Sequenza21

Our weekly listen and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since they’re nice enough to offer so much good listening online (This will be the last click-picks for December; Xmas, New Years, etc., you know how it goes… back with more in January):

Aaron Gervais (b.1980 — CA / US)

Born in Edmonton, Canada, Gervais is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in composition at UC San Diego. Aaron is also a graduate (with honours) from the University of Toronto, where he studied under Professor Chan Ka Nin. He’s also studied jazz and composition at Grant MacEwan College, composition at the University of Alberta, and Cuban percussion in Havana. He’ll tell you:

Over time, my music has gradually taken on more and more aspects of my particular musical background. I grew up playing jazz and rock drums in addition to classical percussion, and this influence has become increasingly clear in my pieces, although not always in terms of direct appropriation. What is more common is an interest in the cultural elements of hearing: why we hear things in certain ways, what it is we listen for in particular genres, and so forth. In addition, my recent pieces have taken a particularly critical slant on these questions. I tend not to trust statements or ideas that people take as axiomatic, so I have focused on writing music that deconstructs these “givens” in order to find out exactly how axiomatic they really are—challenge for the sake of challenge, in other words. […] Over the past few pieces, I have been interested in writing music that is fast-paced, rhythmic, and light in texture. I’ve definitely written a lot of slow dark music, but it seems to me that there is a preponderance of that kind of thing in the new music community and I want to see how far I can push the other direction. Composers like Jacob ter Veldhuis and Richard Ayres have been particular inspirations in that regard, though I am just as likely if not more to look at popular music for this.

Aaron’s clean and clear site will tell you more, and under “Works” you’ll find plenty of quality listening, along with program notes and score excerpts.

Pamelia Kurstin (b. 1976 — US / AT)

For all its low-tech, archaic and arcane qualities, the theremin (that curious electric box that you play by moving your hands/fingers through the space around two antennae) has had a fairly healty resurgence in the last ten years. In fact, I’d venture to guess that the number of people playing (or at least playing with) the theremin is higher right now than at any time since its invention in the 1920s. Of all these, one of the most musical and ambitious has to be Pamelia Kurstin. Hailing from Michigan, time spent in NYC, but now in Vienna, Austria, Pamelia has a real affinity for coaxing beautiful music out of what can be an real beast of an instrument. Besides appearing on many other artist’s recordings, she’s long been rumored to eventually have a solo CD appearing on John Zorn’s Tzadik label. In the meantime, this will take you to her Myspace page, where you can hear four intriguing selections. She does have a “real” website here; no sound and it’s a jumbly mess, but between the two you’ll get a pretty good idea of her restless and cheeky-smart character.

Hakoneko (JP)

Hakoneko’s real name? I’m not sure we’ll ever know. The only biographical line we have is this: “I started making music with PC while cherishing my sweet cat in my room.”…. Released about a year-and-a-half ago on the excellent Portuguese netlabel Mimi, Hakoneko’s Umi no drone (Drones of the Sea) is one of the most ravishing examples of so-called “ambient” or “drone” music I’ve ever heard — and I’ve heard a lot! This kind of music is all about color and volume, something that palpably fills the listening space and makes its own atmosphere (in an almost literal sense). There are many excellent, high-profile artists in this style, but that they can be in every way equalled, even bested, by a kid sitting in their bedroom in Japan is why it pays to always keep the ears open and let the music, not just the official hype, do the talking. …And to marvel at this web, which can cut out all the business-wonk and connect a bedroom half-a-world away directly to my living room.

Our weekly listen and look at (mostly) living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since it’s right there waiting online. (the “click picks” category at the bottom of the post isn’t working, but you can revisit all the previous “click picks” by visiting this link: https://www.sequenza21.com/index.php/?cat=29

Elizabeth Olivia Walling (b.1981 — UK)

Walling started out as a self-taught soprano and flautist. She began composing in 2001, and moved to formal composition and performance studies a year later. She’s been a member of New Music Brighton since 2003, and currently writes and performs with the recently-formed group Accident Ensemble. Her work bears a self-confessed “brazen” range of influences and styles which emerge from her long-standing interest in music of many periods: early liturgical and secular music, baroque, classical, modernist and avant garde, jazz and electronic. Recent experiments with electronics show a greater focus on using both modern and early electronic music technology in live performance.

Click on “Works”; you’ll find recordings of many pieces waiting (try Nani, nani, Cane Hill, or the Sanctus if you’re looking for a place to start). For someone who’s only been at composition for 4 or 5 years, there’s a real “voice” and a sophistication that usually doesn’t come so early.

Brian Kane (b.1973 — US, NYC)

Wonderful composer who also does double-duty as a fine jazz guitarist. California-born and trained, but dragged himself across the Rockies and Mississippi to be a post-doctorate Fellow at Columbia University for a while. And boy, does it show!… Besides lots of complete recordings of his work, the site also has quite a few interesting articles on all kinds of contemporary music topics. A nice touch: you can even get Brian’s music fed to you as a podcast, if that’s your thing.

Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918-1970 — DE)

Ah, my first dead guy. And rather than a range of work, just one piece: Zimmermann’s fantastically fun Musique pour les soupers du Roi Ubu of 1968. From the notes there:

“I am presumably a mixture, typical of the Rheinland, of monk and Dionysus” — “… as the oldest of these young composers” : two self-revelatory sayings of Bernd Alois Zimmermann. In both of them there is not only a concentrated charge of psychological problems, of pessimistic estimation, of clear vision; two famous quotations of the composer who was regarded as being “difficult” in his lifetime, to whom success was denied — apart from his opera “The Soldiers” — who could be so ecstatically joyful and profoundly dejected; an all-round mind and, as many have put it, the last composer who was a master in every field. Perhaps Zimmermann is so popular with younger composers because they find in his works concrete material, comprehensible compositions, first-rate craftsmanship and well-formed material; a composer who, in spite of his basic philosophic tenet, never suppressed “inspiration” or a “flash of insight”, but encouraged spontaneity.

One of the best “pastiche” works I know, with quotes from all over the map (some are blindingly obvious, but see if you can catch the unusual, such as Stravinsky’s Symphony in C), masterfully squashed and skewed, and truly made his own. Every bit worthy of Jarry’s great Ubu Roi!