[36] Pauline Kim Harris and Spencer Topel perform original compositions at The Stone @ Mannes | #1Summer50Concerts

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! 

[33] Jordan/DelGiudice: Collaborative Compositions & Improvisations at Scholes Street Studio

The cover of the album -- link below!

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.

I can't think of a better way to spend a Tuesday night. And, lucky for you, they released it onto an album! See for yourself!

[15] Talea Ensemble presents "Lacunae" at The Flea | #1Summer50Concerts

Yes, the lights were actually that shade of purple

WHO: Matthew Gold, percussion; Ted Moore, composer and performer
WHAT: iNSIDE OUT series: Lacunae
WHERE: The Flea Theater
WHEN: June 9, 2019, 4:00pm

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."

[6] Experiments in Opera presents "Chunky in Heat" at The Flea | #1Summer50Concerts

WHO: Experiments in Opera and Contemporaneous
WHAT: Chunky in Heat
WHERE: The Flea Theater
WHEN: June 1, 2019, 7:00pm

I like my opera like I like my Campbell's chicken noodle soup: chunky.

No, that's not it.

I like my opera like my grandmother describes my waistline: chunky.

Eh, that's better.

I had no idea what to expect when I showed up to The Flea, a venue for experimental theater, for Experiments in Opera's production of Chunky in Heat on Saturday evening. I don't really fancy myself a consumer of experimental theater, apart from opera; I found out that I very much fit the *opera* aesthetic. Whereas the theater nuts were dressed in felt hats and billowy cotton pants, I was there in a t-shirt, jeans, and cardigan. Too casual was perhaps not the issue so much as the wrong kind of casual.

At the door, I was greeted by a worker in a pride pin (it was June 1 after all -- HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!!!) who asked me which performance I was there to see: Chunky, or two other performances whose names I don't recall but sounded just as strange. I got my ticket, mounted the stairs, and plopped down in an empty chair in a pretty sizeable black box theater. The stage was a simple house with an astroturf lawn, two lawn chairs, and a side table containing a can of TaB cola (throwback much?),  a cup of drinking straws, and a tube of sunblock. An inflatable smiling sun graced the background; a tree with a camera attached stood off to the side, by the rightmost edge of the audience.

The set, featuring one creepy-ass sun

Chunky in Heat started off like any other modernist opera. The orchestra built pulsing chords from the bottom up, not unlike the opening of John Adams's Death of Klinghoffer. Chunky (a nickname for Cynthia ) is onstage at her house (supposedly in Los Angeles -- hence "in heat"), agonizing over being a little bit...erm...chunky, as well as expressing her lust for the archetypal "boy next door" ("Walter, like a tall drink of water"). It could have continued relatively normally.

But then the tree started talking -- actually, not just talking, but describing in great detail two passing fruitflies engaging in coitus. And that's when I knew I was in for a ride and a half.

Suddenly, the stage turned devil-red; the orchestra's drummer began to play a generic dance-pop backbeat; on came Chunky's mother and father, dancing some faux-conga-line type thing. It was a riot.

Those sudden changes of scene occurred often throughout the 90-minute piece. A collaboration among six composers, Chunky in Heat appeared to lack a singular musical style, but it was presented in a way that made that decision with purpose and intention. It was definitely a pastiche, but it was a pastiche determined to be so rather than one that was so out of convenience.

She's underwater, can't you tell?

The orchestra was Contemporaneous, one of NYC's foremost new music ensembles, led by co-founder Dan Bloom. They played exactly how you want an opera orchestra to play: tastefully, accurately, and supportively. This was right up their alley -- whereas Bang on a Can developed a signature aesthetic long ago, Contemporaneous is still up for anything and everything. I would go so far as to call them New York's most open-minded ensemble: everything, no matter how strange, is an experiment.

The singers were all excellent. Soprano Sarah Daniels (Chunky) kept a youthful levity throughout the opera, her voice reflecting her character's girlishness rather than becoming weighted with teenage angst. Emily Geller's (Mother) lower range was impressively forceful, penetrating easily over a fortissimo orchestra. Timothy Stoddard's (Walter/Fiancé/Beekeeper) high A's and Bb's were few and far between, but when they were written, they were delivered with full tone and gusto. Joshua Jeremiah's (Father) rich baritone and Abigail Doehring's whimsy mezzo (and impressive method acting as a coyote -- LA things only, amirite?) rounded out a strong cast.

If you're not a fan of non-traditional, this is not for you. But Experiments in Opera is obviously a noble cause, and truly unique. Few other cities have "opera collectives" at such a high level of professionalism, even though new opera is just as important as -- if not more important than -- old opera. If Einstein on the Beach left you craving more, or you just want to know what's happening *now*, give experimental opera a try.