Rite of Summer (8/13/17)

Contemporaneous – “The Two Halves” was the title of the final concert in this summer series.

Contemporaneous is an ensemble whose mission is to bring to life the music of now. Sunday’s concert listing was as follows:

Aphelia (2017) – Ian Gottlieb (b. 1990)
Vertical Fields (2014) – Emma O’Halloran (b. 1985)
The Two Halves (2014) – The Platelayers, The Great Sunstroke, The Exile, The Giant Sleeps, The Two Halves, The Azimuth – Finnegan Shanahan (b. 1992)

Aphelia was scored for piano (four hands), electric guitar, electric bass, and percussion (drum set, marimba, and spun cymbals). It was very New Age-y, with a slight Latin-esque beat, essentially a wash of sound that did not make much of an impression on me. The spun cymbals were interesting—literally cymbals from a drum set that a percussionist spun on their edges while sitting on the stage. Not in a chair, mind you, actually on the stage.

Though I may have mentioned this before, Rite of Summer is an out-of-doors performance series that takes place on Governors Island. Because of that, I found Vertical Fields to be a little out of place, being scored for only piano, violin, and cello. The music itself was not quite Philip Glass but it was darn close. It consisted of very short phrases repeated over and over, with slight variation or expansion from time to time. I understand the concept. It’s not one that I find particularly appealing.

The Two Halves was definitely the main event of the afternoon, scored for a large ensemble that included flute, clarinet, saxophone, voice, horn, trumpet, trombone, guitar, keyboard, and percussion, among others. In fact, Mr. Shanahan played violin, guitar, and keyboard and also contributed vocals. David Bloom, conductor, told us that Contemporaneous has played the piece many times and always looks forward to performing it. I found myself wondering whether Mr. Shanahan would have to be replaced by two or three musicians, if he was not able to be a part of a performance of the work. The six movements all ran together, so it was hard to tell them apart at times. I did, however, get a hint of the titles from the music I was hearing. Sometimes. The sounds were varied in terms of volume and tempo, and the whole thing chugged along in an amiable fashion. I know that I’ve commented before about broadening my horizons, but this is as broad as I think I want to go, for a while at least. I’ll most likely go back for more next summer, though.

ConcertMeister