Uncategorized

MSM Offering Masters in Contemporary Performance

In Ohio over Thanksgiving, I was happy to discover a small pile of mail from Manhattan School of Music: it’s about time they decided to keep in touch with their alumni. Anyway, browsing the school’s new newsletter, I was pleased to learn they’ve just established a new Masters program in Contemporary Performance. This, of course, should come as no surprise now that a composer’s in charge up there.

The requirements include playing four semesters with Tactus, MSM’s increasingly hot contemporary music ensemble; lots of reading of works by student composers; and plenty of instruction in performing with electronics. All in all it sounds like a great way for performers to segue into the NYC contemporary music scene. Now if only MSM could find a donor to cough up a cool $100 million ala Yale: a Masters from MSM doesn’t come cheap, and contemporary music, alas, still doesn’t pay well.

by David Salvage
Classical Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Music Events

Concert Promotion Porn

The Can Banger All-Stars are playing Zankel Hall on Tuesday, December 5, beginning at 7:30 pm, in a program called American UnPop

What is American UnPop? This is how Evan Ziporyn, clarinetist for the Bang on a Can All-Stars, describes it:

“Vox populi, vox pop, the voice of the people, or rather the voices of many different peoples, filtered through radio, record companies, market testing and the iTunes…pop culture is today synonymous with corporate culture, but it doesn’t have to be that way.  The music industry may be a nightmare, but the sound of pop music, in the broader sense, is the sound of our dreams, the trigger of memories, the actual texture of our unconscious.  A good melting pot still retains the flavors of its ingredients, even when it reveals the personality of the chef.   

 

Conlon Nancarrow taking boogie woogie bass lines and the covert rhythmic subversion embedded in blues and jazz; Martin Bresnick finding the common thread between holy minimalism, Franz Kafka, and the harmonies of Steely Dan; and Fred Frith finding the peril in an old children’s game, searching for the Court of the Crimson King while riding on the O’Jays Love Train.

 

There are ghosts in this machine, eminences to be evoked: Don Byron using the ancestral memories of the All-stars to distill Bernstein and soul jazz; Thurston Moore and Julia Wolfe stirring the pot, raising a cloud of guitar dissonance, through which we may or may not hear Appalachian dulcimers, Moondog’s bass drum, and Cecil Taylor.  

 

If this sounds like an average day on your iPod, well, join the club.  But the iPod shuffle only changes tracks after every song: you travel light, but the border guards are still on duty.  At American unPop, we’ve torn down the walls.”

Does anybody besides me need a cold shower after that?

by Jerry Bowles
Uncategorized

Last Night in L.A.: Ades and Barry’s “Triumph”

As part of his residency with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Thomas Ades was given a Green Umbrella concert, his choice of music, and his choice of role.  Ades chose to conduct, and for music he chose “The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit” (1995) by Gerald Barry.  This was originally written for British television and broadcast by Channel 4; as artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival, Ades brought it back to open the 2002 festival, and it has began receiving performances since then, with performances scheduled for Paris and Amsterdam next year.  Last night’s performance was the North American premiere.

 

“Triumph” is described as an “Opera in Two Acts”, which is misleading.  It is an hour-long chamber oratorio for 16 instrumentalists and five singers (two countertenors, tenor, baritone, bass), with each singer representing a concept:  Pleasure, Truth, Beauty, Deceit, and Time, respectively.  As for two acts, there is merely an instrumental bridge between thoughts.  Barry stated that the framework was “taken from” Handel’s oratorio “The Triumph of Time and Truth”.  Without reading Handel’s libretto, it is easy to speculate on the effects of the contemporary re-examination which would have “Beauty” and “Deceit” replace “Time” and “Truth” as the triumphal spirits.  From the performance of Barry’s version, “Pleasure” was truly triumphant.  Several in the audience worked on applause to bring Ades, Barry, and the singers back on stage for more than the three times that occurred.

 

I have one problem with Barry’s work, and  it’s a major problem:  he writes music to be sung so that the words are incomprehensible.  He ignores the rhythm of speech; worse, far too much of the time he works against natural rhythms.  When Barry re-imagines the baroque coloratura, rather than supplying vocalize for the rapid notes, he too often uses a new syllable for each note.  There are so many words in such a short period, that it was a challenge just to follow the libretto in the surtitles, much less match the words to any sound you heard from the stage.  For a cantata about ideas, shouldn’t you really be able to grasp the ideas while listening to the music?  I know that this approach doesn’t bother Ades, because as recently as in his “Tempest” he gave us music for Ariel that cannot be understood.

 

Given that problem, the music is quite interesting, sometimes fascinating.  It demands excellent singers, which last night’s performance certainly had.  Not a single role was easy, and some required exceptionally wide range and coloratura technique.  I felt Andrew Watts was brilliant as Pleasure, and I can’t imagine a better performance.  Here’s a link to the performers; they were all good.  Of course the Phil’s musicians were good; they can handle anything, and usually do it quite well.  Ades worked quite hard, as well; by the end of the performance, his shirt was soggy with sweat.

 

This site gives a 20 sound clips of a minute each (a third of the work!) so that you can get a feeling for the sound of Barry’s music, although I think last night’s performance was better than on this recording.  (Sometimes the site’s response is slow.)  You might start by listening to the last clip; this is from the final duet of Beauty and Pleasure, and you can understand the words, most of them, anyway.  That clip also gives a feeling for the degree to which Barry played off Handel, and this isn’t always so clear while actually listening.  Then tenth clip is the instrumental bridge between “acts”.  To help you as you sample the clips, remember that the two countertenors are Pleasure (the major role) and Truth, the tenor is Beauty, the baritone is Deceit, and the bass (a wide-ranging bass) is Time.  The samples give you only a feeling for Barry’s styles, they don’t convey how these blend into a cohesive, interesting whole.

by JerryZ
Uncategorized

Monkey Business

It’s awfully quiet out there.  What are you folks up to?  I’m off to lunch at a nice bistro called Le Singe Vert.  Why don’t you talk amonst yourselves for awhile.  Somebody say something controversial, like why has Derek Bermel become the kingmaker in new music in New York and should he be?  I have no opinion, of course, but maybe some of you do.

by Jerry Bowles
Bass, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles

Last Night in L.A.: Concerto for Bass

The International Society of Bassists wanted a new concerto for their favorite instrument, and they wanted orchestras to play the work rather than merely filing its name in the list of new works that they might think about some future year.  With help of their members they formed a consortium of 15 orchestras to back the work, enabling each participating orchestra to list themselves as a co-commissioner, giving each a “premiere” (even if merely a local one) at a bargain price.

John Harbison was commissioned to write the concerto, and yesterday the Los Angeles Philharmonic performed his “Concerto for Bass Viol and Orchestra” (2005), performed by our principal of 30-some years, Dennis Trembly.  This is a fairly short concerto; its three movements require a little less than 20 minutes.  Harbison used a slightly reduced orchestra, and in Disney Hall Trembly’s bass was audible throughout the work’s range of pitch and technique.  The work was particularly successful in having the bass become a singer, with several long, lyric melodies.  Less successful was exploration of the top notes.  The work could have used more fire, perhaps, or more emotion to add some force to the pleasant sounds.  The work didn’t have a single consistent musical style, having elements from a wide range of musical history, so it did have color and interest.  It was played as the center work between Janacek’s “Vixen” suite and the Dvorak 7th, and the Harbison worked with its companions.  Salonen is away all month and we’ve had a series of bland concerts with a series of guest conductors, but yesterday’s conductor, Carlos Kalmar, was a pleasant surprise.

by JerryZ
Concerts, Music Events

King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O

Fans of old-timey and bluegrass music are in for a rare treat on Monday night when the legendary and seldom seen York brothers–Fiddlin’ Frank and Mandola Joe–bring their String Messengers to the Cornelia Street Café in a Schizoid Music program devoted to Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, an indispensible compendium of ballads, blues, hymns and dance tunes from the days of the Great Depression.

The Yorks will be joined by their extended family of Jeff York  (slide guitar), Jon York (vye-o-la), Sharon (harmony vocals) and Pete York (harmony vocals and guitar), Ratzo B. York (bass), and Jim Murphy (guitar, vocals and string figures).

Admission is $10 for the entire evening plus a one-drink minimum per each of the two sets which–Frank York promises–will each be completely different.

Doors open at 8:30 pm. If you’ve never seen Fiddlin’ Frank and the gang in action, don’t miss it. Remember this is the man of whom Vasser Clements once said: “Big guy. Long hair. Kind of looks like Cochise? Never heard of him.”

by Jerry Bowles
Click Picks, Contemporary Classical

Steve’s click picks #8

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. (The “click picks” category at the bottom of this post isn’t working, but you can revisit all the previous “click picks” by clicking this link: https://www.sequenza21.com/index.php/?cat=29)

Soteria Bell (AU)

From Australia’s Time Off newspaper: If you’ve seen the latest Ray Lawrence flick Jindabyne, no doubt you’ve been entranced by the ethereal soundtrack. Written by Paul Kelly and Dan Luscombe, Kelly hand picked the Melbourne duo Soteria Bell, featuring Mia Shaw and Linda Laasi, to join him in creating the unnerving atmosphere the film’s score creates. “We had seen the film without music before the sessions began and in some cases Paul [Kelly] would remind us of a scene in the film, and then it was a matter of remembering that scene and trying to convey the emotion that was felt during it with our voices,” Mia Shaw says. “It was challenging, and a fantastic experience.” After collaborating on highly-acclaimed harmonic throat singer Dean Frenkel’s album Cosmosis, the duo are currently working on their debut 44 Sunsets, with first single ‘Dragma’ released soon. “The album is coming along really well,” she says. “We are working with great, creative people [and] we have a lot of special guests such as Frenkel on the album. “The album is varied, with an instrumental track, purely vocal layered tracks, and everything in between — we have had no boundaries for it! Also [we had] no real pre-conceived idea of what it should sound like. “It is definitely an exploration of the voice and what the voice is capable of, both organically and in some cases having been processed a little and played around with by our co-producer Simon Bailey.” And after the record is finished? “Once the album is done, we’ll be concentrating on live shows. How [we’ll] translate it all over from the studio to stage will be interesting, and we are very much looking forward to it!”

David Fenech (b. 1969 — FR) / Ghedalia Tazartes (b. 1947 — FR) / Frank Pahl (b. 1958 — US) / Julia Holter (US)

Somewhere in the nether region between pop/folk and classical/tech, flying well under most folks’ radar, a genre has quietly developed around the world. Its means are often low-tech and lo-fi, its sound like something born out of “the people”. But which “people” makes all the difference… This music isn’t the simple borrowing and mixing of this or that pop/art thread into the other; the imaginings of these folk take their work past the merely Synthetic, to a genuinely new Authentic. So, a music of “the people”, but a people that that these musicians’ own inner necessity had to invent. Naive, simple and direct… but really smart, complex, and purposely ambiguous. In that is every bit as much art as any with “classical” composer working today.

There are so many places I could point you to hear stuff from all over, both pioneers and fresh faces. But screw the history lesson; just listen to a couple of my own faves to get the idea.

And what better place to start than with David Fenech and his Demosaurus website? I can give you three artists to hear, each born in a different decade, all gathered in one place. I’ll let David introduce himself:

“David Fenech has been an active composer, performer, and improviser for over ten years in France. His works include acoustic, electronic, tape, and digital media, including sound installations and film scores. After creating the musical collective peu importe in Grenoble in 1991 (free improvisation and songs – many gigs in Europe) his music has shifted to more personal and strange areas, mainly using voice as an instrument. In 2000 he released his first solo CD, called Grand Huit. As a soloist, David plays guitar and ukulele as well as small instruments such as melodica, cavaquinho, toy piano and xylophone. He recorded concrete music at la Muse en Circuit with Laurent Sellier, at the Coream studio with Claude Hermitte. He also wrote the score for Tant de chiens, a short movie by Stephane Ricard; they then worked together on an interactive installation called Eloise, based on the idea of a musical tamagotchi.”

From the Forced Exposure website: Ghedalia Tazartes is a nomad. He wanders through music from chant to rhythm, from one voice to another. He paves the way for the electric and the vocal paths, between the muezzin psalmody and the screaming of a rocker. He traces vague landscapes where the mitre of the white clown, the plumes of the sorcerer, the helmet of a cop and Parisian anhydride collide into polyphonic ceremonies…. The greatest trips are made in the deep end of the throat: the extra-European music opens the ear to Ghedalia’s intra-European exoticism. Where was music before music halls? Where was the voice before it learned how to speak? Ghedalia is the orchestra and a pop group all in one person…. The author and his doubles work without a net, freely connecting the sounds, the rhythms, his voice, his voices.

And back to David: “Frank Pahl is a fantastic musician…. a one man band, also known as a member of Only a Mother, playing a raw music on acoustic instruments (we can hear ukuleles, prepared piano, clarinets, euphonium). Beautiful melodies seem to come out from nowhere…. the unknown world of inventive folklore. With Brian Poole (Renaldo and the Loaf), Dennis Palmer (Shaking Ray Levi), Nick Didkovsky (Dr. Nerve , Fred Frith guitar quartet), Doug Gourlay, Tim Holmes and Eugene Chadbourne.”

About Julia Holter, I can tell you almost nothing, except: She’s pretty young, studies music (first in Michigan, now in California), has a penchant for giving small intimate concerts in her own home and likes to collaborate in all kinds of settings. Her open ears let all kinds of influences freely mingle, which are then shaped into wonderfully sensitive, naive-yet-waaay-smart miniatures. She doesn’t have an official website, only her Myspace page, and it only allows four tracks at any moment. But Julia changes the four out regularly, so drop by now and then to see what new treat has shown up. (I have ten great tracks now; be the first on *your* block to collect them all!)

by Steve Layton
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Piano, S21 Concert

If a Frog Had Wings He Wouldn’t Bump His Ass so Much

The brilliant and talented piano and TabletPC genuis Hugh Sung has a terrific post about the Sequenza21 concert where he was a star performer.  Hugh is also one of the nicest people alive.

Kyle Gann, who drove two hours down and two hours back to Bard for the concert, has some nice words about the concert here.  Kyle turned 37 yesterday.

Our congratulations to regular Darcy James Argue who is one of the 29 recipients of the latest round of the American Music Center’s Composer Assistance Program (CAP).  The complete list is here. 

Altman was one of the best.

Update:  Speaking of birthdays, today is Gunther Schuller’s 81st.  Richard Buell tells me that when Schuller was 16 and the first horn of the the Cincinnati Symphony, he auditioned for the Ellington band, playing Johnny Hodges’s charts.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Composers, Uncategorized

One day, two musicians, three anniversaries

There are three anniversaries today of important events connected by a fascinating thread. November 22nd is remembered by many for the assassination of John F Kennedy in Dallas in 1963, while on a happier note Benjamin Britten was born in Lowestoft on this day in 1913, and quite appropriately today is also the name day of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of musicians. The connection between these three anniversaries also involves folk singer, political activist and pioneering conservationist, Pete Seeger. The full story is at Benjamin Britten – We Shall Overcome

by Pliable