When he went to work for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center a few years ago, Ronen Givony knew very little about classical music. Not himself a musician, but a passionate music fan, his tastes inclined to Indie-rock. He listened to Radiohead, David Byrne, Björk, and other, more obscure eclectics. At CMS he discovered classical music and was quickly smitten by old fogies like Bach, Mendelssohn, and Ligeti. Seeing his fellow Indie fans as a natural audience for classical music, he proposed a series of joint rock/classical concerts at Lincoln Center. He now works at Nonesuch.
For a series only slightly over a year old, Wordless Music has made astonishing waves. Givony’s brainchild, which he only anticipated lasting two or three concerts, ends up in the black from ticket sales alone and has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker. His programs aim to be half-classical, half-rock, though he estimates about 90% of the audience comes for the latter. While such a programming style may not meet the curatorial standards of Lincoln Center, he tries to create sensible musical pairings. When he was able to secure Beirut for a concert on September 20th, for instance, he thought programming some Osvaldo Golijov would complement the band’s Balkan, Levantine sounds. Other times, however, Givony scrapes together a half-hour of classical music and sees whatever decent band he can get. So far, so good.
Wordless Music’s 2007-2008 season opens this Friday at the Society for Ethical Culture. On the program is the Canadian group Do Make Say Think playing some of their own tunes, and The Electric Kompany, a rock quartet, playing music by Nick Didkovsky, Jacob TV, and Marc Mellits. Upcoming season highlights include the Icelandic band Mum – a longtime favorite of Givony’s, and the US premiere of Jonny Greenwood’s Popcorn Superhet Receiver. Spring 2008 is still taking shape for the series, but, with ten concerts scheduled between Friday and mid January, Wordless Music will be making plenty of noise in the meantime.
Official blurb: “A native of Shenyang, Fuhong learned to play the piano at the age of eight, and began to study composition at fourteen. She graduated from the music school affiliated with the Shenyang Conservatory of Music in 1995, where she received the highest entrance exam score on the National Examinations for admission to the Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM) in Beijing. At the CCOM she studied composition with Jianping TANG, and received a Bachelor’s degree in composition in 2000. She then earned a Master’s degree in composition under the direction of John Celona and Dániel Péter Biró at the University of Victoria in 2005. In the fall 2005, she began her doctoral studies with Gary Kulesha at the University of Toronto.”
Them thar hills are alive with composers!… Like Larry Gaab out in the “wilds” of Chico, California (O.K., more valley than hill, but what the hey): family and marital counselor by day, experimental electroacoustic musician by any-other-time. Spare with biographical and other details, about all he’ll tell you is that he “blends treated acoustic sources and electronic instruments into works which are in part composed and in part improvised. The electronic instruments are invented and played live by various extended techniques.”