WHO: Faculty of Chamber Music Conference of the East WHAT: SCOTT WHEELER Piano Trio No. 2 "Camera Dances"; HINDEMITH Kleine Kammermusik, Op. 24 No. 2; BRAHMS Piano Quintet, Op. 34 WHERE: Greenwall Auditorium, Bennington College, Bennington, VT WHEN: August 3, 2019 at 8:00pm
An abridged list of things I did during my week at Bennington:
Play the Beethoven "Ghost" trio
Play Shostakovich's 7th string quartet
Play a Beethoven quartet (Op. 18 No. 6, for those who are counting)
Play a Mendelssohn quartet (Op. 12)
Explain to my friends approximately 47 times that yes, I go to a music camp that requires me to learn four full pieces in one week, and yes, this is my idea of fun
Get called a masochist approximately 47 times
Have a conversation with the Bennington College music librarian that ended with, "I'm so glad that score of Schoenberg's Book of the Hanging Gardens (which was on sale for $2 at the annual music sale) is going to a good home." Why yes, I'll feed it and water it and turn it towards the sunlight, just like I do with the rest of my....scores?
Read Shostakovich's second piano trio (read: really really hard) with one of those pianists who is like "oh yeah, I'm just sightreading" and then proceeds to nail 90% of the notes at full tempo. She may be reading this. She knows who she is.
Eat lots of dining hall food, reminding me that yes, I am happy to have a kitchen this upcoming year
Pitch the #1Summer50Concerts project approximately 47 times
Explain approximately 47 times that yes, I went to 50 concerts and yes, I enjoyed myself
Get called a masochist approximately 47 times
Blog while sitting on a bench that overlooks miles and miles of open field (with a little path weed-whacked into it so people can go on walks through the waist-high grass) while listening to Alexandre Tharaud's recordings of the last three Beethoven piano sonatas (would recommend)
Explore said open field, for shits and giggles
Come across a mystical forest path that looked something like this:
Enter the forest path
Come out the other side to this view:
Scare a mama deer a little further down the path
Stargaze
Obsess over shoes and Bruno Helstroffer (the world's sexiest lute player) with a group of snarky childless 40-somethings
Sweat. A lot. The music building wasn't air conditioned.
An unabridged list of things I did not do during my week at Bennington:
One moment before God decides that the Abraham-and-Isaac
telenovela doesn't need to end like Orange is the New Black did
(intentionally vague to avoid spoilers -- if you know, you know)
WHO: American Modern Opera Company (Anthony Roth-Costanzo, countertenor; Paul Appleby, tenor; Matthew Aucoin, piano; Wayne Koestenbaum, narrator) WHAT:Veils for Desire: Works by Britten, Monteverdi, Bach, and Aucoin WHERE: Spanish Courtyard at Caramoor WHEN: July 25, 2019 at 7:00pm
Poolside blogging. I think I've reached a new low.
Just a short one for today, because I reviewed this concert for Opera News (I think it'll be published in October along with my last one?) and I can't release any spoilers! So here are a few things that didn't make it into my review:
I think short-sleeved button downs are the concert dress of the future, especially when they're bright pink like Wayne Koestenbaum's was. Too bad I can't pull one off to save my life.
ARC and Paul Appleby had an interesting father-son chemistry in Britten's Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac -- it worked, to say the least.
Wayne Koestenbaum is a badass. He didn't sing, so I couldn't say much about him in my review. But he had such a cadence to his speech...love at first word.
Caramoor is still absolutely LOVELY. Nature for the win.
I wish trains ran from Katonah more than hourly because I waited on that platform for, like, half an hour and I had about 973 bug bites to show for it.
The review should drop soon! I'll link to it when it does, and you can read it (if you're a subscriber).
WHO: Davóne Tines, bass-baritone; Zack Winokur, director; vocal/dance/ instrumental ensembles WHAT: MICHAEL SCHACHTER The Black Clown WHERE: Gerald W. Lynch Theater @ John Jay College WHEN: July 24, 2019 at 7:30pm
As I'm sure you've gathered, I've been in NYC all summer, but I haven't really made time for many "New York" things. No Governor's Island. No museums. You know.
Most lamentably, I haven't really made much time at all for Broadway shows. I do love musical theater, even if my métier is primarily classical. But they're expensive. And they're always at the same time as classical concerts. And they require going down to the ninth circle of hell: Times Square.
The Black Clown wasn't *exactly* a Broadway show. But it was the closest I was going to get within my price range (MMF gives out student tickets for $20). And I have to say, I enjoyed it tremendously.
The concept basically chopped up Langston Hughes's poem The Black Clown into bite-sized chunks -- two to three lines at most -- and used each to base a movement (scene?) of the staging. The music showed MMF's initiative in breaking out of the strictly classical world: the pit orchestra was more of a big band, the ensemble singers evoking a gospel feel.
And at the center of it all was Davóne Tines, one of the most versatile opera singers I've ever seen. Sure, Renée Fleming has her Broadway album. Joyce DiDonato did her jazz-baroque mashup. But Davóne Tines is making his name with these cutting-edge crossover projects, not riding on his pre-established reputation so he can do something "weird."
PC: Richard Termine
Tines, clad in a black and white pleated zoot suit (this time with a shirt), was the perfect choice as a centerpiece for this project, but his phenomenal performance still rested in the second-place slot. The ensemble of singers, dancers, and actors took what was already a musically and socially meaningful production and made it dazzling. The ensemble was at once a gospel choir equal to some of the best on earth; a West Side Story-level dance troupe; and the catalysts for every emotion Tines displayed from the stage (and there were many). Tenor Brandon Michael Nase deserves special mention for striking a balance between minute, detail-oriented musicality and a soaring, piercing tone.
Each movement was fabulous in isolation; the scenes took all forms, from upbeat-swing big band charts to wrenching ballads and even a couple instances of authentic 1920s banjo jazz. The music Michael Schachter composed was stylistically appropriate, if not so adventurous; the highlights were his arrangements of various spiritual tunes, including a tear-jerking rendition of "Motherless Child." The piece as a whole read more as a song cycle rather than a through-composed work; there was very little functionally connecting each movement to the next. I did not find that particularly bothersome, but I think that a super-sudden transition from jubilant celebration to dour, prayer-like solemnity is a little bit hard on the audience as a whole.
PC: Richard Termine
I couldn't say this in my previous review of him, but I'm just going to sum up with one final thought: Davóne Tines is worth seeking out. He's a voice of the future. He's only going to get more popular. I'm not sure where The Black Clown is headed next, or if there are even plans to do it again soon. But no matter what, you can never go wrong with Davóne Tines.
The wire-rimmed glasses and sweater really make Vijay look like he
teaches at Harvard....oh wait, what's that? He does teach at Harvard?
WHO: Vijay Iyer, piano; Graham Hayes, cornet/flugelhorn/electronics; Steve Lehman, alto saxophone; Mark Shim, tenor saxophone; Stephan Crump, bass; Jeremy Dutton, drums WHERE: The Village Vanguard WHEN: July 19, 2019 at 8:30pm
My 17-year-old brother made an impromptu trip to NYC for a weekend with two very, very clear conditions. The first was that we go on a pizza crawl through lower Manhattan. The second was that I had to take him to the Village Vanguard. But not necessarily in that order.
So I plucked him off his MegaBus (which was an hour late, but frankly who's surprised?) and we moseyed (ran?) on down to The Vanguard. He didn't care what was playing. I, of course, did.
My brother's listening habits are eclectic. He's a bassist, both jazz and classical; on any given day, he'll jump from Kanye to Brahms's GermanRequiem and back to Vince Staples or Brockhampton. Right now, he's sitting in the corner of my apartment singing both parts to "Maria" from West Side Story in (more or less) the correct octave.
He's got a few albums he goes back to time and time again. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing Winterreise. The Beach Boys's Pet Sounds. Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly. But the one he goes back to most often is of drug-addled pianist-composer-genius Bill Evans sitting at The Vanguard's Yamaha alongside his trio.
"Alice in Wonderland" is his favorite
We went down the stairs. He smelled the Vanguard smell. We sat down below one of those framed records. And he turned to me and said with a shit-eating grin, "You know who sat there? Bill Evans. Bill Evans sat there.
"Now, who are we seeing tonight?"
"Vijay Iyer."
"Who?"
So I explain. Vijay Iyer. Music cognition PhD candidate turned jazz (and occasionally classical) composer. With his sextet, whose alto saxist is also a PhD-level composer, and whose drummer got picked up straight out of college (he's like 24 now -- feel inadequate yet?).
"But is he as good as Bill Evans?"
What the hell am I supposed to say to that? Like, less heroin? Except even when you strip the drugs out of Bill Evans's charts, they're still totally different from Vijay Iyer's? Because they're both geniuses?
I decided on the most concise way to say just that: "Shut up and listen."
And so he did.
The quartet did the same thing that the Uri Caine Trio did back in concert #2 -- they basically played for an hour straight, blurring the transitions between charts so you didn't realize you were in a different realm until you were already there. I often found myself bopping my head to the beat, except that Vijay Iyer's style is marked by sudden slight changes in beat pattern, so I'd end up on the offbeats or something ridiculous like that.
I don't know what any of the charts are called (the Sextet was *too cool* to announce) but I can tell you that they were all amazing. The upbeat songs let the rhythm section show off their technical prowess -- Stephan Crump's bass playing and mouth movements were each something to behold, and Jeremy Dutton imparted the most expression one can into an unpitched instrument. The downbeat songs let the horn players show off their ability to fill the the spaces above the sparse, but aurally complex chord structure. And regardless, Vijay Iyer was there with his exquisitely-voiced comping and wildly virtuosic solos.
And speaking of space and solos, the most fascinating thing was how the soloists used empty space. Steve Lehman's alto solos tried to fit the most notes into the smallest space: exhausting, but impressive. Graham Haynes used an echo/looping effect on his cornet solos, basically playing a few notes and waiting for the loop to fade before playing a few more: intellectual, but minimal. Mark Shim trod the line, his solos gaining momentum like a loose car down a steep hill before hitting a brick wall of silence.
Of course, it wouldn't be a Vijay Iyer concert without the obligatory politically-charged rant that he improvises over the final chords of his set. The theme is always the same: the struggle is Far From Over (coincidentally, the name of the Sextet's most recent album). According to my friend, Iyer actually mentioned Trump by name in his Tuesday set, essentially echoing the message that YG & Nipsey Hussle so eloquently purvey in the popular song linked below. This particular evening, there was an elderly couple in the front row that particularly jived with what Vijay had to say. #woke
My brother and I both left the Vanguard happy into one of the hottest nights of the summer; we made the wise, wise decision to traipse around the Village and the Lower East Side in pursuit of pizza. Two slices and a whole pie later, we patted our sweaty bellies. It had been a good night.
John's of Bleecker Street, the favorite pie of the night
Perks of reviewing for legit organizations: actual professional photos (PC: Gabe Palacio)
WHO: Davóne Tines, bass-baritone; Dover Quartet WHAT: MENDELSSOHN Theme and Variations, Scherzo, and Fugue from Four Pieces for String Quartet, Op. 81; BARBER Dover Beach; CAROLINE SHAW By and By; DVOŘÁK String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat major, Op. 105 WHERE: Spanish Courtyard at Caramoor WHEN: July 12, 2019 at 8:00pm
I'm not going to say much about this performance -- I reviewed this concert for Opera News and I don't want to give away my opinions before it gets published. I'll link the review here once it gets published -- you can read it if you're a subscriber.
In the meanwhile, here are a few things that I didn't get to mention in my review:
Davóne Tines's stage outfit was a black suit with no shirt. Let me tell you, he ROCKED it.
There was some action with candles onstage -- Tines lit a candle in the silence between Dover Beach and By and By, and an ill-timed breeze nearly burned the stage tent down.
At the pre-concert Q&A session, a(n over-)zealous chamber-music camp parent chaperone asked Dover cellist Camden Shaw how he handles it when he gets lost in a performance. After a short pause, he answered in his booming, croony voice, "I don't know, look pretty?"
Caramoor is absolutely LOVELY. You know why? Because nature is great. NYC almost made me forget that.
Caroline Shaw was not there or I would have said hi to her this time. I promise.
WHO: Pauline Kim Harris, violin; Spencer Topel, electronics WHAT: HARRIS/TOPEL Ambient Chaconne; Deo WHERE: The Stone @ The New School WHEN: July 11, 2019 at 8:30pm
In theory, going to concerts shouldn't be tiring. You get to sit. In air-conditioning, usually. Other people do the work of filling your ears with beautiful music. It's all included in the ticket price -- you just sit back and relax.
But going back to what I said a couple posts ago about not being able to turn my critic brain off -- concerts are tiring for me. In my mind, listening to music is synonymous with forming judgments. I don't see that as either a good thing or a bad thing. It just kind of is how I work.
Occasionally, though, I wish that I could lose myself in a concert. Turn off my brain for a few minutes.
I'm not going to tell you that I succeeded. But I came damn close at this concert.
I'm usually not a huge consumer of ambient music, but there are some great classical-ambient crossovers. I think that the Harris/Topel duet is going to join the greats of the genre when their new album comes out in September. Armed with only a violin, a microphone, and a soundboard, the two presented a refreshing take on Bach (and also another composer -- I'll explain in a second).
I can't tell you a whole lot about the music itself. It moved slowly, sometimes changing so slightly over such a long period of time that I couldn't detect the transformation until after it had already happened. There were no jagged new-music-characteristic jump scares; just the sweet tone of Harris's violin, looped and amplified and augmented.
The first piece, Ambient Chaconne, was a transformation of the famous chaconne from Bach's D minor violin partita; bits and pieces were recognizable throughout, but the already-long piece was lengthened from 15 minutes to almost half an hour with a range of clever electronic fillers. (Side note: I turned to my trumpet-playing friend after the performance and asked if he'd heard the original chaconne. Blank stare.)
The second piece was based on a Deo gratias -- I heard the composer as Lachenmann, my friends heard Bach. Neither of those people wrote Deo gratias settings. Phooey. But it was great.
Update: I just looked at the album's liner notes. It was Ockeghem's Deo gratias. I think I was closer.
You can pre-order the album, Heroine, here, or just wait until September 27, when it will hopefully be available on Spotify. Fingers crossed.
EDIT: It's September 27, and the album dropped and is just as good as the live version was!
WHO: Pauline Kim Harris, violin; Christopher Otto, violin; Ches Smith, drums WHAT: JOHN ZORN Passagen for solo violin; Apophthegms for two violins; Ceremonial Magic for violin and drums WHERE: The Stone @ The New School WHEN: July 9, 2019 at 8:30pm
So this is my third concert so far at The Stone, and I have to say it's one of my favorite new concert venues in Manhattan. They run on a jazz-club schedule: artists take up weekly residency from Tuesday to Saturday and play a different hour-long show each night at 8:30pm. I have to imagine it's hard for the artists, but I've never seen any player at The Stone that looks like they don't want to be there, so they must be doing something right.
But even though they started as a jazz club of sorts (before they went under and The New School picked them up), the conservatory atmosphere has been infusing more experimental classical music into their ranks. Pauline Kim Harris was the first artist this summer who I would confidently say falls firmly in the classical camp, but she started her residency with a program from John Zorn, a composer who treads the line between experimental classical and experimental jazz.
Zorn's music is the most organized chaos you've ever heard. After a few minutes, you sort of write off any possibility that the instrumentalists are still in the correct place in the music -- of course, as soon as you do that, they come to some sort of serendipitous moment with *gasp* a consonant major chord or something like that and you realize that all of that chaos was just a means to an end (or vice versa?).
Pauline Kim Harris's playing was great, although her sound felt a little bit stifled by the red velvet curtains that were drawn around the audience and stage. Of course, that's not her fault -- her instrument has a quieter setup, so it needs a hard shell around the stage. But, for her sound problems, her playing was still vivacious and accurate.
Her co-conspirators didn't overshadow her, but were tremendous in their own right. JACK Quartet violinist Christopher Otto, armed with a louder instrument than Harris's, performed that Apophthegms as if it were encoded in some collective strand of DNA that he and Harris shared (it became eminently clear that their friendship was primarily musical by the awkward hug they shared after the performance). Ches Smith's drumming was possibly the highlight of the program -- the paradox between his sticks playing passages that would make Whiplash go pale, contrasted with the calm, slackjawed look on his face, was especially amusing.
Go to The Stone. That's all I'm going to say. Best $20 you'll ever spend.
WHO: Joe Jordan, oboe/English horn/piano; Dylan DelGiudice, guitar/drums/saxophone WHAT: Collaborative Compositions & Improvisations WHERE: Scholes Street Studio WHEN: July 2, 2019 at 8:00pm
Reviewing people you know is generally ill-advised. At best, you look biased; at worst, you lose a friend.
But you know what else was ill-advised? 50 concerts in one summer. And that didn't stop me, did it?
In simpler words: I care about supporting my friends more than I care about the rules.
Anyway, you know the drill. Tiny little venue in Brooklyn. I love those. Friends. I love those. New music. I love those.
I thought the performance was great. My grandmother would disagree. You see, when we start playing music, we are taught that there are "good sounds" and "bad sounds." Certain combinations of fingers lead to "good," and others lead to "bad."
But for this duo, nothing was off limits. It's one thing to push a random combination of keys and hope for the best; it's another thing to know exactly what toot, honk, or squawk will come out and to use that to make organized(-ish) and well-thought-out music. And it's yet another thing to have that knowledge on more than one instrument.
I'm pretty sure Joe and Dylan explored every possible noise on their collective six instruments throughout the night. Guitar effects. Fluttered oboe overtones. Plucked piano strings modified with a guitar slide. Everything, really.
The piece is based on Bach's fourth cello suite -- see the resemblance?
WHO: Elissa Cassini, violin & Ashley Bathgate, cello WHAT: WINKELMAN Rondo with a Janus Head; SAARIAHO Aure; NORMAN For Ashley; WINKELMAN Ciaccona; RAVEL Sonata for Violin and Cello WHERE: National Sawdust WHEN: June 29, 2019 at 7:00pm
I had a depressing conversation with another music critic friend the other day -- the topic was a syndrome that I like to call "critic brain." After reviewing 30 concerts, I feel jaded and hypercritical, like I never really enjoy anything to its full potential. In other words, I have started to wonder whether anything can really wow me anymore.
But every now and then a concert sets me straight, and makes me realize that my standards (which generally run a little too high) can be met. Can you guess what I'm going to say about Elissa and Ashley?
Yeah, they killed it. Like, jaw-on-the-floor.
Cassini has been spending the past couple years touring as a solo duo, so to speak. She teams up with anyone and everyone -- string players, non-string players, classical, jazz, world music -- to bring the gospel of duo music to her audience. And, what's more, she tries to engage with her audiences -- that's right, more audience participation! (Although this particular performance was not so heavy on the repeat-after-me songs I've been dishing on throughout the summer.)
Her partner this time was Ashley Bathgate, current cellist of the Bang on a Can All-Stars (one of NYC's first and foremost new music ensembles). Bathgate has always been a force of nature; critics went crazy for her first album, a 2016 recording of six new works for solo cello by Australian composer Kate Moore. She was actually what drew me to this concert in the first place, quite frankly.
But both Cassini and Bathgate played astoundingly well. They are longtime friends, and it just sort of felt like we were sitting in on another Saturday-night jam session. Smiley and energetic, the duo were in sync to the millisecond -- the NY premiere of Helena Winkelman's highly technical Rondo with a Janus Head showed off their two-as-one synergy, while Kaija Saariaho's Aure showed each's individual musical prowess a bit more.
The two performers each channeled Bach through a pairing of solo movements; the first was a Bathgate-commissioned piece by LA native Andrew Norman, the second, another NY Premiere by Helena Winkelman. The Norman was particularly cool, taking one rhythmic module and modifying it by microtones throughout. The concert finished with the Ravel duo which is sort of proto-modernist -- it uses a lot of the same harmonic language as did Andrew Norman or Kaija Saariaho.
I don't know. I feel like I'm not saying anything particularly inspiring about this concert. But I have to emphasize that it was truly fantastic. Maybe I just remember that it was fantastic and don't remember a ton of the details. But it was amazing. Trust me.
WHO: Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet; Mariel Roberts & Okkyung Lee, cello; Erika Dohi, piano; Gabriel Zucker, synthesizer WHAT: WADADA LEO SMITH Red Autumn Gold; Silence WHERE: The Stone @ The New School WHEN: June 28, 2019 at 8:30pm
So here's the thing.
I loved Wadada Leo Smith's performance. I think that what he did was innovative, and cool, and kept me interested the whole time.
There's only one problem: I don't really know what he did.
I think it was some sort of free jazz. Let me try to describe it. All the musicians were reading off of graphic scores, the kind that don't really specify anything other than direction and approximate time. The keyboard played a lot of single drone notes. The pianist alternated between random, Messiaen-tinged licks and dissonant chords for which she leaned over the top of the piano to damper the strings. The cellists never really played notes so much as effects -- a lot of sliding, a lot of weird in-between harmonics. And Wadada Leo Smith would occasionally come in with a super super loud entrance that would disturb the peace like a comic book character who pops a thought bubble with a pushpin.
Free jazz isn't the right term. It was just kind of....free. I think Wadada's goal was to let the music flow for itself. He sort of vaguely conducted occasionally, but really it was up to the players how the music went. They weren't given too many instructions. They did what they wanted. Wadada nodded in approval.
I mean, I don't have a ton to say about the performance. It was exactly what I needed on a Friday night. It wasn't particularly tough to listen to. Wadada's occasional loud entrances made me jump a little bit, especially considering that the #@%$ing column in the middle of the venue (huge design flaw) kept me from seeing him half the time. The performers all had good imaginations and, even in moments with repeated modules, every note was novel.
If you want to get into new music, this is not where you should start. But if you're interested in exploring a new sound world -- my date and I concluded that it was a sound world rather than a type of music -- then give Wadada a try.
Also, one parting observation: we need more cello jazz in this world. That is all.
Hazama conducting her ensemble, the Danish Radio Big Band
WHO: Choir of Saint Peter's; Miho Hazama, piano
WHAT: MIHO HAZAMA Jazz Mass
WHERE: Saint Peter's Church
WHEN: June 26, 2019 at 6:00pm
Okay guys, real talk: we're over halfway through. I'm starting to feel the burnout. Not from going to concerts, but 50 reviews, it's a lot to write. So tonight, I'm gonna take it easy: get ready for my bullet-point review of Miho Hazama's Jazz Mass.
I loved...
how the whole thing felt relaxing, suave, and not intended to blow the roof off.
how the Sanctus kept switching from 11/8 to 10/8 and then back again -- just as you got into the groove, the choir pulled the rug out from under you
Miho Hazama's piano part. Half the time it was an exact doubling of the choir, but the other half of the time it was soloistic and full of flourish.
the sermon, to be honest. You know I'm not man of religion, but their hearts, minds, and (most importantly) politics were in the right place.
I'm still thinking about...
the tenors who traded four-bar solos. They were very consciously walking the thin line between being creative and offending the pious Wednesday churchgoers.
the Kyrie, which lasted all of one or two minutes -- mostly homophonic, full of cool chords.
the sanctuary at Saint Peter's. Like, what is that shape?
I wish...
they had advertised better! I only heard about it because a friend was singing, and there were maybe ten people there. I was the only one (other than members of the choir) who didn't take communion.
I could hear the piece outside of a service. In the service, it was weird and clunky. Outside the service, it would have been a super cool 15 minutes of music.
WHO: The Bad Plus (Reid Anderson, bass; Orrin Evans, piano; Dave King, drums) WHERE: The Jazz Standard WHEN: June 25, 2019 at 9:30pm
Who decided it was time for Classical Music Geek's #JazzWeek? Well, blame the NYC classical music gods for not scheduling any concerts, and the NYC jazz gods for cramming all the legendary artists into one week. It was sort of just...fate.
I will admit, this was the second time in the last few months that I'd seen The Bad Plus. The first time was in March at the Village Vanguard, and Alton Brown (from Food Network) was sitting behind me. I even bumped behinds with him on the way out of coat check. Thinking about it a little harder, of course Alton Brown likes jazz.
This set was largely the same as the set that I saw them do in March. But you know what? It was equally good the second time. And that's how I define good jazz: it's never the same thing twice, and one time is never "better" than another. They're just different.
It would be sacrilegious for me to evaluate each player individually. One of the most incredible things about the ensemble is that, when they are playing together, they are not Reid Anderson, Orrin Evans, and Dave King. They are The Bad Plus, one six-armed three-headed multi-instrumental beast whose heart beats in time to the music.
Though the three were seemingly one in playing, each's compositions had their own signature twinge. Evans's compositions were rife with rhythmic complexity -- his chart "Commitment" (inspired by a Chia pet that Evans once cared for, according to a half-baked comedic interlude by Anderson) started in an intensely rollicking medium three-beat before switching suddenly to a quasi-waltz macabre in seven for a few bars. King's were a little more neo-rock influenced, heavy on the parallel chords and virtuosic drum breaks. "Lean in the Archway" reads as a jazz-rock fusion chart, but the usual four-beat is replaced by an amalgam of sevens, eights, and nines. Anderson's charts were the most balanced of the three, doling out harmonic and locomotive responsibilities evenly, as in the sparse "Kerosene."
The one thing that makes me partial to The Bad Plus over so many other groups is their evident selflessness. So many jazz musicians use music as a medium to show themselves off, to make themselves the center of attention. One could say that, by performing only original compositions, The Bad Plus does this inherently, but I don't agree. Their onstage affect seems to say that the music is chief. They don't engage in over-the-top showmanship; Evans bops his head, Anderson closes his eyes, King sticks his tongue out, but no visual gets in the way of the auditory experience.
Go see them. That's all I'll say. You won't be sorry. Rest assured, if they're back at a jazz club in NYC when I'm around, I will do the same. And the set may be the same for the third time in a row. And it'll still be great.
Throwback to the short phase where my brother was convinced he
wanted to learn hurdy-gurdy -- talk about college application padding
WHO: ChamberQUEER WHAT: Works by Hildegard, Tallis, Caroline Shaw, Mazz Swift, Cavalli, Saunder Choi, and Monteverdi WHERE: Brooklyn Arts Exchange WHEN: June 22, 2019 at 8:00pm
“this isn’t about god
well it could be about god
it just depends how wide your perception of god is”
We're at the halfway point guys!
I sometimes feel like I need one of those Hermione Granger time-turner gadgets, because choosing between two phenomenal concerts always gets me stressed. In this particular case, it was either the second performance of ChamberQUEER or the Boston Early Music Festival’s stagings of three short French baroque operas. And in the end, I decided to go ChamberQUEER — French baroque opera makes my brain happy, but ChamberQUEER makes my heart happy.
Besides which, after the first concert, I had this lingering feeling that I was going to miss something monumental if I didn’t go to ChamberQUEER. And boy, would I have.
So I arrived back in Park Slope for the second concert, greeted again by the same lovely crew, and sat down in the tiny, stuffy room for another night of great music. Word had gotten out to at least some extent, so the audience was full, and mostly not of the same people from the other night. The performers, too, were all different (with the exception of the founder core and the harpsichordist) — they comprised an octet of singers, a couple of new violinists, and an electric guitarist.
Again, the program was pretty varied — everything from renaissance classics to new pieces, all tremendous. So here goes the laundry list again:
The concert started with a sing-in of original-feminist Hildegard von Bingen’s O quam magnum miraculum, accompanied by a real live hurdy-gurdy (played by harpsichordist extraordinaire Kevin Devine), followed immediately by a lovely Tennyson setting by ChamberQUEER friend and violist Jessica Meyer (she performed extensively at the first concert). A couple in manus tuas followed — first Tallis’s from a quintet of vocalists, then Caroline Shaw’s, as performed by attacca quartet cellist Andrew Yee.
There was only one fully instrumental piece on the entire program: excerpts from Mazz Smith’s 16 Hits or Misses. The name in itself is a disclaimer to the audience, but Smith, a lauded inter-genre violinist, was sure to provide her own warning that this piece “might not be that good.” I don’t know why she bothered to do that — the piece was charming. Modeled after the Bartók violin duos, Smith’s Hits or Misses straddled that ever-growing gap between classical tradition and popular music. I never thought I wanted to hear techno-funk played by two violins. But now I want to hear it again.
The final act of the first half was a series of scenes from Francesco Cavalli’s La Calisto — the basic gist being that Calisto rejects Jove, so Jove dresses up like the goddess Diana in hopes of wooing Calisto. Calisto, then wooed, attempts to nuzzle up to the real Diana and is swiftly rebuffed — FIN. Kind of a crazy gender-bent story from the beginning, with a ton of big gay energy (I thought homosexuality was taboo in the renaissance?) — perfect for ChamberQUEER! Mezzo Liz Bouk’s (he/him) passionate Jove was only outdone by his disgusted Diana — he has the PERFECT what-the-fuck face for the role. Danielle Buonaiuto’s (they/she) Calisto was suave and sensual, aided by their complete and utter comfort on the stage. Oh, and the sass-flecked subtitles set on a plain PowerPoint were a riot.
I know I put this in the first review, but I'm going to put it here again
because it's important! Support ChamberQUEER!
A short intermission switched the concert's gears to a cappella choral music sung one-to-a-part. The opener, Saunder Choi's American Breakfast, was a powerful statement about...well, everything. Gun violence, LGBTQ+ issues, all set against a bleak and boring all-American backdrop. It's a piece easily capable of gutting anyone with half a conscience, as it did to me.
The finale to the weekend-long ChamberQUEER experience was a set of four Monteverdi madrigals, but with a “ChamberQUEER twist,” as the founders put it. Guitarist Grey McMurray improvised connective material between each of the pieces, a prospect which bewildered me until the music actually began. McMurray’s experimental interludes essentially filled in all the genres that the Monteverdi couldn’t fill, with looping and microtones and echoes beyond belief — the perfect character foil to the similarly emotional, though stark and strict Monteverdi. The one that particularly stuck with me was the interlude before the final lament, the famous Lamento della ninfa in which a nymph bemoans her unrequited love; McMurray pointed out the essential crux of the renaissance madrigal by repeating the quote above. Lamento della ninfa itself was tremendous, with the nymph represented by countertenor Jonathan May; the gender-bend was refreshing, and May himself only got better as the part extended more into the nymph’s soprano range. Plus, McMurray used some of his pre-recorded loops to fill in the continuo line, which was just another layer of innovation.
Well, let’s just say I got exactly what I expected. The concert was fabulous. My pre- and post-concert banter was tolerated gladly. I turned down drinks again because I had work the next day.
Long story short: ChamberQUEER makes beautiful music in a space that questions the canon that has been shoved forth into our hands since early childhood. They are the future. Keep ChamberQUEER in mind, because one day they will be big. Mark my words.
WHO: New York City Opera WHAT:Stonewall, music by Iain Bell, libretto by Mark Campbell WHERE: Rose Theater @ Jazz at Lincoln Center WHEN: June 22, 2019 at 2:00pm
I am so glad that the NY City Opera decided that this project needed to be a part of their season. It's almost like they picked up the slack for all of the organizations whose seasons had already ended. And, from what I gather, this wasn't a Stonewall50 one-off -- I think the City Opera has a pride concert every year (at least there was one last year and there will be one next year).
I went into Stonewall with high hopes, and in some ways, those hopes were wholly fulfilled. The cast was, for the most part, absolutely stellar in both acting and singing. Marc Heller's police chief in particular stood out from the rest, his shrill, yet full Puccini tenor piercing above the percussive mumblings of the police force. As recently-fired teacher Carlos, Brian James Meyer's Spanish rolled off the tongue just as easily as his English, all encased in a sweet, yet fiery baritone. Lisa Chavez was perfectly cast as butch-in-charge Maggie; her agile mezzo seemed incongruous at times, but it was eminently clear that was on purpose.
On the whole, the production, while minimalistic, was stunning. Colored LED lights were hung on the perimeter of the set wall seemingly willy-nilly, both setting the mood and casting an ominous glow on the characters themselves. A few upstage benches created a leveling system that made the chaos that ensued a bit more organized. Choreographer Leonard Foglia executed a complicated vision with military accuracy, both in the dance breaks and the chaos that ensued. The orchestra, conducted by Hartford Symphony music director Carolyn Kuan, also played beautifully, especially considering that the score was in a more "musical theater" style that classical musicians often fail to take seriously.
An early preview
But while the performances and production were praiseworthy, parts of the opera were rife with glaring missteps.
One thing that always strikes me about a Mozart, or Verdi, or even a Strauss libretto is that there's a clear line between what a character says and what a character thinks. Something is left to the imagination -- not everything is said straight out, some plot points are implied, and it's up to the audience how to interpret that. Every person gets something different out of the opera.
Mark Campbell’s libretto tramples that line with reckless abandon. The characters themselves have no character because the libretto forces them to say every word that comes through their head — no filter at all. The result is an ineffective, crowded libretto that tells rather than shows, and characters who end up as personality-less, word-spewing automatons. This was especially glaring in the opening section of the opera, where each role got a five-minute arietta to explain their situation; some were more effectively written than others (Carlos’s firing was well-staged), but any monologue was wordy and altogether too long. It feels as if Campbell wanted to produce identical experiences for every member of the audience, which is not a tenable modus operandi for an opera
And that’s not even touching the issue of stereotypy — it was as if the composer and librettist painted caricatures of every type of LGBTQ+ person that would have existed at the time. And that’s exactly what the LGBTQ+ community has been trying to avoid in the recent past.
So overall, A+ for the nod to Stonewall's 50th anniversary and the pride month. A+ for the performances. A+ for the idea. A+ for the set, and costumes, and lighting.
Welcome to Classical Music Geek's Big Gay Classical Weekend! I saw three concerts last weekend, and only realized after the fact that all of them were queer-themed. And besides which, I'm not going to get to use the hashtag #MyBigGayClassicalWeekend again until they invent time travel to ancient Rome -- as the Romans say, carpe diem.
My lovely date for this concert turned up sick, and I was having some reservations about hiking all the way out to Park Slope to go to a concert alone. Usually, I'm totally fine with going to concerts alone -- it's almost meditative, I find -- but this concert was attached to a mixer and mixing is awkward. Have I mentioned that I'm awkward?
But then my dad made a good point: at a queer-themed chamber music concert, there was practically a 100% chance that I would run into someone I know. Fair enough. I decided to go.
Lo and behold, as soon as I mounted the stairs I ran into someone with whom I went to music camp in 2010 -- we hadn't seen each other since 2013 or so. Absolutely crazy.
The only thing we could think to do after not seeing each other for more
than six years was to take a selfie. Have I mentioned I'm awkward?
And then two minutes later, I heard a familiar voice behind me. Not in the friend's-voice kind of way -- a famous voice. I turn around to queer icon, composer, and youngest-woman-to-ever-win-a-Pulitzer Caroline Shaw, grabbing a drink and chatting with the bartender. Turns out, she was best friends with everyone there.
I did my best to play it cool, even though I really REALLY wanted to accost Caroline Shaw and pathetically fangirl like a 12-year-old-girl meeting One Direction for the first time (dated reference? I don't know, I haven't been up to date on pop culture since my grade's bar mitzvah era). In the end, I chickened out of talking to her at all, even though I had an easy conversation starter because we went to the same music camp when we were younger (about 10 years apart of course) -- Caroline, if you're reading this, the last line of your bio gets me every time. <3 <3 Kinhaven forever
So at this point, I'm just standing there like a bump on a log -- it's not like I KNEW anyone (I didn't officially reunite with my music camp friend until intermission). I must have looked panicked or something, because one of the organizers, soprano Danielle Buonaiuto stormed past, on their way to the drinks table, and then they stopped. In their tracks. And turned around. And started a conversation with me as if they dealt with awkward 20-somethings all day, every day.
Have I mentioned I'm awkward?
Already giddy at Danielle's random act of kindness, I went into the concert room and geared up for what turned out to be one of the best nights of music I've seen this summer.
The program consisted of an eclectic mix of "whatever we feel like." New music, old music, big music, small music, it was just all, in some way or another, LGBTQ+ related. And everything on the concert was tremendous -- so much so that, instead of the highlight reel I usually give right about now, I'm just going to run through a bit of everything.
Cellist and ChamberQUEER founder Andrew Yee's recompositions featured prominently on the program. First was a quilted pastiche of Caroline Shaw's greatest hits (coupled with quilted clips of people talking about their quilting habits -- get it?), followed later in the program by a couple of Schubert songs that Yee had arranged. Originally for four cellos, the songs were performed here by the ChamberQUEER founders in quartet (Buonaiuto, Yee, baritone Brian Mummert, and cellist Julia Biber). The arrangements perfectly preserved Schubert's harmonic framework while adding a quasi-madrigalistic intimacy that the customary voice-and-piano orchestration could never hope to parallel.
One of Andrew Yee's fawn-worthy Schubert arrangements -- I can't stop thinking about them
Alongside the recompositions stood a couple of more recent compositions. inti figgis-vizueta's charged string quartet love reacts only was impressive, but violist-composer-educator Jessica Meyer's song cycle Space, in Chains, written for viola and soprano after poetry by Laura Kasischke, stole the show. As Meyer so eloquently put it, "It's so nice to have this song cycle owned by someone. And Danielle [Buonaiuto] owns it." Buonaiuto's expert tone-coloring aided her comfortable acting to lend drama to even the most sparse moments of the piece; Meyer's writing explored every possible timbre that the duo could produce (it read a bit like the Holst violin-soprano songs, but on steroids). Oh, and she played her part beautifully as well.
And then for the odds and ends -- turns out most historians agree that Arcangelo Corelli was *probably* a closeted homosexual, so they threw one of his trio sonatas on the program. Handel and Haydn Society concertmaster and all-around badass Aisslinn Nosky played the first part (more on her in a week or so), joined by International Contemporary Ensemble member Jen Curtis, harpsichordist Kevin Devine, and Biber playing baroque cello. The interpretation was witty and whimsy, full of spontaneity and those little smirks that chamber musicians make to each other onstage. And then, Nosky, Curtis, Meyer, Yee, and Biber teamed up for British suffragette Ethel Smyth's string quintet. The piece was lovely, but more memorable was the tangible electricity that was running through the room. The energy was contagious.
At this point, I'd been wearing the same shit-eating grin for the entire concert. My face muscles started to seize up, but I couldn't stop smiling. Oh well, at least it was for a good cause.
And, naturally, what better way to end a pride concert than with a Pauline Oliveros audience-participatory piece? It's really been a trend this summer -- either this is part of NYC new music culture, or I'm just really lucky.
It was around this time that I decided I was going to grow a pair and talk to Caroline Shaw after the concert! It was around two minutes later that I decided that wasn't actually going to happen. My mother boo'd me when I told her that I chickened out. Have I mentioned I'm awkward?
This was another one of those concerts where I don't feel like I can do it justice in words. I've been to a lot of concerts this summer, guys. And I've been to a lot of concerts with a lot of young people in the audience, and I've been to a lot of concerts with a lot of queer people in the audience. But this concert? This concert made me feel like I found my people. When I left (instead of going out for drinks, because I'm 20½ and I have a conscience), my heart was full.
With any luck, the ChamberQUEER organizers and performers will be reading this -- I want to personally thank them for creating such an open and hospitable musical environment. I encourage each and every one of you to attend ChamberQUEER's community events during the year, and (hopefully!) their second season next summer.
And, just so that this post will show up next time she googles herself (we all do it, don't lie), I just wanted to say her name one more time: Caroline Shaw.
WHO: The Knights; Colin and Eric Jacobsen, directors; Kristina Nicole Miller, narrator and vocals; Nicholas Cords, viola; Alex Sopp, flute; Michael Atkinson, horn WHAT: C. JACOBSEN, E. JACOBSEN, KYLE SANNA Compositions after Walt Whitman; BRITTEN Lachrymae; LISA BIELAWA Fictional Migration; MENDELSSOHN Octet, Op. 20 WHERE: Temple Emanu-El WHEN: June 18, 2019, 7:00pm
"Don't fart."
That's all I can think when I sit in the audience of live-broadcast concerts. A cough is forgivable; a sneeze even more so. But if those WQXR microphones are poised just right, your toot could be the talk of the nine people who still listen to live concerts on the radio.
God, look at me. Potty humor, radio jokes, you'd think I grew up in the 2000's or something.
This concert was the opening of this year's Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, so named for the Naumburg Orchestral Shell in Central Park where they're usually played. However, 114 years of free orchestral concerts can take its toll, and the shell was in dire need of some TLC, so the concerts were moved for this year to the gorgeous (GORGEOUS) Temple Emanu-El on E 65th. Good thing, too -- it was rainy and disgusting while we were standing in the long, long line to get inside.
The Knights are one of the more active independent orchestras in New York City, the kind that starts with friends playing chamber music in someone's living room. This was their tenth consecutive appearance at the Naumburg series, and you could tell they felt right at home. This concert was a dual celebration: first and foremost, they were celebrating the 200th anniversary of Walt Whitman's birth. However, they also managed to get their hands on a tremendous Amati viola which was celebrating its 400th birthday -- move over, Whitman!
The full WQXR broadcast from the other night, fart-free!
Though Kristina Nicole Miller was credited in the program as a "narrator," her singing was one of the highlights of the first half. Kyle Sanna's Whitman composition, after a section of Song of Myself, morphed into something of a Disney-meets-modernism situation -- very interesting indeed. Miller would have been right at home as a Belle or Ariel, but her clear understanding of the complex Whitman propelled her far ahead of any Disney aspiration.
Lisa Bielawa's piece took many a cue from composer and amateur ornithologist Olivier Messiaen, weaving birdsong in and out of the gossamer orchestral texture with impressive aptitude -- though Bielawa's birdsongs were not taken from real birds, they were just as convincing as any material Messiaen drew from. Flautist Alex Sopp channeled her inner avian as though she'd been doing it regularly all her life; hornist Michael Atkinson played similarly well, but the gorgeous (GORGEOUS) Temple Emanu-El's acoustics did him a disservice by swallowing him completely.
The Amati came out in the hands of violist Nicholas Cords for Britten's Lachrymae, a piece modeled after John Dowland's 17th-century consort work of the same name. Cords played ridiculously well, from what I could hear of him -- Emanu-El is harsh on all mid-range instruments, not just horns. Too often, modern reinterpretations of early pieces suffer from hypermodernization; Cords and The Knights, under the functional baton of Eric Jacobsen, infused the Lachrymae with almost as much Dowland as Britten.
As for the Mendelssohn -- well, it certainly did the job. Eric Jacobsen pulled out his cello and joined the lively octet with his brother (concertmaster Colin Jacobsen), Nicholas Cords (400-year-old Amati in his hands), and five others from the orchestra. It was great. It was everything you wanted from chamber music. By the time the ensemble played the final E-flat chord, I was fully convinced that a) they had been playing together as an octet for years, and that b) they were all best of friends. Whether either of those were true, who knows, but that's the kind of emotion they exuded, and let me tell you, I couldn't wipe the grin off my face for the rest of the evening.
Free concerts are always worth it, but that doesn't mean that some free concerts aren't better than others. The Knights have impressed once again that not all great music has to come at a great price; some organizations care more about serving their audiences than they do about turning a profit. All musical ensembles want to serve their communities to at least some extent. And I think the Naumburg series has refined that art down to a T.
Stay tuned for the next Naumburg concert on July 10: Venice Baroque Orchestra with Anna Fusek, recorder!
It specifically reminded me of one of those neon candy orange slices -- does that make me a terrible person?
WHO: Dalit Hadass Warshaw, composer and piano; Nancy Allen Lundy, soprano; Beth Greenberg, director WHAT:The Letters of Mademoiselle C., by Dalit Hadass Warshaw (world premiere) WHERE: Marc Scorca Hall at the National Opera Center WHEN: June 17, 2019 at 7:00pm
I am an opera nut. We have established this before.
You'd think I would have at least heard of a place called the National Opera Center. Where the organization OPERA AMERICA is based. But I hadn't. My date made fun of me for that one -- rightfully so.
Anyway, the NOC is on the sixth or seventh floor of your average Gramercy office building, above a couple bodegas and a payroll services shop. It looks like a pretty average office lobby until you step into the concert hall. I mean, no office space has a concert hall, but this is probably the weirdest venue I've been in so far. Imagine if you took an orange slice and modeled a concert hall after it -- sort of like if you sliced a cylinder and then sliced those slices in half lengthwise, and then put in a wood paneled floor and a stage and painted the walls blue. Weird.
But my date sent me the Facebook event attached to a message that said, "We're going to this." So it's not like I had much of a choice.
I suppose I should be glad that my friends know to forward me any and all concerts. But hey, I'm an ingrate. That's why I'm going into music criticism.
So, I'm terribly illiterate, and I had only heard the name Camille Claudel once or twice. From what I gathered from the program notes, the performance, and S2E1 of Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, she was a sculptor who had an affair with Auguste Rodin and was subsequently committed to an asylum on dubious suspicions that she was mentally ill. That kind of story arc makes for a perfect song cycle, I will concede.
I think her primary instrument is theremin -- what a legend
The program started with three composers that would have been ringing in Claudel's ears: Germaine Tailleferre, Lili Boulanger, and finally a prelude of her dear friend Claude Debussy. Warshaw's performance was sound indeed -- it was almost invocative of jazz in the way that the individual lines were phrased in relation to one another. The product was an interesting interpretation that traded absolute readings of dynamics in favor of a sense of relativity, which was, in my opinion, a novel and refreshing.
And then, as the Debussy ended, soprano Nancy Allen Lundy, as the disheveled Claudel, slowly and trepidly walked down the center aisle of the audience. Onstage were a couple of chairs and a shawl; director Beth Greenberg made the most of a sparse staging.
The music itself was tremendous -- imagine all of the rhythmic uncertainty of Schoenberg or Webern, but with a color palette similar to that of Debussy and ilk. Warshaw played beautifully, not just because it was her piece; she clearly had a stylistic goal in mind, and she executed it beautifully. One would have thought the music emerged straight from a table at Les Deux Magots or another Parisian intellectual haunt.
Lundy's performance had its ups and downs. Her climactic high notes were right on target, impassioned and drenched in a thick coating of manic sorrow. Most of her tessitura, though, was underwhelming; her tone was breathy, and her diction was barely there. One of the movements had a refrain that repeated the word "chisel", which invariably came out as "shizzle" or "jizzle."
Because of the diction issues and the lack of subtitles, I don't think I got as much out of this premiere as I could have. The piece was obviously very well thought-out, and I'd like to see it performed again once it's had the opportunity to go through some stages of performance workshopping -- hopefully, the performers will tour it and give it the chance it really deserves.
West Village churches: fighting homophobia one LGBTQ+ themed concert at a time
WHO: confluss (Amber Evans, soprano & Samuel Zagnit, bass) and Spark Duo (Kate Amrine, trumpet & Ford Fourqurean, clarinet) WHAT: a concert in honor of Pride Month WHERE: Saint John's in the Village WHEN: June 13, 2019 at 7:30pm
I think I said it once in passing, but I'll say it again, louder this time:
HappyPrideMonth!!!!!!!
I love love LOVE being a classical music geek in NYC during pride time. When you go to other cities, their "pride month concerts" center around the composers who lived in a time when being LGBTQ+ was taboo. A lot of Tchaikovsky, a lot of Poulenc, some Britten if you're lucky. Gotta keep those tickets sales high with the *older demographic*.
Thank god NYC has a burgeoning new music scene, because I think I'd die if I only heard Tchaikovsky throughout the entire month of June.
The classical music pride celebration hasn't been spearheaded by any of the larger ensembles in NYC -- their social media accounts show their support, but something about a program of Mahler and Bruckner doesn't scream queer (*ahem* MET ORCHESTRA). So, it's up to the smaller venues to program for the special season.
Saint John's in the Village has a whole series of LGBTQ+ themed concerts, from a 1920s portrait of "Le gai Paris" to lecture-concerts on the role of gay culture in worldwide popular music. This concert featured exclusively works by LGBTQ+ composers, many of which were commissioned by the two ensembles.
The program ran the gamut from (relatively) traditional to (totally) experimental, and some pieces fell off that spectrum entirely. Those included a piece inspired by punk rock legend Kathleen Hanna; a piece, performed by both confluss and Spark, in which the instrumentalists would shout random letters, each of which was associated with an instrumental sound (a musical interpretation of synesthesia, according to the composer); and a series of Sonic Meditations by the late Pauline Oliveros (one of which was interactive -- what is it with me and inadvertently walking into audience participation situations???).
The highlights of the program were far and away the compositions by confluss bassist Sam Zagnit. His diverse background shone brightly throughout, especially in excerpts of his long-form song-cycle-quintet catalogues, whose soprano part contains a theatrical breakdown that could be excerpted straight from a 1960s sitcom (or Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, pick your poison). Soprano Amber Evans proved she is as much actress as singer, which is saying something considering she's one hell of a singer. Zagnit seemed precisely in his element as an aesthetically stoic, but musically expressive foil to the hilarity that ensued from the singer's side.
Spark Duo's program was more subtle than that full-blown episode, though no less interesting. Each player had a solo -- clarinetist Ford Fourqurean played a piece entitled Rhapsody and Groove, which he described as "rhapsodic...then groovy," which seemed rather reductive at first but turned out to be the only apt description for the piece. Trumpeter Kate Amrine's solo made more of a statement in the form of a piece for trumpet and video reel entitled Thoughts and Prayers, which interspersed music with both live and recorded calls to action in the wake of gun violence. Rounding out their half of the program was another Zagnit premiere, this time in a more postmodern vein, but equally enjoyable.
There is a reason why this performance is on the channel "Famous musicians you haven't heard of yet"
If you're not sniffing out these tiny little new music concerts in NYC, then you're doing it wrong. People often moan and groan about how classical music is dying. Wake up and smell the roses: if you want classical music to live on and gain back some of that precious pre-WWII cultural relevance, stop complaining and start supporting the innovators of the future.
You know when you're sitting in a seminar and the professor asks a really good, thought-provoking question? And then everyone just sits there silently, staring wide-eyed at each other, hoping someone will speak up?
Yeah, I hate that -- not enough to actually break the silence, but definitely enough to stew silently in hatred.
Now that I think about it, I may be part of the problem. But that's beside the point for now.
Anyway, I thought I had escaped that awkward, awkward feeling for at least a couple months. But then I went to this concert -- which, mind you, I ended up really enjoying. But seminar-style discussion is awkward enough with people you know, let alone with a group of strangers.
Anyway, I've never seen the full Talea Ensemble live, but from what I've gathered they are one of the more community-minded New York classical contemporary ensembles -- in a world where so many people hate new music for "the way it sounds," Talea is trying to foster a culture of informed and engaged contemporary music consumption.
The iNSIDE Out series always comes with a theme -- this one had to do with lacunae, or empty spaces. It's an interesting concept in music; many of my teachers have insisted that rests are actually misnamed, as they are simply times to get ready for the next moment of playing.
I happen to completely disagree with that notion. Think about music without empty spaces -- isn't that just an unmeasured, mono-timbre wave of pitch? But that's getting into semantics.
This was probably the most interactive concert I'd ever been to: word associations, Mad Libs, seminar discussions, and more. As my date so eloquently put it: "I thought we were going to a concert, not group therapy."
The Lilliputian drumset is in the middle
Though the format of the concert was a little bit weird, the music was super interesting. All of the pieces were scored for percussion and live electronics, but, as I discovered, that can mean a whole range of things. One piece was scored for vibraphone with echo effect; another for miniature drumset (not a drumset with fewer instruments, but a drumset that looks like a fixture for a hamster's cage). The most fascinating piece was scored for cymbal and feedback loop. The performer basically held a microphone at variable distances from the cymbal (which had an attachment that kept it constantly vibrating ever so slightly), creating "pitch" of sorts. Was it always the most pleasant sound? No. But was it interesting? A thousand times yes.
The concert portion of this performance was certainly worth going to. Talea percussionist Matthew Gold crashed, banged, and boomed with enthusiasm, though never recklessly so. The compositions were innovative in a vein that I had never really explored before. That being said, the discussion could have used a little bit more thought -- maybe a round of introductions first? There were only six of us, it wouldn't have been that hard: "Hi, I'm Emery, I'm a college student, and I like music."
"In america, I place my ring on your c*ck where it belongs"
-- Essex Hemphill, from American Wedding
Like, how am I supposed to react to that? Especially when that phrase repeats for ten minutes straight?
When I realized that Dessner's Triptych was a "new way" of looking at the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe, I knew I was in for some graphic material. But oddly enough, it didn't bother me. The graphic nature was attenuated by the music that accompanied -- the experience altogether read less as glorification of sexuality and more as an earnest snapshot of the life of another.
Roomful of Teeth occupies a singular niche in the music world: they are the crossover of all types of music. A bold statement, I know, but if you listen closely they really do have a twinge of just about any style you can think of. In this performance alone, they were all over the map: early music (side bar: how amazing would it be if Roomful of Teeth did Monteverdi????), gospel, rock and roll, contemporary classical, spoken word, you name it.
Does someone want to explain to me why Brooklyn has all the best
concert venues? Look at those chandeliers!
And because Roomful of Teeth is a group of young people at the top of their field, they collaborate with a bunch of other young people at the top of their fields. Accompanying Roomful's always impeccable singing were a chamber orchestra conducted by Roomful founder and music director Brad Wells and beautiful lights, set, and video by leading designers in the avant-garde theater world.
A couple of auxiliary vocal soloists joined Roomful of Teeth for this performance. Mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran walked the line between opera and gospel perfectly, her singing passionate and soulful. But the tenor soloist, Isaiah Robinson, takes the cake for this performance. "Tenor" doesn't even begin to describe what he is. I think he's gospel trained, but imagine if you took your average gospel tenor and then eliminated any trace of shouting in the higher registers. He was reaching D's, E's, even an F and a G at one point without any trouble or effort -- I know sopranos who can't do that.
This is one of those pieces that I would advise against listening to if it's ever recorded -- the piece is nothing without the full experience. Without the accompanying video, the stark choreography (complete with iPad-music stands on wheels), the sometimes-blinding lighting design, you would lose much of the effect. I think they're continuing to tour the piece for the next couple months -- catch it if you can!
