Cellist Seth Parker Woods with New York Philharmonic, Thomas Wilkins conducting. Music by Nathalie Joachim on October 17, 2024 (credit: Chris Lee)
Black American composers dominated the programming at two of New York City’s major institutions last week — a 180° turn from the typical fare of Dead White Men at most orchestral concerts.
On Wednesday, October 16, Carnegie Hall presented Sphinx Virtuosi — the flagship ensemble of the Sphinx Organization, an organization whose mission it is to encourage careers of Black and Latino classical musicians and arts administrators. Thursday at Lincoln Center’s Geffen Hall was New York Philharmonic’s program “Exploring Afromodernism” — a program which was repeated on Friday. Both concerts featured outstanding and committed performances of mainly 21st century classical works.
Sphinx Virtuosi at Carnegie Hall on October 16, 2024 (credit Brian Hatton)
Sphinx Virtuosi is a conductorless chamber orchestra of 18 Black and Latino string players. It can be hard to pull off cohesive performances without a conductor, but it was immediately apparent that this ensemble was up to the task. The concert began with a reworking of Scott Joplin’s overture to his opera Treemonisha, arranged by Jannina Norpoth. The work infused classical gestures with blues, gospel and a bit of ragtime. The most effective and exciting selection was the world premiere of Double Down, Invention No. 1 for Two Violins by Curtis Stewart, performed by Njioma Chinyere Grievous and Tai Murray. It was a brilliant display of virtuosity from both violinists, playing off one another in a keen game of counterpoint which included a fiery display of fiddling as well as percussive foot-stomping. The audience roared its approval with a lengthy standing ovation. Stewart’s other work on the program was the New York premiere of Drill (co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Sphinx Virtuosi and New World Symphony). Percussionist Josh Jones, a member of the ensemble, was the soloist. It was a wild piece with frenetic drumming countered by subtle moments of gentle trills on wood blocks. All in all, it was a roiling cluster of excitement.
Music by Derrick Skye, Levi Taylor and the 19th century Venezuelan-American Teresa Careña, rounded out the brief program, which included a five-minute promotional film and comments by Sphinx Organization president Afa Dworkin.
The New York Philharmonic’s program was a wonderful display of a range of talents and generations conducted by Thomas Wilkins. It began with Carlos Simon’s Four Black American Dances, which impressed right away with the composer’s great orchestration. The rich first movement showcased the brilliant playing of every section of the Philharmonic, including a rollicking solo by concertmaster Sheryl Staples, who showed off her great artistry later in the work as well. After a somewhat schmaltzy second movement (“Waltz”) and predictably percussive third (“Tap!”), the final section (“Holy Dance”) began with a mystical aura which devolved into a loud and jaunty display.
The New York premiere of Nathalie Joachim’s concerto Had To Be, written for the cellist Seth Parker Woods began with an off-stage band replicating a New Orleans-style “second line.” After a smooth transition into a slow and lush passage by the orchestra on stage, the solo cellist had a lyrical soulful melody. The second movement, “Flare” launched with boisterous brass and percussion, which tended to drown out the strings. “With Grace,” the final movement, was beautifully emotional. Though the soloist wasn’t given an especially virtuosic part, Woods’ stage presence dominated throughout the work. Wilkins graceful conducting infused an appropriate amount of emotion into the performance.
David Baker’s Kosbro was intense from its very beginning, with driving rhythms, insistent timpani whacks, double-tongued brass and winds and angular melodies. Written in the 1970s, the work was an effective combination of jazz and classical styles.
William Grant Still’s gift for melody, harmony and orchestration made me wonder why this particular work – Symphony No. 4, Autochthonous, (the subtitle refers to indigenous people) isn’t programmed more often. Still’s superb orchestra writing balanced winds and strings in a dialogue which Wilkins navigated beautifully, each exchange infused with profound meaning.
Beyond the demographics of the composers, a similarity on both of these programs was that each of the works by the living composers was an olio of styles. In each case, the creators sought to include a variety of folk, pop, jazz and other cultural idioms in a single composition. It may be unfair to generalize, because the selections were undoubtedly programmatic decisions. I promise not to make a broad generalization until I hear more music from each of these composers, which I am eager to do.
With regard to the focus of these two concerts, I am going to say something very unpopular: Nobody is proclaiming that there aren’t enough White rappers or that Anglos aren’t well enough represented in, say, Latin jazz or conjunto music. And yet in recent years there has been great emphasis on striving for diversity in classical music. I’m not saying we shouldn’t work very hard to be inclusive of all Americans — or of all peoples in general for that matter — to be a part of this art form, this culture. I’m wondering aloud why it seems especially crucial in classical music.
Let’s discuss.
Be that as it may, the Sphinx Organization has been a leader in encouraging careers and celebrating people of color in classical music for over 25 years. They have done an admirable — nay amazing — job, welcoming hundreds of young musicians into the art form, creating role models for future generations, and creating an environment in which it is not only comfortable, but encouraging for young musicians to get involved and excel in the field.
Sequenza 21 readers know Carey very well through his insightful reviews of concerts and recordings in this publication. He is also a superb composer with a lengthy catalogue of varied works.
Christian B. Carey
Quintet 2 is scored for oboe, clarinet, violin, cello and piano, and Carey wrote it for the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, who commissioned it and premiered it in 2016. In his program note, Carey writes that much of his music – including this work – is based on the idea of labyrinthine structuring. “Quintet 2 deals with a spectrum of harmonic shadings, from triads to microtonal verticals with a great deal expressed in between. Likewise, the short melody at the beginning is offset by long passages of linear counterpoint. A number of rhythmic layers corruscate to create overlapping and frequently syncopated gestures.”
Also on the program, music by Augusta Read Thomas, Oliver Knusson, Jeremy Beck, Jonathan Newman and the world premiere of “I Like Chocolate Ice Cream” by David Macdonald (me too, says the writer).
Performers include: Calvin Wiersma and Conrad Harris, violins; Daniel Panner, viola; Chris Gross and Peter Seidenberg, cellos; Huan-Fong Chen, oboe; Benjamin Fingland, clarinet; Jonathan Faiman, piano; Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek, mezzo-soprano
This year’s Long Play schedule is particularly dizzying. The annual festival presented by Bang on a Can in Brooklyn, now in its third year, seems to have crammed more events than ever into its three day festival, running May 3, 4 and 5. For instance, on Saturday, May 4 at 2 pm, you’ll have to choose between a new opera by the Pulitzer Prize finalist Alex Weiser with libretto by Ben Kaplan, called The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language (at American Opera Projects) AND Ensemble Klang imported from the Netherlands playing works by the Dutch composer Peter Adriaansz (who has set texts from “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”) at BRIC Ballroom AND vocal sextet Ekmeles performing music by George Lewis, Hannah Kendall, and Georg Friedrich Haas (actually at 2:30, but I imagine you’d have to get to The Space at Irondale early for a seat). A choice as difficult as any I’ve had to make at Jazzfest in New Orleans (which incidently is also happening this weekend, albeit 1000+ miles from Brooklyn).
Fans of Balinese gamelan music are in luck. A rare confluence of events provides the opportunity to hear two different ensembles, both free, both in Brooklyn, on Saturday. At 3:30 at the BRIC Stoop, you can enjoy the Queens College Gamelan Yowana Sari, performing with the percussion ensemble Talujon, along with the composer / performer Dewa Ketut Alit. Alit has come halfway around the world from Indonesia to Brooklyn for the premiere of his new work commissioned by Long Play. And at 5 pm the ensemble Dharma Swara performs at the Brooklyn Museum. Note: The Dharma Swara performance is not part of Long Play – it is a Carnegie Hall Citywide presentation.
Once your head has gone to Indonesia, you may want to continue on an around-the-world trip at Long Play. On Sunday at 2 at the Bam Café, hear DoYeon Kim playing gayageum (a traditional Korean plucked zither with 12 strings) along with her quartet featuring some New York jazz and classical luminaries.
Stick around at Bam Café after Kim’s set for another musician with sounds of a far-flung continent: At 3 pm the master kora player Yacouba Sissoko from Mali is joined by percussionist Moussa Diabaté. Diabaté is an internationally acclaimed dancer, choreographer, drummer and balafon player and together the two bring the sounds and culture of West Africa to us.
Come to think of it, when was the last time you heard music by Philip Glass played on accordion? Might as well settle in at Bam Café for the 4 pm show on Sunday, then, to hear a rare performance of the Polish virtuoso Iwo Jedynecki. Jedynecki has created some inventive arrangements of Glass’ piano etudes for button accordion.
The pinnacle of Long Play comes Sunday evening at 8 at the BAM Opera House, when the Bang on a Can All-Stars along with a bunch of special guests perform a seminal work by Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians.
Takacs Quartet at 92nd Street Y on March 13, 2024 (credit Joseph Sinnott)
How does a composer write music? Whether she pulls interesting sounds out of the air, or creates an elaborate scheme of hieroglyphics – can an uninformed listener tell the difference? Sometimes not, as was the case Wednesday night at the 92nd Street Y where the incomparable Takács Quartet gave the New York premiere of Flow by Nokuthula Endo Ngwenyama.
Flow was backed up by an elaborate set of program notes that described inspiration ranging from the sound of the Big Bang to the breathing discipline “Pranayama”. Even with that knowledge in hand, for the most part I couldn’t detect the connection between concept and sound. Within the four-movement piece, I heard a heartbeat depicted by the viola’s pizzicato, observed sultry pitch slides in the second violin and enjoyed a wacky waltz where every measure seemed purposely just a little bit out of kilter. But the “outburst of energy and matter at the birth of our universe”? Not apparent at all. On the other hand, Flow ingeniously and successfully meshed extended technique with conventional sounds, and overall is a beguiling piece.
I’ve been a fan of the Takács Quartet for at least half of the group’s 49 years of ensemble-hood. This evening was the first time I heard them in their current lineup, with violinist Harumi Rhodes (joined in 2018) and violist Richard O’Neill (came on board in 2019), merging with first violinist Edward Dusinberre who has been with Takács since 1993, and the sole original member, cellist András Fejér.
This long-lived ensemble retained its aesthetic and its tight sound over the years and throughout its personnel changes. The Beethoven String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 59, No. 2 “Razumovsky” which made up the second half of the concert was so captivating that, in that moment, I felt like I would never want to hear any other quartet, ever. The group’s lightness and joie de vivre, dramatic attention to dynamics, and intonation and rhythmic accuracy so good, it might as well be a single instrument, all contributed to the quartet’s breathtaking performance. Their reading of the String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 76, No. 4 “Sunrise” by Franz Josef Haydn which opened the program was equally outstanding.
Flow by Nokuthula Endo Ngwenyama was commissioned for the Takács Quartet by Cal Performances and a consortium including 92NY. They’ll perform the work several more times in March and April 2024, in Philadelphia, Schenectady, Scottsdale, Buffalo, Ann Arbor, and Rochester, NY.
A few months ago, I wrote an article that distilled the New York Philharmonic Fall 2023 season into enticing programs for contemporary music lovers.
“When you see New York Philharmonic’s glossy brochures and online ads, you might be hard pressed to spot the new music offerings that are in nearly every program. For instance, “Trifonov Plays Schumann” hides the fact that there is a work for strings by the Lithuanian composer Raminta Šerkšnytė, a composition which Gidon Kremer referred to as ‘the calling card of Baltic music.'”
Here is my annotation of Philharmonic concerts in Spring 2024 for the tiny niche of new music fans.
February 20, 2024 – Lunar New Year Hidden beneath Bruch and Saint-Saëns are two composers who are very much alive. The young Hong Kong-born composer Elliot Leung is making his mark in the Hollywood film scoring world, and the world premiere of his Lunar Overture leads the program. Grammy-nominated Chinese-American composer Zhou Tian is showcased with excerpts from Transcend, which was commissioned by over a dozen orchestras to commemorate the 150th Anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad’s completion.
February 22-24 – Emanuel Ax, Hillborg, and Rachmaninoff This one’s right there in the tease: Hillborg. It would be natural to assume that Mr. Ax would be playing Rachmaninoff, and we’d get a five-minute piece by the Swedish composer Anders Hillborg. Nope. Hillborg wrote a 22 minute concerto: Piano Concerto No.2 – the MAX Concerto for Emanuel Ax, and we get to hear the New York premiere of the piece. San Francisco Chronicle’s Joshua Kosman said it was “vivacious, funny, heroic, eloquent, plain-spoken, thoughtful and wholly irresistible”. Now, don’t you want to go hear it?
February 29 – March 1 – Émigré The concert program title “Émigré” could mean just about anything. Here, it is the name of a “semi-staged musical drama” that weaves the true tale of German Jewish brothers who fled Nazi Germany and wound up in Shanghai. It was performed in Shangai in the fall, and the New York Philharmonic and conductor Long Yu give us the first American performances. Music by Aaron Zigman and lyrics by Mark Campbell.
Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate
March 7-9 – Sol Gabetta, Elim Chan, and Scheherazade Sure, cellist Sol Gabetta is great, and I’ll look forward to seeing the conductor Elim Chan who is making waves in Europe. The part of the program I am especially excited about is the world premiere by the Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate. Pisachi, Tate’s tribute to Hopi and Pueblo Indian music, was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic. I’ve been a fan of Tate since a National Symphony premiere performance knocked my socks off 20 years ago.
March 21-24 – Mendelssohn, Tan Dun, and Joel Thompson A rare instance in which the new music is all in the program title. Joe Alessi plays the New York premiere of Tan Dun’s Trombone Concerto: Three Muses in Video Game. The thought of hearing it makes my heart go aflutter. Music by the Atlanta composer Joel Thompson seems to be everywhere lately, and the world premiere of To See the Sky (a NY Phil co-commission) is on this program.
April 4-6 – Alice Sara Ott Performs Ravel He’s dead, but you’d probably want to know that Anton Webern’s Six Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6 is on this program. With any luck, the orchestra will play these shorties twice. Also dead: Scriabin. But as I recall, his Poem of Ecstasy is pretty trippy.
April 12-14 – Beatrice Rana Plays Rachmaninoff In addition to heavy hitters Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, we get to hear the New York premiere of a new work by Katherine Balch, co-commissioned by the Philharmonic.
NY Philharmonic Project 19 composers
April 18-20 – Olga Neuwirth and Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony Okay, Olga Neuwirth’s name is front and center. The US Premiere of Keyframes for a Hippogriff — Musical Calligrams is settings of texts by Ariosto, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Friedrich Nietzsche, graffiti artists, and Neuwirth. Brooklyn Youth Chorus sings. This is one of the NY Phil’s Project 19 commissions.
April 20 – Young People’s Concert: Composing Inclusion Yes, it’s a concert for kids, and the hall will be full of families. Show up to hear world premieres by Andrés Soto and Nicolás Lell Benavides, co-commissioned by the Philharmonic.
May 10 – Sound On This one is probably on your radar already. Another Project 19 commission, the world premiere of an as yet unnamed work by Mary Kouyoumdjian. Kwamé Ryan conducts.
May 23-28 – The Mozart Requiem and Sofia Gubaidulina’s Viola Concerto Finally. The title says it all.
When you see New York Philharmonic’s glossy brochures and online ads, you might be hard pressed to spot the new music offerings that are in nearly every program. For instance, “Trifonov Plays Schumann” hides the fact that there is a work for strings by the Lithuanian composer Raminta Šerkšnytė, a composition which Gidon Kremer referred to as “the calling card of Baltic music.”
I mentioned this in passing to a staffer at the Philharmonic, and referred to it as a slam on marketing. I immediately regretted uttering that phrase, because it’s not really about that. Marketing managers do what they need to – it’s their job to sell tickets. Schumann sells, Šerkšnytė does not.
Here is my annotation of this fall’s Philharmonic concerts for the tiny niche of new music fans.
September 29-October 1, 2023 “Joshua Bell, Copland, and The Elements”
This program description does in fact put the featured player of the new work front and center. On the other hand, you have to dig deeper to discover the fact that “The Elements” is a US premiere, and is a compilation of new works by five living American composers (Jake Heggie, Jennifer Higdon, Edgar Meyer, Jessie Montgomery, and Kevin Puts).
October 5-7 “Beethoven’s Emperor, Schubert’s Unfinished, and Steve Reich”
Here we DO get a clue right away about Steve Reich. Yay! Only needs a bit of clicking to learn that it’s a world premiere co-commissioned by the NY Phil.
October 11 -14 “Trifonov Plays Schumann”
The aforementioned “calling card of Baltic music” is on offer: “De profundis” by the Lithuanian composer Raminta Šerkšnytė.
October 19 – 21 “Bronfman, Brahms, and Ligeti”
Ligeti makes it onto the headline, yay! But deeper in the description is the fact that we get to hear Yefim Bronfman plays the New York premiere of a concerto written for him by the Russian-born Elena Firsova.
October 26 “Kravis Nightcap: Apollo’s Fire”
Jeannette Sorrell directs the Philharmonic in the Handel epic, “Israel in Egypt” – – and also brings her great early music band Apollo’s Fire to a late night show. I’m pointing this out because – while its not contemporary music, their unusual program explores music of ancient Jewish and Arabic origin with virtuosos on violin, Middle Eastern flute, oud, zither, and percussion.
October 27 “Sound On: Zorn, Azmeh, Chaker, and Chin”
If you’re hot on new music, you’ve already got this on your calendar. Music by John Zorn and Unsuk Chin, and a NYP co-commission by Kinan Azmeh and Layale Chaker.
November 2-4 “Mälkki Conducts Pictures at an Exhibition”
We can count Ligeti as new music, right? He’s only been gone for 15 years. This year, everyone including NYP is celebrating his centennial. And so now you know you’ll hear his Piano Concerto played by Pierre-Laurent Aimard.
November 4 “Kravis Nightcap: Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Joachim Kühn”
PLA teams with jazz pianist Joachim Kühn, and they’ll use Ligeti’s Études as a jumping off point for improvision.
November 7 “Artist Spotlight: Pierre-Laurent Aimard”
Since we’re counting Ligeti above, here’s PLA playing the Etudes, “juxtaposed with works reflecting their cultural inspirations” (not sure what exactly that means, but I’m sold).
November 9 – 12 “Szeps-Znaider Plays Beethoven’s Violin Concerto”
The thirty-something composer Carlos Simon is one hot item lately, and you’ll get to hear his “Fate Now Conquers”, which was inspired by something Beethoven wrote in his journal.
November 16 – 18 “Paavo Järvi Conducts Britten and Prokofiev”
You’ll get to a chance to determine whether Veljo Tormis (who died in 2017) lives up to the reputation of excellence in Estonian composers, when you hear his Overture No. 2 on this program.
November 22 – 25 “The Planets and Atmosphères”
Though she died 50 years ago, we hardly ever get to hear music by the African-American composer Julia Perry. You will on this program (her Stabat Mater). Also, more Ligeti (I’m not complaining!).
November 30 – December 02 “Strauss, Rachmaninoff, and Bryce Dessner”
Bryce Dessner makes it onto the headline! The NY premiere of his concerto for 2 pianos, written for, and played by the Labèque sisters.
Earle Brown’s Calder Piece performed at the Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, August 1967
I don’t know when else you’d have a chance to see expert musicians interact with a sculpture by one of the most iconic American artists of the 20th century. This rare event, on August 20 at the Dimenna Center in New York, is part of the annual TIME:SPANS festival.
In Earle Brown’s Calder Piece the artist’s mobile is an essential part of the piece. The artwork will “conduct” the Talujon Percussion Quartet as its sections sway from their pivot points. And, yes, you will also get to see the instrumentalists “play” the sculpture, though the artist himself initially expected a more forceful display. “I thought that you were going to hit it much harder—with hammers,” said Calder after the first performance in the early 1960s.
Calder Piece is “the focal point and central hinge of this year’s festival,” according to the introduction in the festival booklet by Thomas Fichter and Marybeth Sollins, executive director and trustee respectively of The Earle Brown Music Foundation Charitable Trust which produces and presents TIME:SPANS. But it is by no means the only highlight of the dozen concerts in the festival.
Talea Ensemble, JACK Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Argento…..once again, since 2015, some of the most acclaimed contemporary music ensembles in the country descend on the Dimenna Center for this late summer aural spectacle. Performances are nearly every night August 12 – 26, chock full of 21st century concert music in a myriad of styles.
It seems almost impossible to pick out highlights from the dozen performances – there are so many intriguing programs. In addition to the Calder event, here are a few that I am particularly looking forward to:
JACK Quartet playing Helmut Lachenmann (August 13) – my mind was blown the first time I heard Lachenmann’s music performed live. He calls his compositions musique concrète instrumentale, creating other-worldly sounds through extended techniques.
JACK Quartet photo by Beowulf Sheehan
Ekmeles performing Taylor Brook, Hannah Kendall and Christopher Trapani (August 22) – though vocal music isn’t my first choice genre, I am drawn to a cappella ensembles, especially when they are as high quality as Ekmeles. Trapani’s music is always a treat to hear, and his End Words lives alongside music by the equally deserving Kendall and Brook.
Ensemble Signal’s program on August 15 is brought to you by the letter “A”: music by Anahita Abbasi, Augusta Read Thomas. Aida Shirazi, Agata Zubel. I’ve been following Abbasi ever since she won an ASCAP composer award about eight years ago. Her music, though not always easy to listen to, is intense and visceral. I predict it will be a great contrast to Read Thomas’s more tuneful style.
I first met Hayes Biggs in Venezuela in the 1990s, at a contemporary music festival in Caracas. We bonded over a street artist’s unique t-shirt designs, and over the performances by musicians from all corners of the Americas.
Since then, Biggs has been a regular fixture at new music concerts in New York City, as well as on stage with C4, the Choral Composer/Conductor Collective ensemble. He has been on the faculty of Manhattan School of Music teaching theory and composition since 1992. On May 31, 2023, four long-time champions of contemporary chamber music – violinist Curtis Macomber, violist Lois Martin, cellist Chris Gross, and pianist Christopher Oldfather – perform Biggs’ works in recital in a composer portrait at Merkin Hall in New York City.
In advance of the concert, I asked Biggs about the evolution of his compositional style and his career path. Here is our interview.
Gail Wein: In addition to your work as a composer and as a teacher at MSM you are also a choral singer. How does that experience inform your instrumental compositions?
Hayes Biggs: I strive to write beautiful melodic lines, harmonies and counterpoint. Studying voice as a college student, singing in choirs, and accompanying singers and choral groups has had a profound effect on all the music I write, in whatever medium or genre. More than once it has happened that bits of my vocal music (and occasionally that of others) have found their way into my instrumental works. For example, my String Quartet: O Sapientia/Steal Away (2004) is based to a great extent on two such pieces: a choral motet for Advent that I wrote in 1995, and the African American spiritual Steal Away. I had sung the latter in my college choir in William Dawson’s magnificent arrangement as a freshman in college, and that version was the inspiration for the last movement of the quartet.
GW: The piano preludes on your May 31 program are inspired by poetry. How do these preludes reflect the poems?
HB: Only the first three of the preludes (commissioned by Thomas Stumpf) have specific connections to poems, and I would see them as suggestive of certain general moods rather than as attempting to depict literally any events or images contained in the poetry. In No. 1, “The Secret that silent Lazarus would not reveal,” on Billy Collins’s “The Afterlife,” where the poet imagines the dead all going wherever they imagined they would go after death, I had the idea of a kind of jazzy march, tinged a bit with blues and gospel, as they all parade off in their separate directions. The second, on Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things,” seems to me to move from a mood of sadness and anxiety to one of serenity. The third prelude, on one of Rilke’s Annunciation poems from DasMarienleben, is dedicated to the memory of my mother-in-law Lois Orzel, and is intended to convey the quiet strength of the Virgin Mary and the awe in which the powerful angel Gabriel regards her. The fourth prelude is simply a short, playful study in rhythm, with bright major triads and crisply articulated eighth notes in shifting meters alternating with a heavier, bluesier, swinging triplet feel. It is dedicated to my friends David Rakowski and Beth Wiemann.
GW: The selections on the May 31 program are all fairly recent works. Tell me about your compositional style and approach, and how it has changed over the years (or not).
HB: I’m as eclectic as they come, kind of a musical omnivore. I tend to view stylistic purity as highly overrated. As far as my love of classical music is concerned, I think that initially I was knocked sideways by Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart, and then became enthralled by Chopin, Brahms, Schumann, Wagner, and later, Richard Strauss. I fell in love with harmony, the richer the better.
The first modern music I responded to was in an American idiom inspired by Stravinskian neoclassicism and Hindemith, including Persichetti, Bernstein, Copland, William Schuman, and others. I later discovered the Second Viennese School and the late works of Stravinsky. Two favorite composers of mine, Alban Berg and Stravinsky, both exemplify something that has preoccupied me for years: the reconciliation of tonal and non-tonal elements in the same work. Being diametrically opposed in their respective aesthetics, they approach this reconciliation in very different ways. Berg goes for a seamless fusion of atonal elements with Romantic gestures and tonal-sounding harmonies, in a language that evokes Mahler, while Stravinsky in a work like Agon, seems to embrace discontinuity, the juxtaposition of seemingly incongruous musics in the same piece.
GW: As New Yorkers, we sometimes forget there are other areas of the United States with rich, vibrant and interesting cultures. How has growing up in Alabama and Arkansas influenced your compositional style, your career path and your work?
HB: I was born in Huntsville, AL, but only because my dad happened to be stationed there when he was in the Army; our family wasn’t there for any significant amount of time. After that we lived in Memphis until I was four, when we moved to Indiana for one year. After that my dad got a job as the radiologist at the hospital in Helena, AR, where we lived from the time I was about 5 until I graduated from high school in 1975.
There were limited opportunities to hear classical music in Helena, though I do remember a concert series where touring artists performed in the Central High School gym. Later, another series, the Warfield Concerts, was founded after a wealthy man named S. D. Warfield died in 1967 and left a lot of money to be used for bringing famous performers and ensembles to Phillips County. The series continues to this day. I was able to see a number of classical performers, including Van Cliburn, the U. S. Air Force Band, the National Symphony conducted by Arthur Fiedler, as well as touring opera and ballet companies. More opportunities for such events, however, were available about an hour and a half away, in Memphis, which has its own symphony orchestra, as well as an opera company.
When I was young the Metropolitan Opera went on tour every spring and Memphis was one of its stops. I was eleven in 1968 when I saw my first opera during one of those tours, Carmen, with the late, great Grace Bumbry. Memphis also had a lot of churches with fine music programs that presented organ and choral concerts, as well as a fine community theater, Theatre Memphis.
The whole area where I grew up — the Mississippi Delta — was of course the home of many celebrated vernacular musics: gospel, rhythm & blues, country, rock & roll, and others. Famous people from near where I grew up include baritone William Warfield, Conway Twitty, and Levon Helm. B. B. King and Elvis were of course ubiquitous presences in that region. While Helena has become a center of Delta blues with its annual Blues Festival, I recently discovered how this cultural richness parallels the excitement found in goksites met de beste uitbetaling, where players seek platforms offering optimal rewards, much like the Delta’s artists seeking the perfect note to captivate their audiences. It’s a rich cultural and musical heritage, but I think it’s only been fairly recently that I’ve started to allow influences of pop, rock, jazz, and blues to filter into my own music.
GW: When did you first become aware of your interest in music? How and when did you realize that you enjoyed writing music?
HB: It’s a very corny story; while I had sung in choirs from the time I was very small, I started piano lessons quite late, at the age of nine. My mother had been quite a good pianist when she was young but would never have had a chance to pursue it professionally. My dad had no formal musical training apart from a few trumpet lessons when he was about 10, but he and my mom both loved classical music, which was heard in our house regularly, along with Broadway shows and other popular music, including jazz.
The first music I can remember hearing was the original cast album of My Fair Lady, which had opened on Broadway about a year before I was born. My parents played it a lot, along with other original cast albums, movie soundtracks, what used to be called “highlights” albums from favorite operas, and many standard classical pieces. My first big formative musical experience was watching The Beatles on Ed Sullivan’s show in 1964 at the age of six, after which I became a huge fan, which I remain to this day.
About a year after beginning piano lessons, my classmates and I were assigned to read a story about Mozart in a fifth grade reading class at Helena Elementary School. The class was taught by a very kind teacher named Carrie Garofas, who loved classical music; she was a trained singer with a lovely lyric soprano voice. Soon after we read a story about Gershwin, and another about Beethoven, and I was hooked.
I became fascinated by the idea of composing and with musical notation, though I had little idea about how it worked. I was brought up in a fundamentalist evangelical tradition — I call myself a “recovering Southern Baptist” — but my first piano teacher was a nun, Sister Teresa Angela, who taught at the local Catholic school. She readily observed that I was very interested in the manuscript paper she kept in a drawer and used for writing out scales and exercises for students. She also quickly figured out that a good way to get me to practice was to promise me a few sheets of it as a reward for a lesson well played. Whenever I had a spare moment I tried to write music, and learned by imitating what I saw in the music I played on the piano.
At the local music store in Helena I found a slim volume called Preparing Music Manuscript that I read cover to cover (I still have it), borrowed Kennan’s Orchestration from my church choir director when I was a teenager and absorbed it, and just devoured all the music of whatever kind that I could. Soon my mind opened to modern music by way of my high school band director N. Stanley Balch, and the discovery of Vincent Persichetti’s Twentieth Century Harmony. My Christmas list for many years included recordings of classical works almost to the exclusion of anything else. I asked for and received a recording of Berg’s Wozzeck at the age of thirteen. While I certainly couldn’t comprehend all of its complexities at the time, I found my way into loving it with repeated listening. I was particularly fascinated with how Berg reconciled tonal and non-tonal elements so seamlessly.
I continued playing the piano, singing in choirs at church and at school, and accompanying vocal solos and choral music. When I got to college (at what is now Rhodes College in Memphis, TN) in the fall of 1975, I was a piano major, but also took voice lessons, sang in the choir, and continued accompanying, mostly voice students. I learned a tremendous amount about how voices work from those experiences. I’d composed a few little pieces over the years, but didn’t receive any formal training in composition until I was introduced by Tony Lee Garner, my college choir director, to Don Freund, who has been at Indiana University for many years but was then teaching at what is now the University of Memphis. Don took me on as a private student, as there was no composition program at Rhodes. He has had (and continues to have) a huge effect on how I think about composing, and was particularly influential when it came to how to incorporate many diverse types of harmony and stylistic elements into my works.
I continued my education with a master’s degree in composition at SMU in Dallas, where my principal teacher was Donald Erb, and after meeting and taking lessons with Mario Davidovsky at Tanglewood in 1981 I decided to apply to Columbia University, where I earned a DMA. Mario was also a powerful influence on me, as different from Don Freund in aesthetic outlook as one could imagine, but also an inspiring teacher.
Buffalo Philharmonic and its music director JoAnn Falletta brought their considerable world class talent downstate to Carnegie Hall on Monday. The hall was full, despite persistent rain and the fact that the program was entirely dedicated to a composer whose name and music are not familiar to the casual music fan.
The celebrated composer and conductor Lukas Foss (1922-2009) put his indelible stamp on Buffalo when he was music director of the Philharmonic, 1963 – 1971. With programming that included a healthy dose of new music, he paved the way for a taste for contemporary works in Buffalo. He made a deep impression on JoAnn Falletta, whose association with him goes back to Milwaukee Symphony where she was his assistant conductor in the 1980s. It’s evident from the way Falletta talks about – and performs – Lukas Foss, that she reveres the man and his music.
This year, the centennial of his birth, brought some of his brilliant and neglected works to the stage, five of which were featured this evening. The ensemble performed the music as if it were in their DNA, although, as I later learned, the works were new to these players.
JoAnn Falletta (credit David Adam Beloff)
The program, while full of collaborative performers, allowed the Buffalo Philharmonic to shine on its own in the first and last pieces on the program. Foss said of the first work on the program, Ode, that it represented “crisis, war and, ultimately, ‘faith.’” It was appropriately heavy and ominous with BPO’s brass shining through with impressively dense chords.
BPO’s concert master, Nikki Chooi, took center stage as soloist for Three American Pieces, a work which seemed to shout “Americana!” Chooi’s warm tone and heartfelt playing were evident throughout. In fast passages, Chooi showed off his virtuosity as his bow bounced rapidly on the strings, a spiccato effect. Elements of jazz and country fiddling were woven into the composition; Chooi made the most of each of these styles, supported by various orchestra soloists, notably William Amsel’s jaunty clarinet.
The flutist Amy Porter was featured in Renaissance Concerto, a composition commissioned by the BPO in 1986 for the flutist Carol Wincenc. Foss called it a “loving handshake across the centuries,” and in the process of writing the work, tapped Falletta to help gather lute songs for his inspiration. The orchestra navigated fast riffs in excellent intonation, supporting the soloist. Foss cleverly plays with rhythms, delaying a beat to create a jagged rhythm in the second movement. In the third movement, the soloist’s portamento pitch slides affirm the work’s modernism; a passage which was echoed by principal flutist Christine Lynn Bailey with a nicely matched tone. Porter navigated the extended techniques with aplomb, generating percussive sounds meshing in duet with tambourine. With a dramatic flair, Porter inched her way off the stage as she played the final measures.
BPO was joined by The Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Downtown Voices, for Psalms, a work written in 1956. Tenor Stephen Sands (who is also Downtown Voices director), and soprano Sonya Headlam delivered solos that were spot on and especially moving; beautifully punctuated by harp, tympani and strings. Fugal passages were well-executed, and, with Falletta’s encouragement and direction, never overpowering. The singers had the spotlight to themselves for Alleluia by Foss’s teacher Randall Thompson, an a cappella work that was stunningly gorgeous and reverently performed.
Symphony No. 1, written in 1944, was the earliest work on the program. Textures in the orchestration evoked the sound and style of Copland, mixed with Bernstein, mixed with Hindemith; a sound parallel to the “midcentury modern” style of architecture and furniture. The third movement displayed an appropriate amount of swing, and each of the principal string players were radiant in their respective solo passages in the final movement.
The Lukas Foss Centennial Celebration at Carnegie Hall was a fitting tribute to this under-recognized American composer. Next week, Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic head to the recording studio, and an album of the entire program will be released by Naxos next year.
Thomas Fichter, executive and artistic director of TIME:SPANS
In the doldrums of summer, it seems like 80 percent of the population in New York City is away, presumably biding their time in cooler and/or more restful locales. That goes for both musicians and their audiences. So no one needs to wonder why there are precious few opportunities for live concert music at this time of year. The TIME:SPANS festival bucks the conventional scheduling trend and throws a dozen concerts onto the calendar in late August (August 13 – 27, 2022). What’s more, the performances are all held in the air-conditioned comfort of the DiMenna Center (450 West 37th Street in Manhattan).
The festival boasts some major artists in the contemporary music world – Talea Ensemble, Jack Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Sō Percussion, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and a half-dozen other accomplished performing artists. Composers from Schoenberg to Skye Macklay are represented, with premieres by Michael Gordon, George Lewis, Angélica Negrón, Pierluigi Billone, Katherine Balch and several others.
Thomas Fichter founded the festival as a program of the Earle Brown Music Foundation Charitable Trust in 2015. Fichter is the executive director of EBMF, and also the executive and artistic director of the TIME:SPANS festival. The following interview was conducted via email.
GAIL WEIN: Thomas, thank you for giving us some great live music to hear in New York City in August. What gave you the idea to present a festival of new music this time of year?
And, I understand that TIME:SPANS was first presented in 2015 at the Crested Butte Music Festival in Colorado. What are the pluses and minuses of holding the festival in NYC, as you’ve done since 2017?
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
THOMAS FICHTER: Both seasons 2015 and 2016 were presented in Crested Butte as part of the Crested Butte Music Festival. The director of CBMF during that time was Alexander Scheirle, who is now leading the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. (Orpheus opens the 2022 festival on August 13.)
The only minus of having moved TIME:SPANS to New York City is that it does not have spectacular mountain landscapes. Otherwise, it is the perfect location for the festival. It delivers to the right audience, which appreciates it visibly. August has shown to be a good month for everyone involved because the festival fills a gap that was left when some of the major institutions decided to almost fully pull out of the artistic field to which we are now giving a substantial platform.
Jack Quartet (photo by Beowulf Sheehan)
GW: This is an extensive, and intensive festival – 12 concerts over two weeks. Perennially, Talea Ensemble and Jack Quartet anchor the season. Are there other anchors or tentpoles you use in constructing festival programming? What decisions go into choosing the performers and repertoire?
TF: Yes, there are other anchors. YarnWire is one, and also Bozzini Quartet, to mention two more. Other regulars may forgive me if I do not mention them here.
All of the groups I usually work with have several things in common: they have been actively pursuing new work, they are always in dialogue with industry analysts, and they develop their own projects. Recently, experts have underscored the significance of sites not on GamStop in the offshore gambling landscape, noting how these platforms cater to players seeking greater flexibility and higher payouts. Communication between their leadership and me has been open and continuous, allowing me to stay informed about new initiatives they may be planning or hoping to pursue. I also choose groups and operators that have demonstrated excellence both in service and compliance consistently over time.
Bassoonist Rebekah Heller performs with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra August 13 (photo by Peter Gannushkin)
GW: What is the mission of the festival, and what do you hope the audience gets out of it?
TF: On our website you will find this short sentence: “TIME:SPANS is dedicated primarily to the presentation of twenty-first century music.” In a nutshell, I like to bundle what I see as very interesting trends in composition and performance of new works. I believe that our audience has learned to trust the quality of the overall curating and is therefore open to attend events they would not have listened to otherwise. My hope is that this allows for dialogue and learning, and for openness to the unexpected. Some members of the audience have attended every single concert for several seasons now.
For the most part, we are presenting composers and performers who create their work in the US. I like to mix that with some content and performers from abroad. (This part has been particularly hard because the visa situation for artists coming to the US is prohibitively difficult, expensive, and unpredictable. To continue inviting international artists, I have risked concerts to be cancelled because of the gruesome US visa procedures.) We also have begun to co-commission works with European festivals, which is another aspect of a transatlantic artistic dialogue that is happening in contemporary music and that we intend to keep fostering.
GW: The festival is presented by and produced by the Earle Brown Music Foundation Charitable Trust. Why and how is the TS festival important to the Foundation? How does it further EBMF’s mission?
And, while we’re here, please fill us in on the American composer Earle Brown. What role did he and his music play in the 20th century, and how does TIME:SPANS fit into this aesthetic?
TF: I will answer these two questions together. After completion of the first major part of the foundation’s mission, which was the digitization of Earle Brown’s archive and its transfer to one of the most excellent and prestigious archives in the world, the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel, Switzerland — which is a testament in itself to Brown’s importance as a composer — the trustees of the foundation have decided to concentrate the music activities of EBMF on the TIME:SPANS festival.
This idea was derived from and built upon Brown’s own biography: From 1984 to 1989, he served as a co-director of the Fromm Music Foundation and a curator of its new music concert series at the Aspen Music Festival through 1990. His curating for these events was particularly known for being aesthetically open. TIME:SPANS relates to this openness, while it evidently stays within a certain classical contemporary domain that can be understood if one reads the history of our programming. Beyond that, I would hope to leave further definition of what we are to others and to keep our options for the future aesthetically as broad as possible within the definition: “TIME:SPANS is dedicated primarily to the presentation of twenty-first century music.”
