Hayes Biggs is an outstanding composer, vocalist, copyist, and longtime instructor at Manhattan School of Music. I was delighted when he agreed to help us judge the call for scores for the Sequenza 21/MNMP Concert (which will be on Oct. 25 at 7 PM at Joe’s Pub in NYC). The concert will close with the final movement from Hayes’s String Quartet, a work he discusses in the following post.
If ever a piece required my patience as it slowly taught me what it needed to do and be, it was my String Quartet: O Sapientia /Steal Away. My first sketches for it date from 1996, but it was not completed until 2004. This eight-year span of course included numerous interruptions of various sorts, including time on the back burner while other more immediately pressing projects got done. Even in rare moments of front-burner status I struggled with it, but I remain as proud of this work as of anything I’ve ever composed. The Avalon String Quartet premiered it in 2006 and subsequently recorded it for the Albany label.
The title refers to the quartet’s two main sources of material: my Advent motet for unaccompanied voices, O Sapientia, composed in 1995, and the African-American spiritual Steal Away. It is the latter that is the focus of the third and final movement, the one that will be heard at Joe’s Pub on October 25. It is in two parts played without interruption: an Epigraph—simply a straightforward presentation of the melody of the spiritual—followed by an extended free Fantasia on that melody.
The quartet bears an overall dedication to my wife, Susan Orzel-Biggs, but this movement carries a separate one in memory of my friend, teacher and mentor, Tony Lee Garner (1942-1998). He was the choral director at Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College), as well as an accomplished singer, actor and director, and he taught me as much about the joys and responsibilities of being an artist as anyone I have ever known. As a freshman member of the Southwestern Singers in the spring of 1976 I sang in a program of American music under Tony’s direction that included William Dawson’s beautiful arrangement of Steal Away. The printed key of that arrangement is F major, but Tony liked the way the choir sounded with it transposed up a half step, so in this movement the tune is always heard in the key of G-flat major.
The BAM Next Wave Festival is upon us right now. There are a ton of exciting things lined up, including what appears to be a thrilling multi-media extravaganza from violinist DBR. Behold: Symphony for the Dance Floor!
Known for bringing audiences to their feet with sonic collages of classical, pop and hip-hop sounds, DBR ushers the concert hall and dance club into the theater with Symphony for the Dance Floor. In an attempt to homogenize all art forms on one stage, itcombines exhilarating music, soulful dance, and photographic artistry, all within a theatrical setting, most notably, in the use of on-stage seating. “Symphony for the Dance Floor speaks to an equality between concert hall and dance club traditions,” explains DBR. “Growing up in South Florida, I went to school, I played in the orchestra, I danced in clubs. It was part of the culture and of the times. So to me, they’re all equal.” Centered around the shrieking, singing, and seduction of DBR’s violin playing, the production is augmented with masterful collaborations including: raw, uncompromising photography and video by Jonathan Mannion (best known for his soul bearing portraits of hip-hop icons Jay-Z, Lauryn Hill, Mos Def and Eminem); choreography by Millicent Johnnie (former resident choreographer of Urban Bush Women); ebullient live dancing; bombastic laptop/turntable soundscapes; emceeing by actor/rapper Lord Jamar (best known for his role on HBO’s Oz); and the direction of D.J. Mendel. “We’ve created a lovely environment for the music, dancing, and audience to all coexist in,” explains DBR. “A composer, a DJ and dancers can have a conversation all under the watchful eye of a photographer. In my world, the last bastion of democracy just might be the concert stage.”
I was lucky enough to ask DBR a few questions about the project:
Symphony for the Dance Floor is a commission from the BAM Next Wave Festival. What did the festival ask you to create, and how do you feel this project contributes to the “next wave” of art to come?
DBR: The festival did not ask me to create anything, specifically, rather I was asked to simply present an idea for a full-evening work. This is the third commission from BAM, and the brilliant and ever-supportive, Joe Melillo, and we have a very gracious and trusting relationship. When I told him my idea for this work, we were both excited by what it could mean for our work, my music, and his audiences. I’m sure how my work contributes to any ideas on art, other than to say, I’m fortunate to have developed a loyal and supportive audience for my work, and a small community of artists to help me develop, perform, and express it.
Symphony for the Dance Floor is about an event during which the concert hall and the dance hall collide. Is there a specific audience you hope the show will reach?
DBR: I think this work is designed for both classical and club audiences. It’s chamber music and chamber dancing. There are wonderful photographs and video installations, and provocative lighting design and costumes. The score is fully reflective of my interests at this time, and include works for violin and electronics, and songs for voice, piano, and violin. I think in today’s climate and ways of communicating, audiences are diverse and highly varied. And they’re also savvy about where they go and what they listen to. My audience, I think, has an age-range of 7-70 years-old, and it seems that many artists have similarly diverse audiences with sophisticated, broad tastes.
This project is about music’s relationship with photography, film, choreography, and lights. All of these things scream Theater! Can you talk a little bit about your love of theatrics?
DBR: I do love the theater, but I wouldn’t label that a love of theatrics. Laurie Anderson’s work has had as much of an influence on my work as The Wooster Group. I spent nearly a decade working closely with Bill T. Jones, and as his Music Director, I was fortunate enough to be privy to his process of creation, much of which is a brilliant use of the theater, well beyond dance and choreographic elements. Tim Fain, the violinist, recently produced a work called Portals, and it’s a stunning work that uses film, dance, and technology in a very sincere, honest, and fluid way. As a musician, I think Tim is a far more accomplished violinist than I am, but as performance artists, we both have something unique and relevant to offer our audiences, in our individual use of technology. In this, more artists will be able to express the depths of their creativity, in more varied and resourceful ways, using technology to give new perspectives on the old ideas of self-expression.
What are the inspirations for the music in this show? Is the music originating more from the classical spectrum or more from the club?
DBR: I don’t really separate or think about music in that way. One of the works in the piece, called Solo, is for solo violin. It was composed as a dance work for the choreographer/dancer Emily Berry. Other than modest amplification, it’s a work that exists on record, on-line, in the dance world, and now in Symphony for the Dance Floor. As a composer, I generally create the best music that I can for the instruments that I have, and then decide the context of their presentation. Nico Muhly raised the many problems associated with using recorded works by orchestras and other large ensembles, and he was right in that, generally speaking, as an industry, we are limiting the scope and reach of our work as composers by not allowing a more full use of those, dreaded, “archival recordings”. I had hoped to be able to include actual samples of my orchestra work in this piece, but alas, I couldn’t get the licenses for their use. We are in talks to have the Symphony for the Dance Floor score transcribed for performances with chamber orchestras, and I’ll be re-imagining some of the purely electronic works for acoustic instruments. There are so many artists and ensembles doing this, it’s become common-hand for the work of composers. But there’s an entire new field of work waiting for composers where we can use recordings of our music in performance.
Going to a concert is generally about sitting and being entertained. This project, however, is about music that “wants to dance” and “wants to move.” Do you want the audience to be enraptured from their seats or do you want them to feel so inspired they get up and dance?
DBR: Well, some of the concerts I go to don’t have seats! But I understand your point. We have audiences sitting on the stage, and some of them have begun to dance [with me!] during the show. We had a technical glitch in Arizona, and in having to buy some time for the crew to fix it, I invited anyone to dance on stage with me. A young woman took of her shoes, and started a duet with me, that quickly grew to a trio when her friend decided to join us. They weren’t professional dancers, just dedicated members of the audience that night. And we danced, and we danced for everyone there as they fixed that glitch. It was only a few minutes, but in many ways, that moment was emblematic of what I’m wanting to achieve in this work. That the dance floor, the concert hall, becomes the last bastion of democracy where all of us, composers, dancers, and audience, are all equal, are all seen and heard, and share in a moment of grace, humility, and humanity. I’d like the audience to determine whatever it is they need to feel. Just feel something. I remind myself to just feel something everyday.
From October 14-22 in various locations in New York City, the American Composers Orchestra hosts SONiC, a new music festival co-curated by Derek Bermel and Stephen Gosling. ACO asked me to write an essay for the program booklet, which they’ve kindly let me share with Sequenza 21 readers as a preview of the concerts
Trying to sum up the diverse array of compositional styles and performing traditions that comprise contemporary classical music’s many “scenes” is a daunting task. One can scarcely imagine distilling its essence, even over the course of several evenings. But during SONiC: Sounds of the New Century, the American Composers Orchestra aims to do just that. With curatorial assistance from pianist Stephen Gosling and composer Derek Bermel, ACO has organized an ambitious series of programs, enlisting many topflight ensembles and spotlighting composers under forty. The orchestra’s first free concert at the World Financial Center, a new music marathon, late night jam sessions, and several premieres are all part of the festivities.
JACK Quartet. Photo: Stephen Poff.
During late summer, I had a chance to speak with some of the composers and performers featured on SONiC, a small but representative sampling of the diverse array of participants. While one would need as many essays as there are participants to tell all of the stories of SONiC, we hope that what follows provides an idea of the variety of ways that new music is being created for these events.
JACK Quartet is an important presence at SONiC, hosting the Extended Play marathon at Miller Theatre on October 16. Along with harpist Yolanda Kondonassis, the quartet is premiering Filigree in Textile, a work commissioned from Hannah Lash by the Fromm Foundation. (Lash had a piece read by ACO in 2010 on the Underwood New Music Readings). While Filigree in Textile is inspired by Flemish tapestry – its movements are titled “Gold,” “Silver,” and “Silk” – two other “threads” run through its genesis: Lash’s own background as a harpist, and her frequent collaborations with JACK, dating back to their student days at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.
Hannah Lash. Photo Noah Fowler.
Lash says, “I know the harp very well, so when I write for it, I feel that I can exploit a lot of that instrument’s possibilities without overextending the player in a way that would be uncomfortable. I notice that when I write for an ensemble that has harp in it, I feel very comfortable and excited to make the most of its presence.”
She continues, “As an undergraduate, I wrote quite a few string quartets, and at least three members of JACK Quartet played pretty much all those quartets over our years at Eastman on the Composer Forums. These players were wonderful, and always completely fearless. I remember one piece in particular that I wrote for them when I was a junior: it took me literally three weeks just to copy the score and make parts because the notation was so detailed. It was such a great experience to give it to these amazing players and have them learn it and play it so enthusiastically and elegantly. In fact, I was completely spoiled, because the summer after that year, I took this piece to a festival where a professional quartet was supposed to play it; they had one rehearsal and then told me I had written something completely unplayable. I did not mention the fact that it had only taken my friends at school a week to learn the piece and put it together.”
Currently, Lash focuses her energies on composing (and writing her own libretti); performing as a harpist has, for now, largely fallen by the wayside. Other composers in this era subscribe to the DIY aesthetic: performing their own music and forming their own ensembles. SONiC curator Derek Bermel is an acclaimed clarinetist.
Composer/pianist Anthony Cheung helped to form the Talea Ensemble, a group that has fast become one of the most formidable interpreters of the most daunting repertoire in contemporary music. These pieces are often categorized as works of the New Complexity movement or the Second Modernity. They return music to an aesthetic that revels in detail and is intricately constructed. Scores by New Complexity composers are abundantly virtuosic avant-garde fare.
On SONiC, Cheung will play his Roundabouts, a piece written in 2010 for pianist Ueli Wiget of Ensemble Modern. (Cheung is another composer familiar to ACO: he participated in the 2004 edition of the Underwood Readings.) There’s a long tradition of composer-performers, particularly pianists. One can look at great figures from the classical music canon, such as Mozart, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff; more recently, composers such as Thomas Ades and Philip Glass continue this tradition, championing their own music from the keyboard. Cheung feels that being an active performer informs his work as a composer. He says, “It’s definitely a huge benefit, but one that needs to be carefully considered. Getting inside a composer’s head and extrapolating a personal language from a score, while adding a unique interpretative angle if appropriate for the music, is as good as any analysis or score study. And while analysis can approach the minutiae of each moment and attempt to dissect intentionality, being part of the real-time re-creation of a work is a direct window into a composer’s experience of time and form. These things seep into your consciousness and make you more open to creative possibilities of your own. The danger is also to one’s advantage: falling back into a comfort-zone with your instrument, where idiomatic fluency can lead to a kind of repetition of received practice and prevent you from considering possibilities outside of them.”
Kenji Bunch is another composer/performer, active as a violist. He will perform as soloist (on an amplified viola) with the ACO in his concerto The Devil’s Box, a piece inspired by the many legends that associate fiddles and fiddle playing with diabolical influences and pursuits. It’s also a chance for the classically trained Bunch to demonstrate his mettle in the realm of bluegrass and folk music.
Bunch says, “Back in the mid-nineties, I spent a few summers teaching composition in Kentucky, and was exposed to some wonderful bluegrass bands. I had long been interested in improvisation and non-classical approaches to string playing, and at the time had been doing some work with a rock fusion band on electric violin. I was somewhat dissatisfied with what I was contributing in that context, and felt I was trying too hard to be an electric guitar. In this sense, bluegrass was a revelation. Here was an ensemble of all acoustic string instruments in which the fiddle was an essential, organic member. Further trips to Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama helped to shape my understanding of the music and its history. Perhaps most significant to my study of American roots music was a chance acquaintance with master fiddler, composer, and educator Mark O’Connor, whose friendship and encouragement has given me an exposure to all kinds of string traditions well beyond bluegrass fiddle.”
He continues, “It was after teaching at one of Mark’s fiddle camps that I began to incorporate elements of American folk music into my compositions. Incidentally, before I started doing this, I had never performed my own music! For some reason, I had kept my parallel careers as a violist and composer as separate as possible. I think I started performing my own work out of convenience; the inflections and articulations are hard to notate, and it was easier just to do it myself. When I realized how rewarding it was, I started working on a repertoire of works I could perform. Today, most of the playing I do is my own music.”
Traditional instruments, even repurposed ones like Bunch’s amplified viola/fiddle, are one way to go in new music. Another is to find or create new instruments altogether. Such is often the pathway of composer Oscar Bettison. He enjoys incorporating unconventional instruments, such as those made from found objects or junk metal, into his scores.
Bettison says, “This was all a result of moving to Holland to study in the early 2000s. Before that, I had written a lot of music for traditional forces and I wanted to get away from that: to stretch myself as a composer. So, I started to play around with things, even going as far as to build some instruments; percussion mostly, but later on I branched out into radically detuning stringed instruments – there’s some of that in the guitar part of O Death. These things I called “Cinderella instruments: the kind of things that shouldn’t be ‘musical’ but I do my best to make them sing. And I suppose as a counterpoint to that, I shunned traditional instruments for a long time.”
Cinderella instruments, as well as references to popular music of many varieties, are signatures found in his work O Death, which will be played on SONiC October 19 by the Dutch Ensemble Klang.
Of O Death, Bettison says, “It was written for Ensemble Klang between 2005-7 and is my longest piece to date. It’s about 65 minutes long and I wrote it very much in collaboration with the group. We were lucky enough to have a situation in which I was able to try things out on the group over a long period. This was very important in writing it. The piece is in seven movements and is a kind of instrumental requiem, which references popular music elements (especially blues) and kind of grafts them on to the requiem structure. It’s something that I fell into quite naturally. This I think is tied to my idea of ‘Cinderella instruments:’ eschewing the “classical” tradition somewhat.”
Bettison continues, “The thing that a lot of people don’t know about me is that I come from a very strict classical background. I was a violinist; indeed I went to a specialist music school in London as a violinist from the age of 10. My rebellion to being in a hot-house classical music environment was getting into metal, playing the drums and listening to avant-garde classical music that was seen as outside the ‘canon’ and I think that carried on into my music. So, to psychoanalyze myself for a minute, I think I’ve done both things in a response (quite a delayed response!) to the classical tradition precisely because I feel so at home in that tradition.”
Whether it’s a gesture of critical response or one of inquisitive exploration, crossover between musical traditions is nothing new per se. But today, genre bending, such as Bettison’s references to blues, metal, et cetera, is celebrated. True, there was a time when a gulf existed between “high” and “low” art, at least in some people’s minds (particularly those of the parochial and/or polemical bent). Increasingly in recent years, genres are blurring. Classical composers frequently incorporate materials from pop, jazz, and ethnic musical traditions. Correspondingly, a number of musicians primarily known as pop artists are exploring concert music, creating hybridized works from their own particular vantage point. And musicians like Bryce Dessner, who have significant pedigree in both genres, prove such distinctions largely meaningless today. Dessneris probably best known as the guitarist for the rock band The National. But he also has a Master’s degree in Classical Guitar Performance from the Yale School of Music and performs regularly with the “indie classical” ensemble Clogs. As a guitarist, he performed at the recent Steve Reich celebration at Carnegie Hall, joining members of Bang on a Can for their performance of Reich’s recent foray into rock instrumentation: “2×5.”
Bryce Dessner. Photo: Keith Klenowski.
Dessner says, “I think my electric guitar-playing has informed my composing and my classical training has in turn benefited my work with the National. I don’t consider my activities to be two separate pursuits; they’re both aspects of the same goal: to make creative music that pays attention to detail.”
Most of Dessner’s own instrumental compositions have an extra-musical source of inspiration, from visual art, mythology, or literature. St. Carolyn by the Sea is inspired by a section of Jack Kerouac’s 1962 novel Big Sur.“Big Sur has this sense of sweep and variety of mood shifts that evokes, in a way, a kind of orchestration. I’ve created a work that employs the entire ACO but, at their suggestion, also incorporates two electric guitar parts: these will be played by my brother Aaron and me. I want to stress that our role is really as members of the ensemble: this is not a guitar concerto. We have little solo passages here and there, but then so do many other players in the orchestra.”
“I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to write for chamber orchestras in the past, but this work for the ACO will be the first time that I’m getting the chance to write for a full orchestra. It’s such a rare opportunity. Even today, it’s still challenging to get orchestras to program new music. And, of course, it’s very expensive to rehearse and present a new piece. What the ACO does in presenting so many composers’ work is truly an unusual situation.”
It’s heartening that so many composers and performers are going to be included in the “unusual situation” that is SONiC. Despite their disparate backgrounds, they are brought together by a fascination with sound and a determination to make the concert hall an adventurous and engaging place to be: one filled with a fresh sense of discovery.
Composer Christian Carey is Senior Editor at Sequenza 21 and teaches at Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.
One of our featured composers on the Sequenza 21/MNMP Concert (on October 25 at Joe’s Pub) is Dale Trumbore. In the following post she tells us about the work ACME will perform on the program: a piece that was premiered in 2009 by Kronos Quartet.
How it will go (2009) is a quirky little 6-minute work for string quartet; its first descriptive marking is “maniacally cheerful.” Although the piece is a rondo, the piece has a frantic, slightly unpredictable quality, as if it doesn’t know which way it’s supposed to go, or when exactly it should return to its main theme. I imagine the piece almost like a mechanical toy: there are moments where the battery-power of the piece seems to be failing, then resurging a bit too enthusiastically; at the end, it simply dies down, like a wind-up toy running out of steam.
I sketched out the idea for How it will go’s main theme one afternoon back in 2006, then put it aside it until I started working in the University of Maryland’s fantastic program that allows student composers the opportunity to collaborate with the Kronos Quartet. Over the span of two years, selected composers work with the Quartet to write new works; the program culminates in a concert of these new pieces. This opportunity seemed the perfect venue in which to develop that little melody; I wanted to write a piece that was fun to play and to hear, but with an element of almost virtuosic showing-off at times, to showcase the ensemble performing it.
The premiere of How it will go took place a few months after I first moved to Los Angeles, and I flew back to Maryland to hear it. The dress rehearsal for the piece was on my birthday that year; hearing the Kronos Quartet perform your new composition in its entirety for the first time is not a bad way to spend a birthday.
As I was waiting in UMD’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center about an hour before the performance, I happened to check my email and see that How it will go had won Lyrica Chamber Music’s Composition Contest; the piece would receive its second performance (by the Neave Quartet) less than a month after the Kronos Quartet premiere. The two performances differed greatly in interpretation, particularly in tempo, but they were both fantastic. I can’t wait to hear ACME perform the piece in October!
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Two days before the Sequenza 21/MNME concert, I’ll be accompanying soprano Gillian Hollis in a performance of selections from our recently-released CD of art-songs I’ve written for Gillian, Snow White Turns Sixty.That performance is Sunday, October 23 at St. Paul’s Church, 200 Main St., Chatham, NJ 07928, and the 3 p.m. concert has a suggested donation of $5, which will go towards the church’s fund to replace their organ. More about the CD and other upcoming performances along the Snow White Turns Sixty tour can be found here.
Not really, but it got your attention, didn’t it? You can, however, worship at the feet of one of the world’s best fiddle players and nicest people from fairly close afar Monday night (that’s probably tonight when you read this) for a mere $20 donation to one of NY’s favorite performance spaces, The Stone, located somewhat inconveniently at the corner of Avenue C and 2nd Street. Ms. Hahn will be playing the Charles Ives Violin Sonatas 1 and 4 (with Cory Smythe on piano…sorry Valentina stalkers) as a special benefit for The Stone, whose artistic director is the estimable John Zorn. Performances at 8 and 10pm, followed by a discussion with Hilary and Jan Swafford (Charles Ives biographer, composer) and Zorn. Not sure if the $20 is for both shows or not but if they try to throw you out tell them you were misinformed by Amanda Ameer. It’s a small joint and seating is limited so get there early. BTW, Hilary’s new Ives sonatas CD (all 4 sonatas) comes out on Tuesday and is available for pre-order on ye olde Amazon now.
While I have your attention, let me to direct it to the World Premiere of Judith Shatin’sRespecting the First, performed by the Cassatt Quartet on Thursday night, October 13, at Symphony Space’s Thalia Theatre. The piece was commissioned for the Cassatt with the support of the Fromm Foundation. It is scored for amplified string quartet and electronics fashioned from readings of and about the First Amendment and is dedicated to Congresswoman Gabrielle Griffiths. Pretty relevant topic these days. The Cassatt will also be playing pieces by Sebastian Currier and Mari Kimura.
Anybody besides me seen Melancholia? What did you think?
Nothing stays the same for very long these days, especially in NY. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when Brooklyn Rider’s first violinist Johnny Gandelsman and I meet at 11th and University Place–once Dean and De Luca, but now Argo Tea Cafe. Gandelsman approaches and we slip into the cool of the cafe on a warm afterrnoon two days after the 10th aniversary of 9/11. He suggests Armenian tea, which chimes perfectly with the quartet’s repertoire — they’ve recorded Komitas Vardapet’s Armenian Folk Songs on their Passport CD on their In A Circle Records label — plus they’re all members of the Silk Road Ensemble which focuses on the cultures linked by the Silk Trade Route, which included Armenia. Brooklyn Rider’s about that same kind of inclusiveness, and it’s no accident that we meet at the Argo. For wasn’t that the name of the ship which took Jason and his men across uncharted seas to get the Golden Fleece?
Brooklyn Rider may not be after physical treasure but their wide repertoire clearly shows their love for music old and new. Gandelsman, 34, serves as the spokesman for the quartet because second violinist Colin Jacobsen, 33, and his cellist brother, Eric, 29, and violist Nicholas Cords, 37, can’t make it .
“The availability of all types of music is not just a generational thing because anyone with an interest can access the internet which brings the world closer together, and it makes you realize that differences are not as big as they seem.”
Gandelsman, who speaks in a firm, but moderate tempo, with faint traces of his Russian and Israeli roots (he emigrated to the US as a child) sees other commonalities. He calls the Persian Kayhan Kalhor, who’s also in Silk Road, ” a master of his insrument,” the kamancheh ( itals ) fiddle, and thinks that Brooklyn Rider’s unique, nearly vibratoless sound is, in a way linked to “ethnic” traditions like Kalhor’s.
“We definitely go for a more immdediate sound, and our approach to sound in general is that we try to sound like one person. We stack things verticallly.”
And this of course lets each voice emerge with maximum clarity, as parts of a unified whole. But are their musical interests the same?
“We share the same aesthetic and all of us have known each other for a long time –we’ve been playing together for over ten years, and with the quartet for about six years,” he says. But that aesthetic and love isn’t limited to the masterworks of the quartet literature, but to historically informed performances in the field of “period music”, which he says has “flourished in the last couple of decades,” which includes the Catalan Jordi Savall, the Dutchman Aner Bylsma, and the Italian ensemble Il Giardino Armonico.
“What’s interesting is when we tour people love hearing Philip’s music– they’re not fools,” he says about the popular and (itals ) ever controversial composer whose work is often embraced by young performers who confront its challenges head on. ” It’s so emotional. We wanted people to get the immediacy of the little patterns which put you into a certain hypnotic state, like seeing a Persian painting up close.”
He’s especially keen on Quartet # 4 (Buczack ), which Glass wrote for his artist friend Brian Buczack (1954-1987), who died of AIDS — his fellow in Fluxus partner Geoffrey Hendricks commissioned it from Kronos who premiered it at NY’s Emily Harvey Gallery on the second anniversary of the artist’s death – the July 4, 1989. The violinist calls the second slow movement — there are three — ” a standalone piece, ” and its floating interweaving gestures, and subtle ultra precise voice leading are high water marks in Glass’ writing for strings. Gandelsman says Brooklyn Rider has concentrated on “color and texture” here, and that it’s as “profound as most Messaien ,and as spiritual as Bach.”
And their recording brings out the dance-like partnering and shadowing in Movement 1 in ways I hadn’t heard before in Kronos’ Nonesuch CD of # 2- #5. The young Brit quartet Carducci, on Naxos, which I haven’t heard, covers # 1– #4, while the also Brit Duke, on Collins, which I have, covers only # 1 — a bit like Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for String Quartet, with its tenuous but equally beautiful repetitive gestures.
Any piece worth its salt should be able to take many different interpretations , and Gandelsman feels that Debussy’s only quartet — the justly famous and seminal 1903 g minor — is reflected in the Glass 4th. And Brooklyn Rider’s interpretation of the Debussy, which he says they’ve played a lot, brings out its headlong drive and murmuring intensity in ways that few others have — my Alban Quartet version is wonderfully yet predictably strict Viennese. My late friend Virgil Thomson’s quip that “the dead do not rest easy in Vienna” comes to mind. Colin Jacobsen’s hommage/take on the g minor –“Achille’s Heel” – a nod to Debussy’s middle name — with its exquisite trouvere-like opening melody, pungent inner voices, and focus on many different kinds of color and texture, is a fine “post modern” reflection on the great French master’s concerns in his quartet.
And speaking of any piece worth its salt, Brooklyn Rider will be performing one of the absolute summits of the quartet literature — Beethoven’s Op. 131 in C, on their October 31 Halloween concert at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. Gandeslman, who’s from the been there done that whatever generation, is quick to praise the virtues of the hardly on everyone’s lips now French quartet, the Capet, who played, and recorded, in various configurations, but always with founder, first violinist Lucen Capet, from the 1890’s to their 1928 disbanding.
“Some people would listen to a recording of them , and find it foreign and inappropriate,” Gandelsman says. But, he adds, what attracts him and Brooklyn Rider to the Capet’s sound is “the clarity of its style of playing, and their unique interpretation, and conviction.”
Which of course says a lot about this unique and utterly distinctive young group, which isn’t afraid of going its own way while still being mindful of the master quartets that have put their utterly unique stamps on what they knew and felt in their time.
Composers, performers, or music-lovers looking for an interesting day job: PostClassical Ensemble needs a manager for their group. Contact Joseph Horowitz at jh AT josephhorowitz DOT com for more information.
Here’s a brief job description:
Managing Director, PostClassical Ensemble. Cutting-edge, 8-year-old DC-based chamber orchestra seeks half-time administrative director. The director will work with Artistic Director (Joseph Horowitz) and Musical Director (Angel Gil-Ordonez). Wide-ranging responsibilities include: budgeting, contracts, web management, marketing, artistic/strategic planning, fund-raising, radio broadcasts (WFMT; Sirius XM), Naxos recordings and DVDs, touring, etc. Our thematic programming incorporates dance, theater, film. Close collaboration with National Gallery of Art, Georgetown University (our Educational Partner), Strathmore Music Center.
October in New York is becoming an embarrassment of riches in the new music world. So many wonderful concerts to hear in town! But the plethora of notable events can be a source of frustration too: sometimes you wish you could be in two places at once. (I have a sneaking suspicion that Steve Smith has figured out a way to do this!) So, while we won’t get to review everything, there’s nothing saying we can’t preview as many events as possible! What follows are some, but rest assured not all, of the excellent upcoming goings on.
– Starting Wednesday evening (Oct. 5) running through October 8 at Roulette is one of the biggest festivals celebrating the music of Anthony Braxton yet seen in the United States. It includes performances by the Tricentric Orchestra, the US debut of the Diamond Curtain WallTrio – Anthony Braxton (reeds, electronics), Taylor Ho Bynum (brass), and Mary Halvorson (guitar) – and two world premieres. The first, Pine Top Arial Music, is an interdisciplinary work integrating music and dance. The second, which is the culmination of the festival, is a concert reading of Acts One and Two of Trillium E, Braxton’s first opera. Those who can’t make the festival, or who want ample Braxton at home as well as live, can enjoy two new recordings of his music. The first is a freebie: a Braxton sampler featuring a diverse array of pieces (including an excerpt of the opera) that’s available for download via the Tricentric Foundation. The second is a recording of Trillium E in its entirety, available from Tricentric on October 11 as a download or 4 CD set.
– On October 6, Ekmeles, everybody’s favorite New York group of experimentally inclined youngster vocalists, shares a triple bill with Ireland’s Ergodos and Holland’s Ascoli Ensemble at Issue Project Room’s new 110 Livingstone location (details here). Ekmeles will perform Kaija Saariaho’s Sylvia Plath setting From the Grammar of Dreams, two short pieces by James Tenney, and two US premieres. The first, Madrigali a Dio by Johannes Schöllhorn, incorporates singing, spoken word, and even boisterous shouts in a vocal work that explores counterpoints between pitched and un-pitched vocalizations. Peter Ablinger’sStudien nach der Natur explores a plethora of sounds from the natural world as well as manmade noises: mosquitoes, quartz watches, the Autobahn, smoking, electric hums – all replicated by the human voice. Mr. Ablinger was kind enough to allow us to share a small score excerpt below.
– Also on Thursday, October 6 (drat it to Hades!) is the premiere of the Five Borough Songbook at Galapagos.Twenty composers were asked by Five Boroughs Music Festivalto each contribute a single work to this project. Participants include Daron Hagen, Tom Cipullo, Lisa Bielawa, and other heavyweights in the songwriting biz.
– On October 8 at 7 PM at the Tenri Cultural Institute (ticket info here), the Mimesis Ensemble is doing a program of “Young Voices,” featuring three youngish composers who specialize in vocal music. It’s a program that’s a bit more traditional in approach than is, say, Ekmeles’ wont, but it presents some noteworthy repertoire. Thomas Adès’Three Eliot Landscapes and Gabriel Kahane’s current events inflectedCraigslistlieder are featured alongside several works by Mohammed Fairouz.
– On October 9 at 7:30 PM, Sequenza 21’s own Armando Bayolo will make his Carnegie Hall debut (as the kids say, whoot!). Armando’s Lullabies, a newly commissioned work, will be premiered at Weill Recital Hall by Trio Montage (more information here).
– Just around the corner is the ACO’s SONiC festival, Ekmeles’ concert on 10/21 at Columbia (a humdinger of a program!), Bridge Records’ Anniversary Concert at NYPL, and, yes, the Sequenza 21/MNMP Concert at the newly revivified Joe’s Pub on 10/25. But those previews will have to wait for another post! In the meantime, there are pieces to compose, papers to grade, and both my wife’s and my birthdays this weekend. October is the month that keeps on giving: it’s good to be busy, right?
Last week the Composition Department at the University of Michigan hosted two distinguished guest composers: Susan Botti and Marilyn Shrude. Their visit was marked both by an appearance at our weekly Composition Seminar class and, most importantly, performances of their work with Marilyn Shrude leading off a recital by her husband – renowned Saxophonist John Sampen – and Susan Botti featured as a composer and vocalist in the heart of University of Michigan Symphony Band’s inaugural performance of the year.
Mr. Sampen’s recital last Thursday was one of the more unique performances I’ve attended, continuously presenting a handful of works for saxophone without any pauses thanks to pre-recorded comments from each composer played in between the pieces. Some of these were straight-up verbal program notes, while others – like Ms. Shrude’s – set a backdrop for the forthcoming music. These oral preambles were not the only special aspect of the recital’s production: each work was paired with a visual accompaniment. Supplementary images we projected on a screen in conjunction with each piece, the most compelling and significant of which was the animation paired with Ms. Shrude’s composition, Trope (2007), written for alto saxophone and a pre-recorded tape of other saxophones.
Trope’s performance – the evening’s first – was set in darkness broken only by the auditorium’s projector, which displayed the beautiful animation I just mentioned. Given the darkness and the un-processed qualities of the tape, I found myself drawn into the sound as I attempted to locate where the saxophones I heard were coming from. The music itself is very closely written – neither the live nor taped parts leave the instrument’s middle register – and serene, at times using the multiple saxophone parts to create harmonies and, at others, playing timbral tricks with the instruments’ homogenous sound. The animation reflects the musical texture, and when the saxophones are united, only one line moves across the screen, while it splits into other, fainter lines when the sonic texture becomes more variegated. I was deeply engaged with the work’s visual element and felt it perfectly complemented Ms. Shrude’s gentle and tender music.
Despite the presence of multimedia throughout the evening, technology was not a prominent a feature of every work on the program. Japanese composer Fuminori Tanada’s Mysterious Morning III (1996) and William Bolcom’s A Short Lecture on the Saxophone (1979) solely featured Mr. Sampen’s talents, while the remaining three works all paired the saxophone with electronics – both interactive and pre-recorded. I mention Mr. Sampen’s “talents” and not simply his “playing” because A Short Lecture on the Saxophone is more of a dramatic work than a musical one. Essentially, the piece calls for Mr. Sampen to (seemingly) tell the story of his life as a saxophonist, coloring the spoken text with instrumental squeaks, over-played etudes and other demonstrative musical tidbits. The piece overflows with charm and humor, which more than compensated for the general absence of much musical substance. Of course, the point of the piece (if the title doesn’t make this clear enough) isn’t purely musical, and I was happy to see Mr. Sampen delightfully put his personality on display alongside his virtuosic ability on the saxophone.
Steve Reich turns 75 today. One of the premiere maestros of minimalism continues to dazzle us with thought-provoking and musically moving creations.
This morning, I introduced some of my undergraduate BA students to Reich, playing excerpts from Piano Phase, Music for 18 Musicians, and Different Trains. Some of them were unfamiliar with his music, but one student piped up,”What about Four Sections? I like that one too!”
If our students, particularly our student musicians, are picking out favorites and learning to perform Reich’s music, that is indeed a promising sign for the future of his works. As a small online musical offering, below are three student performances of Reich. The first is the trailer for Grand Valley State University’s Music for 18 Musicians recording. It was released a couple years ago, but has remained in heavy rotation in these parts! The second is an excerpt of Six Marimbas by students at the University of Kentucky. The third I’ve shared before, but can’t resist posting again: a pianist playing both parts of Piano Phase – at once!
And, just for my morning class, a video of a dance performance of Four Sections.
