9/15/16 – ICE at the Library – Collecting Anna Thorvaldsdottir
9/17/16 – Norman Dee, flute, Josephine Chan Yung, piano
9/19/16 – repco360 – Works in Progress
ICE (the International Contemporary Ensemble), at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, presented two works by Anna Thorvaldsdottir:
Transitions (2015), for solo cello, and Sequences (2016) world premiere, for bass flute, bass clarinet, baritone saxophone, and contrabassoon (subtitled, by me, “How Low Can You Go?”).
Often, when I hear a contemporary piece, I’ll post, “But I wouldn’t seek it out again.” Well, ICE took that option off the table. After Transitions, which I rather enjoyed, the host had a brief conversation/Q&A with the cellist, who commented on the composer’s use of broad, sustained lines, with little secondary inputs within the overall framework. Then the cellist played it again!
A herky-jerky, recorded (via Sk- y -pe) interview with the com- po -ser, stated that her music had broad lines, with secondary inputs within the overall framework (hmm, sounds familiar). We then heard Sequences. It had broad lines, with secondary inputs within the overall framework. After the Q&A with the quartet, I left. I did not need a second hearing; I did not need a second hearing of the first piece, for that matter.
The Flute & Piano concert held a little bit more interest for me:
Sonata in E minor, for Flute and Continuo, BWV 1034 – Adagio ma non tanto, Allegro, Andante, Allegro – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Introduction and Rondo – Friedrich D. R. Kuhlau (1786–1832)
Kleine Suite für Flöte Allein – Improvisation (Ruhig), Tanz (Schnell), Theme mit Variationen (Mässig Langsam) – Hugo Kauder (1888–1972)
Sonate, Opus 36 pour Violon & Piano (Transcription pour Flute & Piano par l’auteur) – Allegretto, Allegretto tranquillo, Andante non troppo/Allegro un poco agitato – Gabriel Pierné (1863–1937)
Kuhlau and Kauder were new to me, while Pierné was vaguely familiar. The Bach opened quite gently, almost plaintive yet very pretty, with varied rhythms and ranges, especially for the flute. The second movement was jaunty and bright, with a hint of perpetual motion. The third was gentle again, with less of that plaintive quality. The final movement was brisk, to the point of almost frantic (as in I wasn’t quite sure they would make it to the end, but they did).
The Kuhlau had fuller writing for the piano (indeed it was used as continuo in the Bach—a drier, lighter sound and compositional style), with a nice back and forth between flute and piano. In the Rondo proper, there were many ripples in both the flute and the piano. Alas, there was a mini-train wreck, and after stopping, the players resumed without any further problems. It finished with lots of pyrotechnics.
The Kauder showed the solo flute to good advantage, with a combination of flowing phrases, repeated sections, lively in a folk tune way in the first two movements. My notes said that it was like a showpiece that’s not too showy. The last movement had a somber theme, and variations that were subtle and interesting.
The Pierné was reminiscent of Debussy to me, though the program notes cited Fauré. It opened with rippling accompaniment to a rather jaunty flute tune, with some added touches of dramatic writing, in style as well as rhythmically and with volume shifts, though the first movement was a bit on the lengthy side. The second movement had interesting dance-like figures in both piano and flute, like a modern-ish waltz. The final movement included an introductory phrase with a few mildly dissonant harmonies, followed by a quick-tempo section with driving rhythms—virtuosic for both flute and piano. After a slower section, it went back to brisk, and then headlong into a rush to the end.
The folks at 360repco offered up two readings of plays that were works in progress. In fact, both were not completely written, so we were the equivalent of human guinea pigs. Sherry Bokser's With the Best of Intentions, presents a fairly dysfunctional family dealing with family drama, obsessions and possible sexual abuse. I say possible, because the play has not yet been completed.
Thom Fogarty's patient lover friend is a new take on the response to the ever-present AIDS crisis—from various viewpoints. Both works had very strong writing, and the cast that doubled in both plays (after having only one table reading before Monday's public reading) performed quite well. There was a brief Q&A session after each reading that took a bit of time to get off the ground, but I get the feeling that both authors got some interesting feedback.
Well that's the summer roundup—let the fall season begin!
ConcertMeister
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Thursday, September 8, 2016
When Sugar Hill Was Sweet (9/3/16)
This was an event that I heard about on WQXR—but only briefly. I eventually jotted down the web address they gave, and searched for it, unfortunately getting very little concrete information. Finally I learned that there was going to be an afternoon of panels, talks and a concert. The time was listed as 12:00pm–6:00pm. Not knowing what to expect, I managed to find Sugar Hill Park (it’s in Harlem), arriving a little before noon (I’m an early person). They were still in the middle of setting up and doing sound checks, so I spread out my towel on the (rather uneven) lawn to settle in and wait. I saw one gal who looked like she was probably in charge, and asked whether there was a printed program or a schedule of events. After receiving a program booklet, I learned that the event was properly titled Echoes of the Era: Music from 409 and 555 Edgecombe–Concert and Panel Discussion. So far, so good, but I still didn’t know when anything would be happening. So I just decided to wing it.
It turns out that 409 and 555 Edgecombe Avenue are large, somewhat ornate apartment buildings (both still there and still apartment buildings) that featured in the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and ’30s. From my notes and memory, the names W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Billy Strayhorn, and Count Basie, among others, all featured in the music from 409 and 555. Alas, there was never a schedule presented of which events would be held when.
It turns out that the panel discussion was first, and that kicked into gear around 1:30pm. The moderator was Felipe Luciano, who hosted Herb Boyd and Terrance McKnight as panelists. It was interesting, and tied into the idea of “where are you from?” and how it related to those musical members of 409 and 555, and how it’s really the question for all of us. As the table for the discussion was cleared away, we moved into the concert portion.
Because of the lack of printed material, names of pieces and composers will be a little haphazard. The concert began with a couple of pieces played by the West Village Quartet, a string quartet. Both pieces were fairly modern but with pleasing melodies and harmonies. The quartet was then joined by Angela L. Owens (soprano) and Charles David Carter (bass-baritone) for a performance of the Gershwins’ Bess, You Is My Woman Now. They sang well, though the blend and balance with the string quartet was a little bit difficult, due to the outdoor setting, the microphones, and the somewhat windy day. Next, Ms. Owens, with
Roy Jennings (piano) and Wayne Smith (cello), sang a pair of songs by
André Previn with texts by Toni Morrison—from the lyrics, my best guess at titles is Stones in My Bed and In This Soft Place. They were also fairly modern settings and were pretty. Ms. Owens’ diction was quite good throughout the afternoon.
Mr. Carter and Mr. Jennings then presented We Shall Walk through the Valley in Peace, in Mr. Jennings’ (if I’m remembering correctly) arrangement, in modern-gospel style. It was very effective. Ms. Owens followed with The Paradox and Dawn, settings by the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, also composed by
Mr. Jennings. Mr. Carter performed a Duke Ellington piece, In the Beginning, God, which has a choral arrangement as well as this solo version (information I gleaned from listening to snippets of a conversation in front of me on the lawn).
Ms. Owens then sang a Henry T. (“Harry”) Burleigh setting of Langston Hughes’ Lovely Dark and Lonely One and a setting of Hughes’ I Too Sing America.
Mr. Jennings then went to town on a rendition of (I think) Troubled Waters, to round out the section.
Next on the agenda was a set of jazz tunes played by Geri Allen, whose style reminded me of Mary Lou Williams. Indeed, via Wikipedia, Ms. Williams is one of Ms. Allen’s primary musical influences. I liked her compact style and technique. Though I can’t find a source (and I may be misremembering the title, or it might be a recent composition), Openhandedly was my favorite of her set, as it was a little less frantic and fractured than some of the other pieces she played. Her set finished with a rendition of an Erroll Garner piece (Moonlight? Moonglow?).
Melba Joyce was announced next (but then they said they were waiting for her to arrive), so they started setup for the Sugar Hill Quartet. That looked as though it would take a bit of time, and that’s when I went exploring Edgecombe Avenue and found 409 and 555. Once the quartet was set up (with a fifth player added, on trombone), Ms. Joyce kicked the set off with the unofficial Black American National Anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing, in a nice arrangement, backed by the quar/quintet. I listened to the band play a couple of jazz tunes, and heard Ms. Joyce join them for a couple more, including Lover Come Back to Me. As it was approaching 4:30pm, and I had a bit of a trip back home, I didn’t see the need to stay till the very end.
So I learned a little bit more about Harlem and heard some varied music. Not a bad Saturday afternoon at all.
ConcertMeister
It turns out that 409 and 555 Edgecombe Avenue are large, somewhat ornate apartment buildings (both still there and still apartment buildings) that featured in the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and ’30s. From my notes and memory, the names W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Billy Strayhorn, and Count Basie, among others, all featured in the music from 409 and 555. Alas, there was never a schedule presented of which events would be held when.
It turns out that the panel discussion was first, and that kicked into gear around 1:30pm. The moderator was Felipe Luciano, who hosted Herb Boyd and Terrance McKnight as panelists. It was interesting, and tied into the idea of “where are you from?” and how it related to those musical members of 409 and 555, and how it’s really the question for all of us. As the table for the discussion was cleared away, we moved into the concert portion.
Because of the lack of printed material, names of pieces and composers will be a little haphazard. The concert began with a couple of pieces played by the West Village Quartet, a string quartet. Both pieces were fairly modern but with pleasing melodies and harmonies. The quartet was then joined by Angela L. Owens (soprano) and Charles David Carter (bass-baritone) for a performance of the Gershwins’ Bess, You Is My Woman Now. They sang well, though the blend and balance with the string quartet was a little bit difficult, due to the outdoor setting, the microphones, and the somewhat windy day. Next, Ms. Owens, with
Roy Jennings (piano) and Wayne Smith (cello), sang a pair of songs by
André Previn with texts by Toni Morrison—from the lyrics, my best guess at titles is Stones in My Bed and In This Soft Place. They were also fairly modern settings and were pretty. Ms. Owens’ diction was quite good throughout the afternoon.
Mr. Carter and Mr. Jennings then presented We Shall Walk through the Valley in Peace, in Mr. Jennings’ (if I’m remembering correctly) arrangement, in modern-gospel style. It was very effective. Ms. Owens followed with The Paradox and Dawn, settings by the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, also composed by
Mr. Jennings. Mr. Carter performed a Duke Ellington piece, In the Beginning, God, which has a choral arrangement as well as this solo version (information I gleaned from listening to snippets of a conversation in front of me on the lawn).
Ms. Owens then sang a Henry T. (“Harry”) Burleigh setting of Langston Hughes’ Lovely Dark and Lonely One and a setting of Hughes’ I Too Sing America.
Mr. Jennings then went to town on a rendition of (I think) Troubled Waters, to round out the section.
Next on the agenda was a set of jazz tunes played by Geri Allen, whose style reminded me of Mary Lou Williams. Indeed, via Wikipedia, Ms. Williams is one of Ms. Allen’s primary musical influences. I liked her compact style and technique. Though I can’t find a source (and I may be misremembering the title, or it might be a recent composition), Openhandedly was my favorite of her set, as it was a little less frantic and fractured than some of the other pieces she played. Her set finished with a rendition of an Erroll Garner piece (Moonlight? Moonglow?).
Melba Joyce was announced next (but then they said they were waiting for her to arrive), so they started setup for the Sugar Hill Quartet. That looked as though it would take a bit of time, and that’s when I went exploring Edgecombe Avenue and found 409 and 555. Once the quartet was set up (with a fifth player added, on trombone), Ms. Joyce kicked the set off with the unofficial Black American National Anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing, in a nice arrangement, backed by the quar/quintet. I listened to the band play a couple of jazz tunes, and heard Ms. Joyce join them for a couple more, including Lover Come Back to Me. As it was approaching 4:30pm, and I had a bit of a trip back home, I didn’t see the need to stay till the very end.
So I learned a little bit more about Harlem and heard some varied music. Not a bad Saturday afternoon at all.
ConcertMeister
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Strange Saturday (8/27/16)
11th Annual Great Harlem Community Garden Tour
Rite of Summer Music Festival
My first thought upon waking up Saturday morning was that another peak rose season had come and gone without me visiting the Harlem Rose Garden. I even have a post card on display at work and I still forgot! My next thought was that if it was the last Saturday in August, that probably meant that the Harlem Community Garden Tour was happening. A quick look online proved me right. So I got my rear in gear, ran a few errands and made it up to 122nd Street, which was the kickoff point for the tour. One of the cool things about this tour is that they feed you. I had my annual taste of gumbo, along with a little bit of breakfast casserole and half a bagel. (They feed you at the end of the tour, too, but I wasn’t there for that part—more about that later.)
This was the eleventh iteration of the tour, but I’ve only been going for three or four years. Some of the gardens were repeats of former tours, while some were new or so vastly different from last year that they seemed new. There were also more people attending this year—they had two school buses for those who didn’t want to walk, as opposed to only one last year. I was one of the walkers, and there was also a small contingent of cyclists. A note on community gardens in NYC—they are undeveloped land that groups of citizens take over, clean up, and put to use as gardens. Some are just for fun while others are sometimes set up with individual plots where people grow flowers and/or veggies. It’s always a treat for me to see people’s creativity on view.
So, after I realized that it was garden tour day, I had to make up my mind when to ditch the tour, since the third concert in the Rite of Summer series was that afternoon. Rite of Summer usually does two performances, one at 1:00pm and a repeat at 3:00pm. And I have always opted for the early performance in the past, but made an exception because of the garden tour. After skedaddling down to the Governors Island ferry terminal, I took the two o’clock ferry, thinking that I had plenty of time to make the three o’clock performance. Oopsie! Because of the nature of the piece being performed, there was only one concert that afternoon, and it began at two o’clock. Phooey. (And I wasn’t the only one caught off guard, but it was totally my fault for not checking their website.)
The piece I ended up hearing most of was John Luther Adams’s Inuksuit, featuring 70+ percussionists, led by music director Amy Garapic. This was one strange piece of music. The full complement of performers gather together and then begin collective controlled breathing. As individuals separate from the group, they begin making percussive sounds. Some had rattles (maracas, shells, etc.) while others had cones of paper, sort of like megaphones, that they breathed sounds through. The most interesting sound maker that I saw was a guy rubbing the tops of two terra cotta flowerpots together. One part I found a little strange (and off-putting) was that as the musicians broke away from the group, they walked in a very specific controlled way, gazing straight ahead. Not quite Stepford wife–like, but close. Oh, there were also large seashells to blow through and those skinny tubes you can whirl around to make various pitches.
So the deal was that we, the audience, were encouraged to also leave the gathering place and make our way to the pre-set percussion areas set up around the Hills section of the island. I found the whole thing rather silly. At one point, I saw an unattended music stand blow over. An audience member set it back up. I said, “Maybe that’s part of the performance.” He chuckled. Here’s the thing—the piece will never be performed the same way twice, since it was designed to be performed by nine to ninety-nine players. Well, this one was certainly going to be different, because at one point I saw a couple of kids playing some of the as-yet-unattended drums. So they actually contributed to the overall performance.
The piece eventually went from soft to loud to soft. That’s about it, except that I should probably mention that the soft/loud/soft structure was stretched out over seventy minutes! I stayed to the bitter end (I think) as the playing dwindled down to a few triangles and wind chimes. Of course, there was no way to acknowledge the players because at the end of the piece they were still dispersed all around the Hills area. I viewed the performance as successful, in that they brought it off, and unsuccessful, in that it had no real positive impact on me. This is one I will never, ever, ever seek out again. My horizons were broadened, but that’s about it. I almost wish that I’d stayed with the garden tour and attended the cookout at the end of it. Oh, well, there’s always the twelfth iteration next year. And maybe I’ll even remember to have gone to the Harlem Rose Garden during peak rose blossom time next year, as well.
ConcertMeister
Rite of Summer Music Festival
My first thought upon waking up Saturday morning was that another peak rose season had come and gone without me visiting the Harlem Rose Garden. I even have a post card on display at work and I still forgot! My next thought was that if it was the last Saturday in August, that probably meant that the Harlem Community Garden Tour was happening. A quick look online proved me right. So I got my rear in gear, ran a few errands and made it up to 122nd Street, which was the kickoff point for the tour. One of the cool things about this tour is that they feed you. I had my annual taste of gumbo, along with a little bit of breakfast casserole and half a bagel. (They feed you at the end of the tour, too, but I wasn’t there for that part—more about that later.)
This was the eleventh iteration of the tour, but I’ve only been going for three or four years. Some of the gardens were repeats of former tours, while some were new or so vastly different from last year that they seemed new. There were also more people attending this year—they had two school buses for those who didn’t want to walk, as opposed to only one last year. I was one of the walkers, and there was also a small contingent of cyclists. A note on community gardens in NYC—they are undeveloped land that groups of citizens take over, clean up, and put to use as gardens. Some are just for fun while others are sometimes set up with individual plots where people grow flowers and/or veggies. It’s always a treat for me to see people’s creativity on view.
So, after I realized that it was garden tour day, I had to make up my mind when to ditch the tour, since the third concert in the Rite of Summer series was that afternoon. Rite of Summer usually does two performances, one at 1:00pm and a repeat at 3:00pm. And I have always opted for the early performance in the past, but made an exception because of the garden tour. After skedaddling down to the Governors Island ferry terminal, I took the two o’clock ferry, thinking that I had plenty of time to make the three o’clock performance. Oopsie! Because of the nature of the piece being performed, there was only one concert that afternoon, and it began at two o’clock. Phooey. (And I wasn’t the only one caught off guard, but it was totally my fault for not checking their website.)
The piece I ended up hearing most of was John Luther Adams’s Inuksuit, featuring 70+ percussionists, led by music director Amy Garapic. This was one strange piece of music. The full complement of performers gather together and then begin collective controlled breathing. As individuals separate from the group, they begin making percussive sounds. Some had rattles (maracas, shells, etc.) while others had cones of paper, sort of like megaphones, that they breathed sounds through. The most interesting sound maker that I saw was a guy rubbing the tops of two terra cotta flowerpots together. One part I found a little strange (and off-putting) was that as the musicians broke away from the group, they walked in a very specific controlled way, gazing straight ahead. Not quite Stepford wife–like, but close. Oh, there were also large seashells to blow through and those skinny tubes you can whirl around to make various pitches.
So the deal was that we, the audience, were encouraged to also leave the gathering place and make our way to the pre-set percussion areas set up around the Hills section of the island. I found the whole thing rather silly. At one point, I saw an unattended music stand blow over. An audience member set it back up. I said, “Maybe that’s part of the performance.” He chuckled. Here’s the thing—the piece will never be performed the same way twice, since it was designed to be performed by nine to ninety-nine players. Well, this one was certainly going to be different, because at one point I saw a couple of kids playing some of the as-yet-unattended drums. So they actually contributed to the overall performance.
The piece eventually went from soft to loud to soft. That’s about it, except that I should probably mention that the soft/loud/soft structure was stretched out over seventy minutes! I stayed to the bitter end (I think) as the playing dwindled down to a few triangles and wind chimes. Of course, there was no way to acknowledge the players because at the end of the piece they were still dispersed all around the Hills area. I viewed the performance as successful, in that they brought it off, and unsuccessful, in that it had no real positive impact on me. This is one I will never, ever, ever seek out again. My horizons were broadened, but that’s about it. I almost wish that I’d stayed with the garden tour and attended the cookout at the end of it. Oh, well, there’s always the twelfth iteration next year. And maybe I’ll even remember to have gone to the Harlem Rose Garden during peak rose blossom time next year, as well.
ConcertMeister
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