Mary Rowell and Eve Beglarian

May 10, 2012
Fresh Sound Music series @ Space 4 Art

What a night!  I had looked forward to this concert for ages and, lo, I was not disappointed.  The theme of the night was Eve’s 4 month trip down the Mississippi River in a kayak - stories, songs, photos and music which reflected her journey.  They opened with Mary playing mandolin, brilliantly I say, and Eve telling the story of a goat  “It Happens Like This” with text by James Tate.  “Well Spent” my favorite, followed. It is a gorgeous piece for violin and electronics.  I will try to figure out a way to post it so you can listen. They performed 8 more songs including “The Flood,” the text by poet Robert Frost; “Testy Pony” text by Zachary Schomberg; and a world premiere of”Wet Psalm” text by Linda Norton.  “ Night Psalm” utilized Launch Pad technology.  Eve shared the viewing with the audience which as very cool.  All the songs were by Beglarian except “Wayfaring Stranger,” the only traditional song and that was arranged by Eve. From my perspective the entire evening was very soulful and poignant without being even slightly boring.  Each had it’s own fascinating story and encompassed both technology and an appreciation of nature.  Mary and Eve have a beautiful musical connection.

The elegant Bang on a Can Benefit

May 1, 2012
City Winery
Bang on a Can Benefit

This was the last event of my two-week stay in New York (I’ll be back mid-June). It was a grand event honoring Adam Wolfensohn, President of the Board for ten years. Cocktail hour began the evening and was enhanced by Mark Stewart’s fun producing playing of plastic tubes and getting the crowd to participate in making elephant noises along with arm swooping elephant trunk gestures. We also were instructed to make mouth/cheek pops on demand. All of us grown-ups happily followed directions. Then elegant dinner was served. At my table were David Little and Eileen Mack, Cia Toscanini, and Murdoch McBride. Throughout the evening the Bang on a Can All Stars played great music (as usual) which was interspersed with laudatory words about Wolfensohn from Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, David Lang, Kenny Savelson and Tim Thomas. The All Stars played music by composers Evan Ziporyn, Colon Nancarrow, Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, and Hermeto Pascoal. A perfect ending to this stay in New York.

Wimberly, Campbell and Parker

April 30, 2012
Clementa Soto Velez
Evolving Music

William Parker, bass; Roy Campbell, trumpets, and Michael Wimberly, drums were the first set I saw (I missed the earlier set). They, as usual, were quite remarkable, playing as a trio and individually. When Roy wasn’t playing one of his trumpets, he complemented the others with various bells and a small tamborine. The solos by each were also gorgeous. The Trio with Fay Victor, singing; Anders Nilsson, electric guitar and Ken Filiano on bass was amazing. It’s the first time I have heard their trio. They have been playing together for seven years but this was the first time in about a year and you’d never know they took a break. They were right on all the time. The songs all composed by Fay were “I’m on a Mission/Paper Cup,” Robot Clown,” Sign at the Door,”
and my favorite, “Gunk.”

BUILD

April 29, 2012
Glenn Cornett's New Spectrum Loft
Lara Downes and BUILD

This was an intimate concert at Glenn Cornett’s loft space. I was pleased to be there to hear Lara on piano and my friend, Matt McBane’s BUILD. Both a first for me. Lara opened the evening playing six of “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Goldberg Variations.” The first was the standard “Aria” and the others were variations by Jennifer Higdon, Bright Sheng, Lukas Foss, Mischa Zupko and Fred Hirsch. All lovely. She told us that she and Matt are working on common interest project about Place - physical, emotional, past and present of which the next pieces are a part. She performed “Prelude in D” by Lukas Foss inspired by a street corner and she and Matt performed Matt’s composition, “Level” which I particularly liked. Then a quiet Cage piece, “Dreams” and BUILD entered with some of their music from both their earlier CD and two really new pieces, one yet unnamed and “56” (7 x 8). BUILD consists of Matt McBane, violin; Adam Gold, drums; Andrea Lee, cello; Ben Campbell, bass; and Mike Cassedy, piano.

Bang on a Can Founders and Heros Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, David Lang

April 28, 2012
Alice Tully Hall@Lincoln Center
Bang on a Can: 25 Years

This was a night of celebration; a well-deserved full house at Tully Hall. We were welcomed by the Founders Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, and David Lang. I won’t be able to describe it all but will run through what was performed. The first set was Gamelan Galak Tika. Note the name as the ensemble was dressed in Battlestar Galactica attire. Evan Ziporyn, the composer of this piece, “The Fire” (1994), founded the Balinese group at MIT in 1993. It has 26 members including a keyboard, two electric guitars and one bass guitar. It was fascinating to hear and to watch--25 minutes of intricate sounds and rhythms. The program notes say “it attempts to address an equally essential part of the cross-cultural experience--that of juxtaposition, disorientation and creative misunderstanding.” The second set was performed by the Asphalt Orchestra founded in 2009. I first saw them at the BoaC Marathon. They are basically a sophisticated marching band created by the BoaC founders (“a radical new street band”) made up of 10 musicians: piccolo, soprano sax, alto sax, tenor sax, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, sousaphone, and three drummers. Tonight was most impressive as they played one piece by Frank Zappa, “Zomby Woof” (1973-2009) and three pieces by Tatsuya Yoshida. He is a legendary Japanese drummer and composer of noise-progressive music. Asphalt Orchestra played all from memory as they careened around the stage in various ensemble, duo, trio, quartet configurations - highly choreographed by Mark DeChiazza and Susan Marshall. Yoshida joined the group on his drum set for the last, and my favorite piece, “Zwimbarrac Khafzavrapp (2012). It was loud but not chaotic.

Seth Colter Walls wrote this about Yoshida: http://bit.ly/IyCzbJ

The final set was performed by the wonderful Bang on a Can All Stars whose members are Ashley Bathgate, cello; Robert Black, bass; Evan Ziporyn, clarinets; Mark Stewart, guitar; Vicky Chow, piano; David Cossin, percussion. The six invited composers, Florent Ghys, Christian Marclay Mira Caliz, Tyondai Braxton, Evan Ziporyn and Nick Zammuto along with the three founders were asked “to go into the field of recorded sound and to find something old or to record something new, and to respond with their own music in dialogue with what they found. “Field Recordings” (2012) was the magnificent result. Julia Wolfe, “Reeling” used a clip of French Canadian singer Benoit Benoit where she connected her own history to his singing. As always, she creates magical music. Florent Ghys, “An Open Cage” utilized excerpts from Cage’s “Diary: How to improve the World (You will only make Matter worse.”) I loved this. I could so relate to his words, as did Florent. For instance, Cage amusingly says, “as a New York senior citizen I get public transportation half price except during rush hours if I can also go to movies half price if I do so in the afternoons if I take the subway I must buy 2 trips at once in opposite directions round trip with the bus I am free to go wherever I wish.”

Christian Marclay, “Fade to Slide” Christian Marclay used short fragments in rapid succession of Hollywood films asking the musicians to let images prompt reactions. Mira Calix recorded airport conversations including in the cockpit. Michael Gordon’s “Gene takes a Drink” was lovely - a video of a community garden and music to complement the posies. David Lang wrote “the whole idea of field recordings was dealing with memories . . .” He recalled a project he liked from the past where he made a track of people sharpening knives and scissors so he had that recreated for this night. David Cossin used various sized chains falling and swishing on a drum to create more cool metallic sounds. Evan Ziporyn’s “Wargasari” is a Balinese ritual song used for rites of passages. He uses the original recording of female vocalists made in 1928. The original is heard unaltered though Evan created effective pauses throughout. Tyondai Braxton’s “Casino Trem” was stellar. It reckoned with NYC’s first casino which he called “one of the saddest places on the planet.” (I thought that too when I was once in Las Vegas). The music actually had a beat and some of the instruments were effected and The All Stars got-down! I loved it. Vicky played synthesizer, there were delays on Evan’s clarinet, and Robert used effects which changed the sound of the bass completely. “Real Beauty Turns” by Nick Zammuto used a great video of women and hair care which he collected over the years at thrift shops. Big hair, hair spray. OMG, did we really do that back then? Shocking. It was amusing to see the past revisited.

Peter Matthew's Feast of Music review: http://bit.ly/JF53wF

Richard Carrick welcoming us

April 27, 2012
The Kitchen
Either/Or 7th Annual Spring Festival of Contemporary Music - Second night

All the compositions were different from last night’s except, happily, we did get hear George Lewis’ “Thistledown” again. John Cage was represented by his “Fontana Mix: Feed” (1958/1963) which was feedback through a mixer. Elliott Sharp’s “Venus and Jupiter” was a world premiere. Eight performers including Elliott on electric guitar. A big composition, powerful but with subtleties as well. It’s always nice to see and hear Elliott.
“strings still” (2005) by Rebecca Saunders was next. This was for flute on the far left of the stage, piano and crotales ( see description and photo below) at center stage and bass clarinet on the far right. This was a quiet leisurely piece with haunting bowing on the crotales. The final piece was “Periodes” (1974) by Gerard Grisey. This is the second movement of his “Les expaces acoustiques.” I have knew of him and his spectral music but hadn’t heard any of it. This was a treat and I now will try make a point to hear all four movements.

Crotales sometimes called antique cymbals, are percussion instruments consisting of small, tuned bronze or brass disks. Each is about 4 inches in diameter with a flat top surface and a nipple on the base. They are commonly played by being struck with hard mallets. However, they may also be played by striking two disks together in the same manner as finger cymbals, or by bowing. Their sound is rather like a small tuned bell, only with a much brighter sound, and a much longer resonance.

George Lewis and me

April 26
The Kitchen
Either/Or 7th Annual Spring Festival of Contemporary Music

This was the first of the two night festival. David Shively and Richard Carrick are the co-founders of Either/Or. Both were studying at UCSD Music Dept. when I was there and they received their Ph.D’s (I didn’t). Therefore, I am always interested in their many accomplishments here in NYC. And, my good friend George Lewis premiered a new composition and I couldn’t miss that. The evening began with “Dark River” (1993) by John Zorn and performed by David and Rick. Each played two concert bass drums with soft mallets. Softly thunderous and lovely. Then we were treated to a New York premiere by Anthony Coleman and a languorous “Instruments III” by Morton Feldman. I can’t help but conjure up underwater images for his work. Hans Thomalia’s “Albumblatt” was performed by the string quartet. Then, at last, George’s “Thistledown.” Performed by Rick Carrick, piano; Esther Noe, violin; Alex Waterman, cello; and David Shively, percussion. We were now treated to some verve and vitality along with gorgeousness. Each instrument’s texture was clear and they complemented one another beautifully. I loved the percussion adornments; they were both delicate and strong. Another big accomplishment in his long list as performer, author, professor, scholar. Thank you, George.

Roulette in Brooklyn

April 25th
Roulette
“Concrete” by Robert Ashley

Everyone was there; well, many of the new music troopers, young and old, wouldn’t miss this. The original cast performed: Joan LaBarbara, Tom Buckner, Sam Ashley, Jacqueline Humbert, and the master himself Robert Ashley. And while I have no idea how to write about the music, Seth Colter Walls does and I will include the link to his brilliant assessment below. Each of the performers spoke/sang their individual songs in their own very distinctive style; there was no overlapping of voices as in the past performances I have seen. Every word they said was understandable; good news as Ashley has so much to say. He talks about the everyday -- snippets of life -- in universal terms - such as memory, celebrity, money, religion. He says “Hard to recognize the love of money as it has us in its power.” “It’s important to be near the people you love.” The first set ended with “Fervor and violence is the way all religious practices start.” The staging was wonderful, all in black, white and grey. The square tables where each of the 4 performers sat were white, the chairs black and their shirts grey. Ashley was behind them on a raised stage, sitting very still in profile, dressed in black with silver/white hair. Tom Hamilton’s mixed and live electronic music was beautiful and effective. (Ashley composed). It seemed that each singer/actor was represented by his/her own musical form. It was beautiful without being intrusive. The lighting by David Moodey couldn’t have been better. One of Ashley’s messages was “Plot is always a burden; it gets in the way of writing.” This may be why some don’t really get what Ashley is all about. I somehow do; his work touches me in much the same way as David Markson’s books. I am a great admirer.

Seth's review: http://bit.ly/K3GoVo

ETHEL String Quartet with co-founder Mary Rowell and Kenji Bunch (sans Jennifer Choi for this piece)

April 24th
Joe’s Pub
Ethel String Quartet CD Release

This was an evening of good music in a newly renovated Joe’s Pub. It was a successful revamp and they have reserved seats which always pleases me. The new configuration of ETHEL performed most of the evening with Mary Rowell, co-founder of the quartet, and Kenji Bunch joining them for the last two pieces. Most of the pieces they played were from their new CD, “Heavy” as well as a couple from the earlier CD, “Light.” One of my favorites was “Early that Summer,” an exciting, intense composition by Julia Wolfe of Bang on a Can. It seemed to me that most of the pieces they played were really really fast so it came as a calming relief to hear David Lang’s gorgeous piece, “Wed.” Also Kenji’s piece, “String Circle” was a great addition and even included a bit of Ho Down to the mix of contemporary classical.

55 Bar

April 23, 2012
55 Bar
Francois Moutin, Bass and Jean-Michel Pilc, Fender Rhodes

This was a last minute choice to scoot over to the 55 Bar to hear this duo. And a good choice it was. Although they have played together in various ensembles for 30 years, this is only the second time they played as a duo. They should do this more often. Not only was the music great, they had fun, and, hence, so did the audience. Pilc added whistling and Moutin some scat to their playing. They watched and listened to each other closely and this was reflected in the music. They responded to each other, spun on a dime, and laughed out loud when a successful surprise occurred. Nice night.