday, October 15, 2013, the Imani Winds make their Houston Friends Of Chamber Music debut at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, performing arrangements of classic works by Ravel and Mendelssohn, Jonathan Russell’s powerful wind quintet arrangement of Stravinsky’s The Rite Of Spring, and Scott’s arrangement of Palestinian-American oud and violin virtuoso Simon Shaheen’scomposition Dance Mediterranea, a piece that requires the quintet to play and improvise with Arabic scales or maqamat.
I spoke with Jeff Scott about the challenges of arranging Shaheen’s piece for the quintet as well as what it means to be a chamber wind ensemble in the 21st century.
Chris Becker: What are some challenges you faced in arranging Simon Shaheen’s music for the Imani Winds?
Jeff Scott: I listened to Shaheen’s piece over and over and over again so I could learn what I could do in the different section to offset it. We are an ensemble with five completely different sounding instruments that can create many different colors. So I listened to each section and thought, “Who could play the bass here? Who would sound great playing the solo line here? Who could really do something percussive on their instrument there to make it sound like an authentic version of the song?”
CB: There’s improvisation in your arrangement? Is that correct?
JS: Absolutely.
CB: Can you talk a little bit about the improvisation in the piece? Are you and your fellow winds improvising with scales? Are you improvising over some kind of harmony? Or is it even freer than that?
JS: It’s definitely structured. In that part of the world, the scale is called a maqam. This piece deals with three different maqamat. So for the solo sections, I only wrote out a rhythmic figure for whoever is playing the bass and the scale itself for whoever is playing the solo. The stuff in the middle is fleshed out completely and gives the top and bottom players guidelines they can follow.
In preparation for this piece, we had workshop rehearsals for learning the different maqamat and how to play inflect on our respective instruments the quarter tones and semitones that exist in those scales, so we wouldn’t just be playing a diatonic scale with two half steps and then calling that a maqam. That’s not it at all. The challenge was getting that g half flat just so! (laughs)
What separates people who play with those different scales and people who play Western music and diatonic scales, is that our ears are adjusted. We know when someone is playing a flat seventh, you know? But to be able to play it as part of a scale and know whether or not you’re just flat enough? (laughs) That’s a different thing! We played these scales in workshops for Shaheen almost like we were auditioning for him. We’d play, and he would say, “No, no, no…” and then play the scale with us and show us exactly where they fit. It’s a thing you just constantly have to work on because it’s not a part of our pedagogue. It’s not part of our training.
Before playing this piece, we’ll have our set of rehearsals the week before, and we’ll go through the shed of practicing those scales and testing one another.
CB: Is improvisation a part of your background? Or is it something new that you and the other members of the Imani Winds have explored since coming together as an ensemble?
JS: I’d say for the most part it’s new. Improvising wasn’t a part of our formal training. We all went to either the Manhattan School of Music or Juilliard. And it just wasn’t asked of you, it just wasn’t. Now, post-school? Yeah. You realize that in the 21st century commercial world, if you’re going to survive, regardless of what your training is, you have to be flexible enough to improvise. It was definitely harder for us coming into it, but more schools are requiring it these days. I think that’s really wonderful. The language of music from other countries is now filtering its way into the Western chronicles and as a musician, you have to be able to speak the different dialects. We have embraced it and really went out there and grabbed every possible challenge we could.
CB: What you say about conservatories in the U.S., that more programs are including improvisation and music from around the globe, is something I’m hearing about more and more in my interviews with younger musicians.
JS: It used to be shunned. When I was at the Manhattan School of Music, back in the 80s, I wrote this piece for horn and percussion that I wanted to play on one of my recitals. I remember playing the piece for my teacher and him not wanting me to do it because most of my part wasn’t written down and he couldn’t work with me on it. It wasn’t because the it sounded “bad” or “good,” he just didn’t know how to work with me on it as an improvised piece of music. And that said a whole lot about the institution and my training in general! (laughs) It speaks volumes!
CB: Tell me about the Imani Winds’ collaboration with saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter.
JS: We were asked to come and perform with him at the Hollywood Bowl on his 80th birthday along with Esperanza Spaulding, Herbie Hancock, Dave Douglas and all of these incredible musicians. We performed a piece that Shorter composed and arranged called Pegasus. It’s a symphony! The piece is written for his and wind quintet. It’s a symphony! It’s a mammoth, epic journey with improvisation from everyone involved, a through-composed piece with many different moods.
The whole thing started when the La Jolla Music Society in California commissioned Shorter to compose a piece for us, which he titled Terra Incognita. It was just for wind quintet, and it was the first piece he’d composed that didn’t involve him as a performer. He’d never written something for someone else that he didn’t intend to perform.
So he wrote this wind quintet and it was way out (laughs) with just as much room to improvise as you could possibly want. We didn’t know what the heck to do with it. So we learned everything note by note, and then played it for him. And he smiled and said, “That’s great. But promise me you’ll never play it like that again. I want you play it different every time. I want you to start from the end. I want you to leave out some parts. You can start in the middle. Just use the piece as a point of departure.”
CB: That’s so great.
JS: It says a whole lot about him. But it also says a whole lot about where I think classical music in general is going when it comes to chamber music and accepting improvisation, jazz and all of the world’s music, and having musicians who are flexible enough and open enough to at least experiment. It’s the only way we’re going to get the patrons of chamber music societies to have that openness and expectation when it comes to who they decide to put on their series. I mean, if we don’t start doing it, they’re going to continually only want the Haydn cycles. (laughs)
So we have to not only accept it, we have to become nimble at it. You have to be able to deliver a good product so the patrons say, “You know what? I want more of that!”
And besides, as a wind quintet, we don’t have the Haydn cycles! (laughs) They just don’t exist. We occasionally play the old stalwarts of the wind quintet, but that stuff runs out in about two weeks. You’ve got to play new stuff and push the envelope a bit, and improvisation is just a normal step along the way for expanding the repertoire for the wind quintet.
Houston Friends of Chamber Music present the Imani Winds, Tuesday, October 15, 7:30 p.m. at Stude Concert Hall, Shepherd School of Music, Rice University, performing works by Valerie Coleman, Mendelssohn, Ravel, Simon Shaheen, and Stravinsky’s The Rite Of Spring arranged by Jonathan Russell.
Clarinettist David Krakauer, a major voice in both contemporary classical music and modern klezmer, will be performing an exciting and eclectic series of concerts this coming week at The Stone (September 24-29), featuring several of his current collaborative projects. This week long residency will offer a chance for audiences to hear all the sides of David’s artistry, and to enjoy the work of some very cool guest artists as well. In the following interview he discusses this coming week, his musical history, and some of his other fascinating projects.
CD: David – you are known around the world as a classical clarinetist, and also as a leading innovator in the world of Jewish klezmer music. Tell us a little about this “double life” — what is your history with these parallel paths, and how do you see each as a manifestation of your artistic voice? How, when, and why do you bring them together?
DK: I didn’t grow up playing or hearing klezmer music as a kid. But when I came to it, I was in my early thirties and somehow had both the maturity to understand the emotional impact of the music plus some kind of concept of why I was choosing to embark on that musical journey. Basically at the beginning, I just started to play klezmer as a pure search for cultural identity that was totally separate from my professional musical life. And fortunately my early musical education had fully equipped me to embrace an “off the page” style of music. Already during the time I attended the High School of Music and Art in New York City I was lucky enough to have had a musical education in both classical and jazz. When I was 15 I started studying with Leon Russianoff, one of the greatest clarinet teachers of all time. By the time I started working with him in the early 70s, his former students included many of the top orchestral clarinetists in the country like Stanley Drucker, Franklin Cohen, Michelle Zukovsky etc. But in addition he taught the great jazz clarinetist Jimmy Hamilton (best known for his illustrious tenure in the Duke Ellington band) and a huge array of players from all walks of the music business. So Russianoff had a very open mind and was anything BUT a “stuffy” classical teacher. His mix of incredible rigor with a lovely, easy-going looseness was perfect for me and set the stage for the career I have today. As far as the jazz side of things goes, I had the great fortune to meet the incredible composer/pianist Anthony Coleman when we were students together at Music and Art. He asked me to join his band that was doing a huge spectrum of jazz repertoire ranging from Jelly Roll Morton to Monk to free jazz (in addition to Anthony’s music). Covering so many styles of jazz was actually rather unusual at that time, and it was a tremendous experience.
But when I went to college, I kind of had a crisis of confidence. I ended up abandoning jazz and deciding to focus almost exclusively on classical music. In fact, I think at the time I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to find a personal voice as an improviser. I worked very hard in classical music and excelled; but was always tremendously conflicted about making that choice. It would take many years for me to sort that all out. In any case, right out of school I spent ten years freelancing doing chamber music, contemporary classical, orchestral playing and some recitals here and there. After a while I made some headway with some very prestigious associations like the Marlboro music festival, a woodwind quintet that won the Naumburg Chamber music award, a New York recital debut as a winner of the Concert Artists’ Guild, chamber music with a wonderful group of people in the NY Philomusica and countless concerts with many of the New Yorks’ new music groups such as Continuum and the Da Capo Chamber Players.
It was a very rich and busy life, but I got to a point in my early 30s where somehow I felt like something was missing and I had thrown the baby out with the bath water. I knew at that point I needed to return to the world of improvising and non-written music. So through a series of chance meetings and coincidences (that in retrospect I see I was somehow directing myself towards) I came to klezmer music. At first I was just doing it for fun. And in the same moment I found myself connecting to my Jewish roots for the first time. It was exhilarating. After a few months of doing a bunch of very low key gigs my name came to the attention of the Klezmatics and they asked me to join. It was during that time where I started to develop my own original sound and find my own voice. The conflict I had felt for over 15 years was finally resolved and klezmer became a foundation for me to create a musical home for myself.
I did two recordings and countless tours of Europe with the Klezmatics before I left the band to form my own group in the mid-90s. And that has all launched me on the path that I’m still following today. In addition to touring with my own band, it’s fantastic to have an opportunity to bring it all together by working with composers who have given me room to be myself within their compositions. Recording and performing Osvaldo Golijov’s monumental composition “The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind” with the Kronos is a notable example. Plus nowadays I have more and more chances to be a soloist with fantastic symphony orchestras playing pieces that straddle both worlds by composers like George Tsontakis, Wlad Marhulets, Ofer Ben-Amots and Mohammed Fairouz. I’ve also enjoyed incredible collaborations with the Montreal based beat architect Socalled, the renowned cellist Matt Haimovitz, John Zorn and the great master of funk Fred Wesley. Musically I feel like I’m in an incredibly exciting place where I can bring all the diverse elements of my universe together with so many incredibly rewarding projects.
CD: Your Stone residency really seems to be something of a self portrait in that you have chosen to showcase a different side of your artistry each night. We’ll hear your klezmer band, we’ll hear you playing John Zorn’s music, some improv, and some chamber music. Can you tell us a little about the concepts behind each night?
DK: The Stone residency coming up next week is an amazing opportunity for me to offer a cross section of many of my major projects. During the first three nights a number of the musicians who have worked with me for many years will be on board. After having played so much together, there are times when we’re virtually mind-reading. Joining me in various configurations will be Sheryl Bailey on electric guitar; Jerome Harris on bass; Michael Sarin on drums; Will Holshouser on accordion; and Keepalive on sampler.
-Tuesday 9/24 will be a show with my Acoustic Klezmer Quartet. We’ll do an “unplugged” mix of traditional klezmer pieces done with my own quirky spin mixed with my compositions that all come from the story about my particular musical/personal journey.
-On Wednesday 9/25 I’ll present my arrangements of a group of pieces from John Zorn’s Book of Angels Volume 3. John selected these pieces specifically for me and this is a great chance to pay tribute to a musical association I’ve had with Zorn for over twenty years.
-Thursday 9/26 will be a performance with “Ancestral Groove” which is my current touring band.
I decided to change my band’s name from “Klezmer Madness”, because for me at this point, klezmer no longer seems to encompass all that I’m doing now. Klezmer will always of course be part of my music, but the title “Ancestral Groove” seems to better reflect the totality of my story.
-Friday 9/27 will mark the debut of a new duo project with the incredible South African pianist, arranger and musical explorer Kathleen Tagg. We’ll be doing our arrangements of a couple of klezmer tunes, brand new electro-acoustic works by exciting New York composers Aleksandra Vrebalov and Jorge Sosa and our new arrangements of great New York performing composers Kinan Azmeh and John Zorn. I’ll also be doing Steve Reich’s iconic “New York Counterpoint” and Messiaen’s “Abyss of the Birds”.
-On Saturday 9/28 I’ll be doing an evening of improvisation with the incredible new music singer Helga Davis, the fantastic former cellist of the Kronos Quartet Jeffery Zeigler and the astonishing violinist/electronics wizard Todd Reynolds.
-The final concert on Sunday 9/29 will feature performances in both sets of the aforementioned “Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind’ by Osvaldo Golijov. I’ve been a champion of this work since 1994 and am delighted to have a chance to play it in New York once again. Jeff Zeigler will join once again in addition to a tremendous super group including the amazing Margaret Dyer on viola and Abigale Reisman on violin. Plus I’m so delighted that you , Cornelius Dufallo, will also be a part of it bringing your tremendous artistry to this ensemble !!!!
All in all I’m super excited about this residency and can’t wait to get underway!
CD: You have a new project called “The Big Picture,” in which you will be re-interpreting some of the great film scores of all time. Please share with us how you came up with this project! I think you describe it as a “new phase” for you – how so?
DK: “The Big Picture” is a multi-media concert with a six piece band interpreting music from iconic films that (as we find out during the course of the performance) all have Jewish content. There’s music from the soundtracks of the obvious films like “The Pianist” and “Sophie’s Choice”…but there’s also music from Woody Allen films like “Midnight In Paris”, “Radio Days” and “Love and Death” that include jazz standards and pieces by Sidney Bechet and Prokofiev. And then there are pieces from Mel Brooks….and from Randy Newman. And more! So the range is pretty incredible. With the six piece band of tremendously poetic musicians we’re able to bring a special playfulness and intimacy to all this music. It was a blast to make the CD. Now we’re in the phase of producing a film that will accompany the music. This whole show will launch in Jan-Feb at the museum of Jewish Heritage down in Battery Park. I just heard the finished master of the CD the other day…and as I listened to this incredible selection of pieces fill the room it felt like I was going through a whole journey of the Jewish experience for the last 120 years. So yes… It’s quite different from anything I’ve ever done before, but at the same time it’s a continuation of my story and the search for identity that I’ve been involved with for the past 25 years. I put this all together with an extremely talented team and am extremely excited to bring this project out into the world to share with the public in the next few months.
CD: Do you have any words of wisdom for young musicians?
DK: I often say the following to young musicians :
Follow your dreams….no matter how crazy they seem!
Most New Yorkers are walking about, minding their own business, completely oblivious to the international sonic earthquake vibrating through their midst all week: The New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF). The first wave of the festival (seven concerts) took place as part of the New York Philharmonic’s Biennial at National Sawdust in Brooklyn last week. Yet the lion’s share of the festival is happening right now: 28 more concerts during June 13-19, at Abrons Arts Center on Grand St., for a total of 35 concerts. Yes you read that correctly: 35 concerts of electroacoustic music, including some 350 works, by almost as many composers from all around the world! Indeed a mammoth undertaking organized, produced, and presented miraculously by Hubert Howe, Travis Garrison, David Reeder, Howie Kenty, and a highly dedicated energetic staff.
Zhaoyu Zhang’s Night Snow brought my ears close up and inside mysterious objects and intriguingly close to strange materials in action—as though my ears were intimately touching the source of the sounds, quiet sounds of brushing, crushing, caressing, burning, scraping, and feathering. Deeper sounds were felt more than heard, creating an altogether visceral experience, evoking what the ancient Chinese poet Juyi Bai’s calls the four senses: tactile (cold), visual (bright), feeling (to know), and auditory (to hear)
