Category: Field Reports

NewMusicBoxOffice: Turducken

Anthony Davis
Anthony Davis

There are plenty of reasons to leave the house in November, so let’s expend some energy before that end-of-the-month collective spike in tryptophan-levels that will likely leaves us passed-out on the sofa all night. If there’s a theme to concerts taking place during the first week of November, it boils down to one word: concertos. In Beantown, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project puts their unique spin on the subject with Re-Inventions: Glorious and subversive music for keyboards (November 2 info). With world premiere piano concertos by Elliott Schwartz and David Rakowski—who couldn’t resist using toy piano as well—this program appears to be, ahem, all keyed up. In addition, receiving its U.S. premiere, is Michael Colgrass’s Side by Side for altered piano, harpsichord, and orchestra. Finally, Anthony Davis joins BMOP on stage as soloist for his piano-infused work Wayang V.

In the Sunshine State, the New World Symphony tackles—ready or not Miami, here he comes!—Charles Wuorinen’s Five: Concerto for Amplified Cello and Orchestra (November 3 info). Sharing the bill is Steve Mackey’s Turn the Key and Morton Feldman’s, er, is-it-or-isn’t-it head-scratcher Piano and Orchestra. Concerto or not, another Feldman piece, Flute and Orchestra, is being performed in Milan under less ambiguous circumstances (November 4 info). Note the translated title: Morton Feldman, Concerto per flauto e orchestra. Gee, I guess ignorance in the marketing department is a worldwide phenomenon.

Poor Monkey's Lounge
Poor Monkey’s Lounge is located near Merigold, Mississippi
Photo by Easton Selby

You say electro-acoustic, I say electroacoustic, but no matter, because the real story begins with: Have laptop, will travel. With powerstrips awaiting, the tech savvy head south to Cleveland, Mississippi for the two-day festival known as Electroacoustic Juke Joint (November 9 and 10 info). The gimmick here is that some of the concerts takes place in a real-life, honest-to-goodness juke joint. The Poor Monkey’s Lounge will play host to plugged-in works by Ken Davies, Dave Lisik, Jeff Morris, Barry Schrader, Greg Steinke, and Andrew Walters, to name a few. Nobody knows how the local yokels will react to the, let’s face it, really weird electronic music, but let’s hope this becomes the makings of a new annual affair. Out west, SCREAM (stands for Southern California Resource for Electro-Acoustic Music) is serving up their electronics analog-style (November 16 info). Analog Live! takes over the REDCAT space, combining old synths with acoustic instruments and video projection. Knob twitterers include Gary Chang, Richard Devine, Peter Grenader, Chas Smith, Thighpaulsandra, Paul Tzanetopoulos, and Nine Inch Nails member Alessandro Cortini.

Bob Bellerue (a.k.a. Redglaer, a.k.a. halfnormal, etc.)
Bob Bellerue (a.k.a. Redglaer, a.k.a. halfnormal, etc.)

What do you get when you combine West Coast noise bands and a popular midwestern theme park? Either a booking agent is out of a job or gains some mad street cred. In the cock-your-head-slightly-to-one-side-in-confusion department, Six Flags Great America plays host to Los Angeles-based Redglaer and Impregnable alongside local noisemakers Climax Denial, Slow Owls, and Rex Winsome under the auspice of the Milwaukee Noise Festival (November 14 info). Announcement: The elderly dancing mascot Mr. Six will be replacing his requisite hearing aids with earplugs rather than engaging in his signature rug-cutting tonight.

They say everything is bigger in Texas. Well, there is a big opera premiere this month. Composer Christopher Theofanidis teams up with librettist Leah Lax to bring life to stories of Houston’s African, Central American, Indian, Mexican, Pakistani, Soviet-era Jewish, and Vietnamese immigrant communities. The world premiere of the appropriately titled The Refuge will be performed by the Houston Grand Opera (November 10 info). Yeehaw!

Amy X Neuburg and her Cello ChiXtet
Amy X Neuburg and her Cello ChiXtet
Photo by Emily Bezar

The sisters are doin’ it for themselves over in San Francisco Bay Area. Amy X Neuburg and her Cello ChiXtet (a.k.a. Jess Ivry, Elaine Kreston, and Beth Vandervennet) perform a new song cycle called The Secret Language of Subways (November 3 info). Amongst the backdrop of paintings by Rebecca Haseltine, composer Cheryl E. Leonard will perform with A. L. Dentel and Karen Stackpole (November 4 info). If you haven’t seen her unique strategies for coaxing sound from seashells, kelp, sand, water, stones, and the likes, this is your chance to be one with nature.

Here in New York City, the huge event this month is Performa 07, a formidable orgy of live art events and exhibitions throughout the city (October 27 – November 20 info). The festival includes an exhibition curated by Esa Nickle called White Noise II featuring work by composer James Fei and sound artists Kabir Carter and Michael Northam (November 1 – 17 info). One of the more dramatic events is recreation of Allan Kaprow’s 18 Happenings in 6 Parts

Michael Harrison
Michael Harrison

at the Deitch Studios in Long Island City—when maverick gallery mogul Jeffrey Deitch is involved, you know things are going to be crazy, in the best way possible (November 5 – 11 info). A perusal through the massive festival schedule will reveal many composers and musicians mingling with art world.

Also brewing in the Big Apple is the Wordless Music series. The latest edition featuring Nico Muhly and Valgeir Sigurðsson had a couple of unannounced guests show up to perform: Will Oldham and Sigur Rós. So it’s no surprise that folks have been flocking to the indie rock meets modern composition scheme since it started last year. Next up is the downtrodden folk crooners Grizzly Bear alongside La Monte Young protégé Michael Harrison. Get ready for some retuned piano and long-form ivory tinkling. Future plans for the series include the U.S. premiere of Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood’s string orchestra piece Popcorn Superhet Receiver. Stay tuned…

NewMusicBoxOffice: Trick or Treat

With the leaves soon to change color and start dropping from the tree branches, it’s primetime for concert-going. October’s not-too-hot-not-too-cold vibe plays host to quite a few unsung holidays: Columbus Day, United Nations Day, and—suck-up of them all—National Boss Day (October 16 info). I’m sure all those holiday’s could use some musical accompanyment, but the real fiesta this month is definitely Halloween. John Zorn and his buddies are getting into the spirit (October 31 info). However, fearing a repetition of last year’s shootings—crazy, right?—the poor souls in San Francisco had their annual All Hallows Eve celebration canceled. The problem is that in Fog City, Halloween is more widely celebrated than Christmas—ah, you marvelous heathens!—so I’m sure a lot of folks by the Bay feel a little jilted, Grinch-style; all dressed up and nowhere to go. But let’s not dwell on such negative setbacks. Instead San Franciscans can take solace in the world premiere of Philip Glass’s latest spectacle, Appomattox (October 5, 10, 14, 16, 18, 20, 24 info). While the opera’s subject matter tackles the impact of America’s Civil War—no jack-o’-lanterns here, kids—you can still dress up like a princess and there’s very little chance of gang violence erupting at the opera house.

Andrea Parkins
Andrea Parkins

If you’re in Seattle, check out the Earshot Jazz Festival (October 19 – November 4 info). Ahmad Jamal (October 19 info) kicks off the diverse roster of events, which includes Gino Robair’s I, Norton (October 20 info), an event described as a “mobile guerrilla anti-opera.” Coming from a composer-percussionist who once released a record featuring his solo Styrofoam stylings, I suspect you can rest assured that his improvised opera will be one raucous pageant. Also, it seems that the Emerald City has been keeping a little secret from me: the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center. Nonsequitur director, composer, and sound artist Steve Peters manages to keep the place well stocked with adventurous musicians, such as improvising processed accordion laptoper Andrea Parkins (October 18 info).

People always talk about blurring the boundaries and such, but leave it to Mills College and CalArts to throw an anniversary party where it’s actually hard to tell if, in fact, the two institutions aren’t really just one indivisible entity. The celebration in question is billed as Mills College Center for Contemporary Music at 40, and features works by faculty members of both schools—all of whom have had a stint as either student or teacher at Mills. The concert takes place first on CalArts’ home turf at REDCAT (October 14 info) and again the following week when the Mills campus plays host (October 21 info). Gee, I hope Wesleyan doesn’t feel left out.

And speaking of the American experimental tradition, can you believe that a John Cage piece is getting its New York City premiere this fall? You can blame Canada for recasting Cage’s A Dip in the Lake (October 12 info), originally conceived for Chicago’s urban landscape, and creating a realization starring Toronto. Okay, actually blame the Electronic Music Foundation and their annual Ear to the Earth festival (October 12 – 20 info) for bringing the piece to New York, as well as other concerts and sound-walks lead by members of the New York Society for Acoustic Ecology.

Random Access Music
Random Access Music

Just when you though you knew about every single composers collective out there, up pops another one: Random Access Music teams up with the VIM: TriBeCa concert series in order to bring you a program called Breaking Down the Beat (October 18 info). Joyously advertised by a photo of a New York City trashcan, the concert features works like Rhythm and Movement for the Awkward by Allen Schulz and David Fetherolf’s Ein unzussammenhängendër Zussammenhang—AltaVista Babel Fish Translation…forgedaboudit.

If you happen to be in New England right now, you’re probably tired of overhearing conversations about the beautiful foliage. Remedy the situation by listening to music. There’s sure to be a hushed crowd at Alea III’s 25th annual International Composition Competition (October 7 info). In American Idol-fashion, six new compositions battle it out head-to-head and at the end of the concert, the winner is announced. Due to professional affiliations, I’m rooting for American composer Byron Weigel. Best of luck!

Now here’s a festival that everyone can listen to, preferably on headphones: le Placard (website). Dubbed the nonstop streaming festival, le Placard makes a pit stop at The Lab in San Francisco for two 12-hour sets (October 13 – 15 info). Although details on how to tap into the stream of music are a bit sketchy, even suggesting that some nice person in the site’s chat room might pass you the current link, it might be worth making some new cyber friends in order to eavesdrop in on the sonic high jinks.

NewMusicBoxOffice: Back to…

Cenk Ergun
Cenk Ergun makes some adjustments on his new sound installation Panta Rei

Students, the time has come again to shell out exorbitant amounts of cash for esoteric textbooks you’ll never open again by year’s end. As for the rest of you graduates and dropouts, September means back to the concert hall. I know, I know. The weather is way too nice as summer gives way to fall—it verges on cruelty to coop us up indoors. Well, at least one composer has our back. Members of The Knights and soprano Susan Narucki take to the streets to perform the world premiere of Lisa Bielawa’s Chance Encounter (September 28 info). Surprising unsuspecting passersby, the 30-minute work for 12 migrating instrumentalists and vocalist features a series of arias pieced together from texts overheard in public spaces by the composer, her co-conspirator Narucki, and others. Sounds interesting—eavesdropping for artist’s sake!

Also in the great outdoors department we find Cenk Ergun’s sound installation Panta Rei at the Indianapolis Art Center (September 14 info). The San Francisco-based composer is utilizing ICA’s new, get this, Nina Mason Pulliam Sensory Path—hey, at least it’s not the Snapple Sensory Path or the likes—to trigger an ever-changing wash of sounds captured in the surrounding landscape which have been digitally altered. One of these days I’ll be rich enough to have a sensory path named after me. Ah, one can only dream.

MaryClare Brzytwa
MaryClare Brzytwa performs at the 2007 SFEMF

Although housed indoors, another Bay Area resident, Elise Baldwin, is creating a sound installation in the Project Artaud Gallery, but that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the eighth annual San Francisco Electronic Music Festival (September 5 – 9 info). Covering a broad range of approaches, the festival plays host to David Behrman and Annea Lockwood, both of whom duet with percussionist William Winant, as well as local scenesters like Fred Frith, MaryClare Brzytwa, Zoë Keating, Lesser, Nommo Ogo, and Les Stuck. Other performers from Southern California, Mexico, and Canada will converge, plug in, and make some righteous hums, bleeps, and beats.

Let me squeeze in one more sound installation here: Composer Matthew Levy’s Lament can be heard alongside paintings by Elyce Abrams at Philadelphia’s Bridgette Mayer Gallery (September 4 – 29 info). The piece is an electronically manipulated reworking of a saxophone quartet created in response to Abrams’s visual sensibilities.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the concert hall—deh dum, deh dum—eleven venues, eleven Chicago neighborhoods, eleven ICE concerts in one week! (September 22 – 30 info) No details yet, just a little warning for those in the windy city: brace yourselves for impact.

Dominick Farinacci
Dominick Farinacci plays the Detroit International Jazz Festival

In Minnesota, pianist Nicola Melville tackles another ambitious project, performing 12 newly commissioned works by Doug Opel, Stephen Paulus, Augusta Read Thomas, Kevin Beavers, Gabriela Frank, Phil Fried, Stacy Garrop, Marc Mellits, Mark Olivieri, Carter Pann, Phillip Rhodes, and Judith Lang Zaimont (September 28 info). Whew. Overwhelming in a completely different way is John Luther Adams’s six-hour sonic epic Veils. A new live-performance version featuring Fred Frith premieres at the Output Festival in Amsterdam (September 28 info). For the full experience show up by 6pm, when the piece starts as a sound installation. Be sure to take a bathroom break before 8:30, that’s when, without interruption, Frith takes the stage. No need to hit one of those, ahem, “coffee shops” beforehand, this gig will be plenty trippy on its own. For yet another way to overwhelm the senses, checkout the Detroit International Jazz Festival featuring big hitters like Regina Carter, Herbie Hancock, Yusef Lateef, the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood, and Don Byron’s Junior Walker Project, as well as rising stars like Sachal Vasandani, Chiara Civello, and Dominick Farinacci (August 31 – September 3 info).

Here’s a festival that you’ll really regret isn’t held outdoors, featuring performances of music by Philip Glass and Terry Riley; it’s a little something called the Grand Canyon Music Festival (September 1 – 16 info). Ethel is the ensemble in residence, performing staples from their feisty repertoire and works composed by students of the festival’s Native American Composers Apprentice Project.

Real Quiet
Real Quiet

About 500 miles southwest, another festival is slinging concerts by So Percussion and the Calder Quartet. One of the highlights of the Carlsbad Music Festival is a concert by it group Real Quiet performing a brand spanking new piece by festival founder Matt McBane, as well as works by Annie Gosfield, Phil Kline and Marc Mellits (September 24 – 30 info).

I got a festival for whatever suits your fancy… Trumpets: FONT Music (September 16 – 30 info). Guitars: Wall to Wall (September 13 – 15 info). Experimental free improv in John Waters-land: High Zero (September 24 – 30 info). Pretty, pretty music with the potential to sound ugly: Between Thought and Sound—Graphic Notation in Contemporary Music (September 7 – October 20 info). A birthday party: John Cage at 95 (September 5 info). Can’t make up your mind: TBA (September 6 – 16 info) or Wordless Music Series (September 14, 20, 24, 29 info).

Clearly the new music scene has awakened from its summer hibernation, and after the fall equinox, things are just going to start avalanching to that too-many-concerts saturation point. Until then: happy listening.

Scene Scan: California’s Central Valley

California
Image by S.C. Birmaher

Making a go of new music in California, outside the mainstream music centers of San Francisco and Los Angeles, is a risky proposition. Nonetheless, the Sacramento region boasts a unique and vibrant small new music scene where tradition is less important than the spirit of unfettered exploration. In fact, you could say that exploration is its only tradition.

That spirit owes much to the late 1960s when composers John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen taught at the University of California at Davis, a scant 11 miles from downtown Sacramento. Until then, UC Davis was known as primarily an agricultural research university surrounded by sun-dappled rice fields and massive sunflower farms. The roots of a new music scene took hold with sold out performances at Davis of Stockhausen’s Kontakte and Cage’s Atlas Eclipticalis. The region’s new music scene has never been the same since. Today the ghosts of Cage and Stockhausen are but a bare whisper, but the spirit of musical experimentation remains strong.

Mondavi Center
Mondavi Center

At Davis, that spirit has been taken up by the Empyrean Ensemble. Founded in 1988 by composer/conductor Ross Bauer and now co-directed by composers Laurie San Martin & Kurt Rohde, the ensemble plays a broad range of new music. In addition to its “Fault Line” concert series showcasing a stylistically diverse array of new works by composers from all over California—last season included music by Aaron Einbond, Dan Becker, and Erica Muhl—and an annual program devoted to scores from graduate composers at the university, other programs also mix contemporary music landmarks from the U.S. and beyond. Previous seasons have featured performances of John Adams’s China Gates, Brian Ferneyhough’s Bone Alphabet, Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, Aaron Copland’s Piano Quartet, and even Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. Empyrean’s concerts are now performed in the five-year-old confines of the Mondavi Center for the Arts—a facility that is rapidly gaining a reputation for being one of the best acoustically designed halls on the West Coast.

The seven musicians who make up the core of the group all share a strong presence in ensembles, conservatories, and universities spread throughout the Bay Area. This is a defining trait for many musicians and composers in the Sacramento region. With the hotbed musical centers of San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley only a 90-minute freeway drive away, it stands to reason that Sacramento’s new music scene would be heavily pollinated by the cities to its west.

One of the oldest new music festivals on the west coast is the Sacramento State University’s Festival of New American Music. This annual November festival, now in its 30th season, has no over-arching theme or dogmas save for an emphasis on contemporary music and presenting it for free. Each year, the festival is anchored by a keynote speaker. Last year that mantle fell to composer Frederick Rzewski, who performed his expansive two-piano and percussion work Bring Them Home, with Elaine Lust. Rzewski also offered a curious and highly didactic master class titled “Non-sequiturs in classical music.”

This year’s festival (November 1-13) will feature composer Pauline Oliveros as its keynote speaker and there will be several performances of her works. The festival will also introduce the Kansas City-based ensemble New Ear to the region, as well as invite the San Francisco-based ensemble Earplay for a concert of Wayne Peterson’s music in honor of his 80th birthday. But the festival is not solely focused on established contemporary music icons. Works by emerging composers also make their way to the Capistrano Hall stage. Unfortunately the festival is still relatively unknown, even in the Bay Area. Like most new music festivals marketing is virtually non-existent.

“We always put whatever money we raise towards bringing in visiting artists,” admits Festival Director Stephen Blumberg.

*

Another defining characteristic of the new music scene in Sacramento and the surrounding region is the lack of any overall stylistic identity to any of the new music or its composers. And since Sacramento is rapidly becoming the urban musical center of the Great Central Valley, this means it is an epicenter to a new music scene spanning almost 400 miles of territory. From Bakersfield to Davis, many composers toil in relative obscurity unaware that a great many colleagues are also involved in the pursuits of composing, teaching, and raising funds to present new music.

Kenneth Froehlich
Kenneth Froehlich

“There are several outstanding composers here in the valley, but with limited performance opportunities and the geographic restrictions, it becomes much harder for a composer to get known and performed,” according to Kenneth Froelich, composition professor California State University, Fresno.

But that is changing thanks to a recent Meet The Composer-supported initiative called “Sonic Bloom” whose goal has been to bring more than 40 composers together on the campus of California State University Stanislaus to forge a geographic bond.

“It’s a process for composers to find ways to work together in a unified way to advance the cause of new music in their region,” says Ed Harsh, incoming President of Meet The Composer, who is particularly gratified that the program “helps these composers help themselves.” That help was evident in the many new works from Central Valley composers that were performed during the “Sonic Bloom” conference held last February.

For composer Deborah Kavasch, chair of the music department at Stanislaus, the initiative seems to be having its intended effect: “I felt that this gathering fostered a real sense of a community of composers of all ages and stages of careers.” Ultimately, however, the hundreds of miles that separate these 40 composers and the need to find the means for securing ongoing funding will prove the biggest challenges to this fledgling group of composers.

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Michael Morgan
Michael Morgan

Thankfully, the value of new music has not been lost on one of the biggest presenters of classical music in the Central Valley, the Sacramento Philharmonic. Under music director Michael Morgan, the orchestra has fostered the creation of three new works from California composers. The first, Night Thoughts, by one-time Californian André Previn, was commissioned in honor of Sacramento-based painter Wayne Thiebaud. The other two—Gang Situ’s Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra and Jon Jang’s Chinese American Symphony—were part of the orchestra’s “Gold Mountain” project, a commissioning initiative designed to address the Californian Chinese-American immigrant experience.

No assessment of the music scene in Sacramento would be complete without acknowledging the influx of new blood to the scene from composers who have emigrated to the area. One of those is composer and guitarist Derek Keller who recently released his first CD, Impositions and Consequences, on John Zorn’s Tzadik label. Keller’s kinetic works are a bold amalgam of jazz, classical and Zappa-esque rock music whose development was deeply influenced by Roger Reynolds at the University of California at San Diego, where Keller got his doctorate.

The recent arrival of the choir Vox Musica to the Sacramento music scene is also indicative of the talent moving into the area that highly values new music. This eight-woman choir, under the direction of Daniel Paulson, devoted almost half of the programming of its first season to showcasing the work of living composers, both local and international. And next season promises a similar mix.

Nevada City
Nevada City

Sixty miles east, as the crow flies, is the Nevada County Composer’s Cooperative, one of the oldest composer cooperatives in the region. The cooperative, which boasts Terry Riley among its members, debuts new works each June in a “Wet Ink” concert presented during the Music In the Mountains festival, held in the Sierra Nevada foothill town of Nevada City. It is a bourgeoning area that has benefited greatly from the urban flight out of the hyper-expensive housing market of San Francisco.

According to composer Mark Vance, who serves as the NCCC’s executive director, “The Nevada City-Grass Valley area is almost like a 21st-century Vienna or Florence. There seems to be a creative magnet pulling artists here from every discipline who are all attracted to the dark, rich, creative, soil of Nevada County. They are refugees relocating here, seeking solace from the larger metropolitan cacophony.”

As this fast growing region continues to develop, its composers—both natives and transplants—will continue to find ways to disseminate a musical landscape that ranges from solace to cacophony.

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Edward Ortiz

 

Edward Ortiz is the classical music and opera critic for the Sacramento Bee. Prior to joining the Bee he worked as staff reporter for the Boston Globe and the Providence Journal, and is a contributor to the website San Francisco Classical Voice.

NewMusicBoxOffice: Come Outside and Play

Bee Mask
Bee Mask

As the summer heats up, the ratio of softball games to new music concerts is sure to skyrocket. Yes, the official concert season doesn’t kickoff for another month, but there’s no reason to throw in the towel because there are plenty of ear-tickling events going on, even in this most musically arid month we call August. Etymologically speaking, this month should be pretty damn kick-ass, even awe inspiring, but with new music in hibernation we’re going to have to venture out from our usual musical haunts in order to hear something interesting.

A good place to hunt for music is your local museum. Many institutions play host to everything from jazz and chamber groups to DJs and rock bands. The folks at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland plan to make a really big racket this month by gathering noise bands from across Ohio for an eight-hour extravaganza dubbed We Who Are About To (August 25 info). Expect a lot of loud dissonance by the likes of Jerk, Bee Mask, Emeralds, Jukebox Value, Iron Oxide, KingDom, Black Wolf, Chum, and more. Sounds yummy.

PS1's Warm Up
PS1’s Warm Up

Even the Cadillac of art museums, MoMA, adorns its hallowed courtyard with music in the summer. The Soundgarden series features honest-to-goodness new music with chamber pieces by Roberto Sierra, Pablo Ortiz, and Narong Prangcharoen (August 5 info). Over at MoMA’s hipper satellite PS1 in Long Island City, the notorious cross between beach party and nightclub known as Warm Up still manages to pack in scenesters of every stripe. Getting past the velvet rope takes a bit of time, so arrive early—and for good reason: the opening acts are all freaky new music people! Kudos to the folks at PS1 for snatching up Zach Layton for this year’s curatorial team, which means we all get to hear the likes of Dewanatron (August 18 info). Ah, bizarre electronic music under a colorful outdoor art installation with sprinklers. Does it get any better?

I always thought there was something a little romantic about the Hollywood Bowl. The place certainly has an air of nostalgia—the first concert I saw there was the Thompson Twins. (I was, like, 14 or something. Whatever, okay.) For a different brand of reminiscence, the L.A. Philharmonic is performing a program of Bernstein, Copland, and Gershwin (August 2 info). Prepare yourself for some grandstanding with the ever-flashy MTT on the podium. And in the other corner, in the how-weird-is-that category: Musica Elettronica Viva hits Tanglewood (August 2 info). Seriously, I did a full-on Scooby Doo “rhuh?” when I read this. So, let me get this straight, if a group known for yielding power drills can take the stage at Tanglewood, then maybe the powers-that-be really are starting to get over the whole style wars thing—finally. In any case, Ozawa hall will never be the same.

Jennifer Higdon
Jennifer Higdon

Another summertime music festival also brings some bona fide new music to the table. The Skaneateles Festival features a whopping five compositions by Kevin Puts, who will be on hand to conduct and perform his work. As the festival runs its course, expect to hear pieces by Samuel Barber, George Gershwin, and Jennifer Higdon along the way (August 8 – September 1 info). Kevin Puts and Jennifer Higdon also make appearances for the world premieres of their Symphony No. 4 and Soprano Sax Concerto, respectively, during the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music (July 30 – August 12 info). They will be joined by eight other composers-in-residence, turning the sleepy surfer town of Santa Cruz a temporary new music Mecca. Geographically closer to the real-life Mecca is Ostrava New Music Days. You don’t need to speak Czech to soak in all 15 events in 7 days (August 26 – September 1 info), but I’ll give you one word that will enhance the experience: pivo.

Over in Santa Fe, new music almost feels like an endangered species this month, but there are some pickings out there to be had. The city’s world famous chamber music festival has invited pianist Alan Feinberg for their Modern Masters series. While Feinberg’s program is heavily European, Nancarrow’s Three Two-Part Studies for Piano gets a listen (August 3 info). I also managed to tracked down a performance of Crumb’s Voice of the Whale sandwiched between some Beethoven and Mendelssohn (August 20 info). On the other hand, modern composition is exploding in the Bay Area. Admittedly, it’s a very tiny explosion, but one that should prove quite interesting. The sfSoundSeries presents a slew of short pieces by Liz Allbee, Mark Applebaum, David Bithell, Christopher Burns, George Cremaschi, Dina Emerson, James Fei, Matthew Goodheart, Matt Ingalls, John Ingle, Marisol Jimenez, Christopher Jones, Jon Leidecker, Hyo-shin Na, Pauline Oliveros, Dan Plonsey, Jon Raskin, Monica Scott, Moe! Staiano, Erik Ulman, Zachary Watkins, to name a few, along with a performance of Webern’s Concerto op.24 (August 26 info). Of course the evening is called Small Packages.

The Car Music Project
The Car Music Project

If you’re searching for something big, look no further than U.K. premiere of John Adams’s A Flowering Tree (August 10 – 12 info). Rumor has it that a fully-staged performance of the latest Adams opera won’t hit American shores until 2009 at Lincoln Center. And speaking of New York City’s megaplex of the performing arts, even though it’s way too hot outside, it’s time for the Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival. Among the many happenings are a spatial percussion piece by Henry Brant (August 22 info), an interactive work by Pauline Oliveros followed by her EHRES (Extreme High Risk Entertainment System) ensemble (August 21 info), and a memorial tribute to Leroy Jenkins by his former bandmates in the Skymusic Ensemble (August 15 info).

Perhaps the most unusual outdoor event: The Car Music Project. This ensemble led by composer Bill Milbrodt does a drive by in Bethlehem, PA (August 4 info) before parking at Lincoln Center (August 5 info). As you’ve already guessed by now, all the instruments on which they perform are built from car parts. I’m curious to hear how they’ll blend with the din of taxicabs whizzing by on Columbus.

Creating Anna Karenina

It is a scientific fact that Carmen will sell better than an unknown opera, and at a time when opera companies are under increasing pressure to maximize ticket sales, a number of deep breaths were drawn in the marketing department in 2000 when Florida Grand Opera commissioned a new work for its first season in Miami’s new opera house. We were all aware of the challenges we would face selling “new music” to the conservative South Florida opera audience.

What I couldn’t know at the time was that we would be creating an outstanding new work that would bring every audience to its feet in some of the loudest standing ovations I’ve experienced during my fourteen seasons with the company. I also couldn’t know that the physical production would be one of the finest I’ve seen, or that I would find David Carlson’s magnificent score more and more rewarding during each of the six performances I attended. By the final performance, all of us at Florida Grand Opera were certain that Anna Karenina had quite possibly been our greatest achievement in 66 years of producing opera.

The Commission

link to video clip 1

The world premiere of David Carlson and Colin Graham’s Anna Karenina was a very long time in the making. When the Opera Theatre of St. Louis presented the 1993 premiere of Carlson’s first opera, The Midnight Angel, Colin Graham, OTSL’s artistic director, asked Carlson to consider composing the music for Anna Karenina to a libretto he had begun many years earlier for Benjamin Britten. Carlson knew Tolstoy’s novel well and had in fact already begun to sketch out music for an opera without any concrete plans for a commission.

Florida Grand Opera’s Music Director Stewart Robertson, who had conducted the premiere of The Midnight Angel, persuaded General Director Robert Heuer to commission the opera for the opening of Miami’s new opera house, projected to open in 2003. Graham and Carlson began serious work on the project but construction problems delayed the opening until October 2006. Anna Karenina would receive its world premiere on April 28, 2007.

The Composition

link to video clip 2

David Carlson reports that there was no more demanding, authoritative, and knowledgeable a collaborator than Colin Graham. Conceptual issues were also in sharp focus, as Graham was to serve as the stage director, as well as the librettist. While Anna Karenina was Carlson’s third opera, it was Graham’s 56th world premiere in a career that included more than 350 productions. Carlson reports that often every syllable of the text for a scene was negotiated; when he felt that a really good melody needed two additional syllables, Graham would oblige him, and together they worked through every word of the text to achieve the best fit with the score. After the work was completed, Graham asked Carlson to reconsider the music that opens the opera, saying he felt Anna needed much stronger music. After some consideration, Carlson agreed and rewrote the opening pages.

The Artists

Scene from Anna Karenina
(L-R) Kelly Kaduce as Anna and Christine Abraham as Dolly

Early on, set designer Neil Patel and costume designer Robert Perdziola were engaged for the project. Mark McCullough was enlisted as the lighting designer. A good deal of the production’s success was due to their collective contributions.

The playing area of the stage was a specially constructed deck with two concentric turntables. These could be rotated at various speeds together, in opposing directions, or individually in either direction. This enabled the many scenes that make up the opera to swiftly follow one upon another. Every cue for the committed troupe of supernumeraries who moved furniture and props was double booked so that if the turntables failed the performance could proceed without them.

Before rehearsals for Anna Karenina began in March, Colin Graham’s health began to fail and when he became too ill to travel to Miami, he worked intensively with Mark Streshinsky, the assistant director. From his hospital bed, Graham reviewed every detail of his concept for staging, all of the thought behind it, and potential solutions for problems that might arise. They agreed that Streshinsky would direct the Miami premiere, with the hope that Graham would recover sufficiently to direct the Opera Theatre of St. Louis performances in June.

An astonishingly strong cast of singers had been engaged, most of whom remained intact for the production as construction delays necessitated the constant pushing back of contracts from year to year. Members of Florida Grand Opera’s Young Artist Studio covered the principal roles.

The Experience

The first musical rehearsal for Anna Karenina was held on March 21, 2007, and it began with Mark Streshinsky reading a letter that Colin Graham had written to the cast. Here it is in its entirety.

 

Dear and very dear friends,

85% of you I have known, loved or worked with. The other 15% I have admired and heard so many good things about you from others.

Welcome to rehearsals for Anna Karenina! I hope you will understand when I say it is with the deepest sorrow I am not with you and will not see you until you arrive in Saint Louis—at which point I shall have to justify my fee, even if in spurious form. The reasons for this are all medical emergency, things that have been bad have gotten to be worse, ending in a good deal of collapse. I have at least one, but possibly two surgeries to undergo which will certainly keep me out of Miami.

There is no one but Mark Streshinsky whom I would trust more to take over David’s beautiful opera for me—both the battles and the delights of getting it on to its feet for the first time. We have often worked together and, in the last few days when I have been passing the production over to him, have left me feeling even more secure, knowing that you will love him as much as I love you all and that all will be set fair.

So, on with the show. I’ve already sent you many pages of imprecation (with Oprah’s help) and I just ask you now to examine closely every section of the novel in which your scenes occur. There is such a wealth of detail there, of the heart, of the face, of secret looks, that I think I can claim that 99% of the opera text is derived from Tolstoy’s own descriptions. Please do seek them out – the search will reward and excite you as well as it will your viewers.

Someone once said if you really know all the implications of Wagner’s thematic material you could get the whole story from the orchestra. In a lesser extent the same applies to David’s Table of Themes: never stop listening for them or hearing them in your sub-text.

Trust Mark, pull and take and borrow and love with each other and all will be well.

All my love and blessings to you surpass my terrible disappointment. Jump aboard the Anna Kay and enjoy!

Much love, Colin

 

During rehearsals on April 6, the company received word that Colin Graham had died that morning, and Bob Heuer and Charles MacKay decided that the Miami and St. Louis performances of Anna Karenina would be dedicated to Colin’s memory.

The singers and Stewart Robertson had all come to believe so deeply in the work during the rehearsals that they felt it very much need to be recorded. Good news arrived when we learned that Charles MacKay had secured funding to make a commercial recording of Anna Karenina during the performances at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis.

The six Miami performances were attended by 13,630 people; all performances were full, and the final three were sold-out. David Carlson attended each of them and went before the curtain with me to conduct pre-performance lectures. Each lecture was attended by nearly 1,000 people, and it was exciting to feel the audience connect with the composer as we discussed the process of creating Anna Karenina—which he had now been working on for fourteen years—how one goes about discarding 800 pages of a novel and still follow the fundamental story’s thread.

There is much music of startling and arresting beauty throughout Anna Karenina. Many of our patrons who have long-held and deep-seated fears about new music were completely won over. By the final performance the artistic team, singers, and orchestra, along with the entire staff and Board of Directors of Florida Grand Opera, felt they had been through one of the most exhilarating experiences imaginable. Our audiences agreed.

Scenes from Anna Karenina and other information are available at youtube.com by searching under Florida Grand Opera.

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Justin Moss is Managing Director for Marketing and Communication at Florida Grand Opera. Prior to joining the company in 1993, he held various management posts with the Virginia Opera, Baltimore Opera and Boston Lyric Opera. He has also served as a judge for the Metropolitan Opera National Auditions on several occasions in the United States and Canada, and frequently gives talks about opera, both standard repertoire and contemporary, throughout Southern Florida.

NewMusicBoxOffice: Cure for the Summertime Blues



New music’s nemesis?

Ah, July. With the regular concert season receding into mere memory, is the new music enthusiast destined for incessant renditions of “Stars and Stripes Forever” at the local bandshell for the rest of the summer? All the beach trips, barbeques, and fireworks displays in the world can’t disguise the fact that summer means slim pickings for modern composition. On the brighter side, ’tis the season for festivals galore. So if sand and surf isn’t exactly your thing, allow me to suggest some events to satisfy your musical cravings. Along the way we’ll explore a couple of interesting ways to escape the heat, and a composerly twist on dinner-and-a-movie.

First things first. Let’s address a particular national holiday when it’s hard to avoid a certain little Tchaikovsky piece involving cannons. While you’re bound to hear the same-ol’-same-ol’ on the 4th, those gathered at the Miller Outdoor Theatre will be treated to something brand spanking new by composer James Stephenson, commissioned and performed by the Houston Symphony (July 4: info). As for the rest of us, looks like we get to celebrate our independence from English rule with a tune penned by a dead Russian dude.

Just to prove there are no centuries-old hard feelings, there are some kids in London presenting some of America’s most nonconformist composers under the banner of Music We’d Like To Hear. Curators Tim Parkinson, John Lely, and Markus Trunk have decided they want to hear Michael Pisaro’s The Collection, an assembly of 25 pieces for instruments of all kinds, both specified and unspecified (July 5: info). The following week, the series presents UNAMUNO, a choral work by Alvin Lucier, as well as his Sizzles for organ and drums with “fine strewn material” (July 12: info). Not to make you jealous, but the Brits also get to hear the Cecil Taylor Quartet play with Anthony Braxton—a first-ever—at the Southbank Centre (July 8: info) followed by another jazz legend named Ornette (July 9: info).

Seems the summer isn’t slowing things down one bit across the pond. Keeping up with the Joneses, a small artist-run venue located in Oakland is setting its phasers on stun by hosting back-to-back music festivals and the Transbay Skronkathon. Oh, wait. What’s a skronkathon, you ask? Well, think of it as a barbeque with more than 10 hours of live improvised music by scronkers from all over the Bay Area’s creative music scene (July 15: info). It’s pretty much quintessential summertime fun, only louder. 21 Grand gets the par-tay started with folks like Rubber O Cement, Larry Ochs, and Sharon Cheslow performing as a toast to the art gallery and performance space’s seventh anniversary (July 12 and 13: info). Happy birthday 21 Grand! The venue also welcomes the Edgetone New Music Summit (July 22 – 28: info). The annual gathering of audio experimenters from the Bay and beyond consists of concerts and panel discussions that crossover the bridge with events at San Francisco’s Musicians Union Hall and Community Music Center.

In southern California, the good folks at MicroFest serve up an outdoor concert of Harry Partch’s music, performed on his original instruments, of course, at California Plaza in downtown L.A. (July 20: info). Is it me, or is it somehow fitting that Partch’s settings of hitchhikers’ graffiti are going to be performed so close to downtown’s skid row? But hey, it’s a free show. And if you happen to be writing your dissertation on the effects of microtonality on the homeless population, this is obviously a not-to-be-missed event.

Speaking of homelessness, I would probably end up in the early stages myself if I whipped out the credit card to pay for a trip to Rimini. But life might just seem slightly impoverished if I never get the chance to hear the intrepid Daan Vandewalle perform Alvin Curran’s complete (thus far) cycle of solo piano pieces called Inner Cities. Those lucky enough to be in Italy for the Santarcangelo International Festival of the Arts are in for a transformative experience divided over two extended evenings. During the latter installment, Vandewalle plans to unveil Curran’s latest installment Inner Cities #13 (July 12 and 13: info).

Anyone looking to beat the heat on New York’s Lower East Side can wander into the Miguel Abreu Gallery to view some visually stunning scores by Robert Ashley, Alison Knowles, Christian Wolff, Pauline Oliveros, Anthony Jay Ptak, and the aforementioned Englishman Tim Parkinson. If you’re not content just looking, you can hear performances of the exhibited work in addition to other compositions at the gallery throughout the month by musicians such as Anthony Coleman, Jennifer Choi, and exhibition organizer Alex Waterman (through July 28: info).

If you’re interested—and I know that you are—in what young composers are up to, you’ll want to checkout Zeitgeist’s Lowertown Listening Session (July 18: info). Sounds to me like your typical concert on the down-low, which it kind of is. But this monthly series gives budding composers a chance to develop new work in a no-pressure environment. Expect discussion and feedback from the performers and composers. Think of it as an insider’s look into the process of creating new works. (Yes, I know all you composers are all too familiar, but sometimes it’s fun to watch it all unfold from the outside—at least give it a try, okay?)

When composers date other composers, conversations shouldn’t always digress into combinatoriality. Here are two ideas for composer couples looking to breakout of their theoretical rut. In Virginia, you can have a gourmet dinner inspired by Aaron Jay Kernis’s The Four Seasons of Futuristic Cuisine. No joke. Garth Newel Music Center’s resident chef Randy Wyche will concoct a five-course meal based on the manifestos from the Kernis piece. Dinner is preceded by a cocktail hour and a performance of the composition in question by the unflappable eighth blackbird (July 14: info). If a movie is more your speed, Accessible Contemporary Music screens their film Composer Alive: Eastern Expressions which details their collaboration with Beijing composer Xiaogang Ye (July 20: info).

Scene Scan: Welcome to Syracuse, New York

When new music crops up in an unexpected place—i.e. not in a major city—it often coalesces around a college with a school or department of music and its attendant composers. Syracuse, New York, home to a large, private university that shares the city’s name, happily and successfully bucks this trend. The Society for New Music, which celebrated its 35th anniversary this past season, programs concerts of contemporary music and provides tireless advocacy for young composers, untaxed by the pessimism that long, bitter winters and a protracted economic downturn have brought to Syracuse. The Society’s independence from the university, along with a willingness to collaborate and a refusal—despite geographic obscurity—to be overlooked, has made it the best and most exciting source of music in a region not known as a musical Mecca.

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The musicians involved with the Society for New Music are dedicated to championing local composers.

Since its founding in 1971 by a small group of musicians playing the works of their composer peers, the Society has been involved in both the performance and promotion of new music. The founding players were, variously, college faculty, teachers in area schools, and members of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, and this new ensemble filled a gap in the range of music performed in the city. The ensemble got its start, according to singer, teacher, and Society founder Neva Pilgrim, “under the umbrella” of the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, and has grown into a larger, more fluid group of performers. At every stage of the Society’s development, however, it has consistently championed local composers and has placed their work alongside that of composers of national and international fame.

In this and previous anniversary seasons, the Society has undertaken large-scale commissions in collaboration with other musical organizations in the area, engaging primarily classical-oriented groups like the Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music, the Syracuse Chorale, and the Syracuse Vocal Ensemble to perform contemporary music. The Society has had a wide reach since its early years; for the United States bicentennial, only five years into the Society’s existence, it assisted in the commission of a piece by George Rochberg for the Syracuse Symphony.

This collaborative spirit has made the Society a cornerstone of the musical community in Syracuse, and it led to the particularly grand display which launched the Society’s 35th season in September 2006-the world premiere of Robert Morris’s Sound/Path/Field. Large crowds on the SU campus are used to gathering to attend games by one of the University’s well-funded but underperforming sports teams, but on that afternoon, they came for an outdoor musical happening. Morris drew his inspiration from the main academic quad and surveyed it daily for several months, taking in the space and its surroundings and walking its crisscrossing paths. The resulting work utilized more than a hundred performers, including student singers and instrumentalists, children’s choir, and large puppets from a local theater company. Flocks of mobile musicians turned the usually restricted, well-manicured space of a college quad into the stage for the largest undertaking in the Society’s history.

Students looking to spend a fall afternoon catching rays and chucking Frisbees stumbled upon a work of performance art that combined the precision of a marching band drill with Cagean aleatoric elements. Passersby became audience members—drawn in by the large crowds, as well as by the sight of large, billowy-winged puppets borne on poles—and they were able to freely mix with the roving musicians. Each cue from the University’s chimes made everyone look about for the next ensemble to start playing or singing.

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Performance on the quad as part of Robert Morris’s Sound/Path/Field

The creative cross-pollinations that made Sound/Path/Field possible continued throughout the Society’s 06-07 concert series. February’s “Visions of Sound” concert featured dancers and choreographers from the State University of New York at Brockport and the University at Buffalo performing works accompanied by the music of Marc Mellits, Daniel Felsenfeld, and others. Local dance studios provided complimentary tickets to their students, giving many young people exposure to contemporary music paired with modern dance. The geographic span of performers and composers on “Latin Rhythms,” a March concert of music by Latin-American composers, was even broader: works by composers based in Syracuse, Rochester, and New York City (with roots in Colombia, Mexico, and Cuba, respectively), musicians from five different colleges in Central and Upstate New York, with still more from the Syracuse Symphony; and a Syracuse-born-and-bred flamenco dancer.

This broad eclecticism extends to another of the Society’s influences upon the community: a radio program devoted solely to new music which, at an hour a week every Sunday afternoon, may seem modest but is still an hour more than many cities—especially ones as small as Syracuse—can boast. “Fresh Ink” is in its tenth year on 91.3 FM WCNY, the Syracuse area’s only classical music station. When talk of a new music program began more than ten years ago, the station’s programmers and other musical minds said they were too busy, but Pilgrim, now the program’s host, said, “I’m too busy, too, but I think it needs to be done.”

This type of commitment speaks to a deep sense of loyalty in the Syracuse area. Children throughout the region grow up attending concerts and sporting events at SU; the Carrier Dome, a massive, on-campus arena that hosts many of these events, is visible from many places in the city and from Interstate 81, the north-south highway that bisects the city. This early connection results in many local high schoolers attending SU and in the cultivation of native talent not only in athletics, but also in academics and the arts.

This association has played out to the Society’s benefit as well. Steven Heyman, pianist and assistant professor of music at SU, grew up in Syracuse and returned in 1988 to teach and perform after studying at Juilliard and in Europe. Wesley Baldwin, a cellist who played on the “Latin Rhythms” concert, now teaches at the University of Tennessee, but still returns frequently to his hometown to perform. Andrew Russo, pianist and performing artist in residence at nearby Le Moyne College, studied with Heyman and turned pages at Society concerts when he was in high school. Natives who move elsewhere often say Syracuse is a great place to be from rather than to stay, but the allure of the arts keeps drawing long-time residents back.

The Society’s foremost connection, though, is to the community, not to the college, and the way that the Society bridges the familiar town-gown gap has contributed to its high standing. The group began by putting on five concerts split between locations in the city and at the University, and it has remained mindful of the separation between the city and the institution on “the Hill.” The Society has drawn upon what the University has to offer—performers from the faculty, a strong music composition department, concert spaces with some rare features (the 1950 Holtkamp organ in Crouse College is world-renowned)—while remaining apart from it and helping to keep musical life in Syracuse centered in the community.

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Stunning views mix with the music at the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in nearby Cazenovia, New York.

The Society concert series has since expanded to sites in other parts of the city: the Carrier Theatre at the downtown Mulroy Civic Center and the May Memorial Unitarian Society on the east side of the city. Concerts are reprised throughout Central New York: in Utica and Rochester, and at Colgate University and Hamilton College. In the summer, the Society sponsors a concert series in Cazenovia, a scenic small town 20 miles west of Syracuse, and the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park, an outdoor sculpture garden that serves as a concert site, is an off-the-beaten-path gem. The Society tallies more than 20,000 audience members at its year-round concerts, with still more tuning in to and giving feedback on “Fresh Ink.”

In spite of the growth in audience and the strong positive reception that many Society concerts enjoy, provinciality and an antipathy toward new ideas sometimes crop up in Syracuse. The following write-up in the Syracuse New Times, the city’s alternative weekly newspaper, was particularly disheartening:

“If the atonal shrieks, squeals and shocks that define ultra-contemporary classical music don’t utterly offend you, there’s a good chance you’ll have the endurance only a true fan of chamber music harbors.” (Jan. 17, 2007)

The rest of the write-up for the concert was more promotional than utterly damning, but still slighted the notion of “experimental compositions,” as contrasted with “traditionally composed works.” This writing, under the headline “Compose Heap,” appeared in the paper’s “Picks” section, usually a spot for the newspaper’s editors to recommend the events most worthy of readers’ time and money.

In spite of this misguided bit of journalism, the Society’s advocacy of new music and dedication to local performers and composers continue unabated. In June, it will once again award the Brian Israel Prize, an annual award to winners Prize, an annual award to winners of a composition contest for New York State composers under the age of 30, with a $500 prize given by the Society and a $250 prize given by the New York Federation of Music Clubs. The 2006 winners, Christopher Doll and Ryan Gallagher, had their works performed on a November concert. The Society continues to program works by prize winners in subsequent seasons, and many of them return to hear their music performed again. A commission by the Society has been a starting point or a springboard for many more composers, including Melinda Wagner, Christopher Rouse, and Steven Stucky, all during their pre-Pulitzer days.

Activity in upstate New York’s other new music hotbeds is centered around universities: Eastman School of Music in Rochester, and Ithaca Conservatory of Music and Cornell University in Ithaca. But the base of contemporary music in Central New York—a term coined to distinguish the region from the forbidding and distant-sounding “upstate”—is firmly situated in the community, not in the halls of academia. Thanks to a combination of homegrown talent, adventurous audiences, and tireless advocacy by the Society for New Music, Syracuse stands on its own as a remarkable musical center.

ASCII-ing for Virtual Cake

Today is the 50th anniversary of computer music. What started out inside an acoustics research lab has now taken over the entire world. Even composers like myself, who still notate their music by hand—passé, I know—can’t manage a career without logging some time in front of a computer screen on a daily basis. But even if you do somehow manage a tech-free existence, there is no escaping the aesthetic impact of today’s digital culture.

Computer software has enabled composers like Ferneyhough to realize complicated algorithms within a musical idiom without all the hassle of those pesky punch cards his predecessors had to deal with back in the dark ages. Furthermore, the advent of the laptop spawned a whole new performance practice. Beyond such conveniences and paradigm shifts, the conception of “digital space” has infiltrated the multitude of ways in which we practice art.

With the ability to condense an Academy Award winning film into a rapid-fire 30-second assemblage or stretch a Beethoven symphony into a 24-hour sonic event, composers have been swayed by technology to explore any and all whimsical what-ifs simply because the effort involved isn’t prohibitively time consuming. On the flip side, some composers are wasting tons of time tweaking infinitesimal details that, in the end, are completely inaudible. Regardless of how we use or don’t use technology, notions of compression and expansion as they relate to digital archetypes will be musically explored, even if the byproduct is good old-fashioned acoustic music. Anybody out there have an action plan to escape this predicament, or should we just ride out another 50 years and see what happens next?

NewMusicBoxOffice: What (I Wish) I Did During Summer Vacation


Welcome to NewMusicBoxOffice, a new monthly column that operates like a giant concert calendar. We sift through all of the buzz in order to highlight not-to-be-missed events, wherever they may take place.

What would happen if the most rabid, hardcore fan of contemporary music suddenly won the lottery? Get ready for some serious jet-setting new music style, from the major premieres and oh-so-hip festival circuit to those funky little must-sees that you usually hear about long after the fact. To insure that you’re not about to miss out on the event of the century, I’m putting together an insane itinerary geared towards the musical omnivore with an insatiable appetite.

Scott Arford
Scott Arford

The logical way to start might be in Toronto with the world premiere of Philip Glass’s Book of Longing, however I hear that Rome is really beautiful this time of year. So let’s stay up late—we’re talking 3 a.m.—on the first of June for a computerized black metal-influenced performance by KTL (that’s Stephen O’Malley from Sunn O))) and Peter Rehberg, the head honcho at the oh-so-sexy Austria-based label Editions Mego) during the Dissonanze 7 festival (June 1 and 2: info). For those of you lucky enough to be on a bona fide Roman holiday (i.e. not just sitting in front of the computer, as per usual), be sure to checkout some abstracted indie rock the following day by New York-based Battles at the more reasonable hour of 11 p.m. Hey, with a lineup including some Anthony Braxton offspring, you know it’s going to be good. But prepare to stay up late again for a collaboration between Vienna’s laptop wunderkind Fennesz and jack-of-all-trades Mike Patton. The perfect nightcap: a noisy A/V set of Mahlerian proportions by San Francisco’s Scott Arford. This isn’t the only festival around hell-bent on creating vast outbreaks of communal Visine binges, if you want to see acts like o.blaat, Bubblyfish, and Lee Curtiss at this years MUTEK (May 30 – June 4: info), prepare to burn the midnight oil.

Scott Arford
FULCRUM

After our fill of great Italian food and wine paired with some equally great music, let’s consider jetting back Stateside. In Philadelphia, the electro-music 2007 conference and festival (June 1 – 3: info) promises to be one doozy of an event, featuring non-stop performances noon to midnight, along with workshops, demonstrations, and open jams. Expect some interesting sets by the likes of Margaret Noble, FULCRUM, I Eat Zeros and Ones, and PLOrk Beat Science, to name only a few. Luckily, you don’t actually have to be in Philly to enjoy the sonic offerings. If the techno-gods allow, the entire festival will be streamed live as it happens over the internet. Here’s the link if you’d like to tune in.

Since we won’t be missing the goings-on at electro-music 2007 as long as we stick close to a wifi connection, let’s skip the trip to Philly and stay in Europe a little bit longer. Then let’s head to the UK for a festival that dares to feature its local bicycle orchestra. Hosted by venues throughout Bristol, the 2007 edition of the Venn Festival (May 31 – June 3 info) will welcome the Portland, OR-based Yellow Swans performing two sets: one electronic, one acoustic, and both of them definitely loud. Catch them on June 2 for a little hardcore matched with a strangely apt down tempo, deep house beat—sounds weird, but it works. Alright lads, now follow that with a good pint and an early evening DJ set by Berlin-based expat Safety Scissors.

Yellow Swans
Yellow Swans

While we’re living things up across the pond, the truly devoted are nestled in their sleeping bags, enduring the hard marble floors at New York’s World Finance Center’s Winter Garden for the longest Bang on a Can marathon ever (June 2 – 3: info). We’re talking 26-hours of music kicking-off at 8 p.m. and wrapping up at 10 p.m. the following day. Expect to be serenaded by all the usual suspects and their new best-ist friends. On the same day—er, um—days, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s fires up its Notable Women Festival (June 2 – 17: info), featuring music by the leading ladies of modern composition along with newcomers like Asha Srinivasan and Kati Agócs. You can catch these concerts the first three weekends in June at New York’s Chelsea Art Museum on Saturdays, or the following afternoon at the more tranquil setting of Dia: Beacon, a temple of minimalist art perched aside the Hudson River.

Admittedly, we’re spending a lot of time in Europe. Trust me, it’s not a ploy to get our passports stamped as many times as possible, it just so happens that the spring festival circuit is strong in the EU at this time of year. So let’s journey on to France for a showcase of SEAMUS (The Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States) composers at the 37th Bourges International Festival of Electroacoustic Music and Creations (June 1 – 10: info) which takes place on June 5. The festival is filled with dozens of sessions and concerts, but there’s no time to stick around and bust out the French dictionary. With only 24 hours to get to our next concert, now is the time we’ll be regretting the fact that the Concorde has long been grounded. We’re going to have to settle for subsonic air travel to our next locale: Charleston, SC. Since we missed the world premiere in Canada, now is the time to catch the American premiere of Book of Longing at the Spoleto USA festival (May 25 – June 10: info). This latest Philip Glass spectacle combines the composer’s signature sound with the poetry of Leonard Cohen. While in town it would behoove us to check out Spoleto’s Music in Time series on June 7, featuring violinist/composer Piotr Szewczyk’s Violin Futura project, offering us a heap of short solo compositions by today’s rising stars like Mason Bates and Daniel Kellogg, as well as a piece penned by the brain trust behind it all, MIT series director John Kennedy.

Steve Schick
Steve Schick

As hard as it might be to leave those refreshing mint juleps behind, if we don’t skedaddle we’ll miss the tail end of America’s best-kept secret: the June in Buffalo festival and conference dedicated to young composers (June 4 – 10: info). This underappreciated festival gathers emerging composers from around the globe, offering them master classes and workshops with prominent composers—including Steve Reich and Roger Reynolds this time around—and, more importantly, workshop performances and recordings of the participants’ music by first-rate interpreters, such as the Arditti String Quartet and Steve Schick. Every evening, the general public is invited to hear exciting programs featuring works by the festival’s mentor composers and other leading figures in new music. The closing concert on the afternoon of June 10 features the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Now put down those sloppy spiced chicken wings, it’s time to pullout the passport again for a loosely related follow-up to the festival.

Immediately following June in Buffalo, Arctic dwellers and fortunate tourists will have a chance to hear festival founder Morton Feldman’s mammoth trio For Philip Guston (June 10: info). If you’ve been itching to go to Iceland, like I have, what better reason than a four-hour-plus noon time performance at Listasafni Reykjavíkur (a.k.a. Reykjavik Art Museum) by the German new music ensemble that calls itself adapter. For those lacking patience for such extended durations should head to the West Coast for the conclusion of the Berkeley Edge Fest (June 7 – 10: info). Experience a little shock-and-awe in the form of two world premieres by Frederic Rzewski. It somehow makes sense that the composer’s Nanosonatas, Book 2 (Nos. 8 – 14) and The Fall of Empire, Act 6: Sacrifice, created in opposition to the Iraq war, will first be heard in Hertz Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. Rzewski performs alongside Ursula Oppens and percussionist extraordinaire William Winant. You can watch Willie’s tongue contort to the beat during this musical protest which also takes place on June 10.

Wolf Eyes
Wolf Eyes

Next stop: Barcelona, for a three-day late-night orgy of music that strays allover the stylistic map known as Sonar (June 14 – 16: info). This one is a biggie. You can enjoy concerts featuring everything from the Beastie Boys and Devo to heavier sonic offerings such as Wolf Eyes and Sunn O))). Also performing is Jeff Mills, a techno maven known for his hyper-flashy grooves and whose album Blue Potential, released last year, found him collaborating with the Montpellier Philharmonic Orchestra. But the real reason we’re here is to see the undisputed godfather of noyze himself: Rahzel. Although this extreme beatboxer’s roots were steeped in hip-hop while growing up, his eclectic sound defies classification. You gotta check this guy out on YouTube. After days on end of nonstop listening in Catalan—and coming to the realization that paella is actually unpopular among the locals, bummer—it’s time for some R-and-R, a hot stone message, maybe even a pedicure; anything to rest our weary ears before diving back into the action.

Musically speaking, France, Spain, and all those other high-profile European festivals have nothing on Tennessee’s answer to Lollapalooza. The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival (June 14 – 17: info) boasts four days of top-notch acts including Wilco, The Flaming Lips, DJ Shadow, The Decemberists, and The White Stripes, to name drop a few. The plan is to jet back to Manchester, TN in time to catch the Ornette Coleman Quartet on the final day of the festivities. Anyone else in the immediate vicinity should pack-up the ol’ RV and get your parking pass online pronto. See y’all there.

LoVid
LoVid

Let’s finish off the month in New York City, where alternative performance spaces located downtown seem to be a dying breed. However, the once-homeless Roulette seems to have scored a long-term shack-up with SoHo’s new media non-profit Location One. After 28 years of presenting experimental music, it great to see such a tradition survive in the face of hyper-gentrification. Personally, I’m looking forward to some day-glow colored sensory overload when the venue hosts LoVid (June 23: info) . Also in the vicinity is the Vision Festival (June 19 – 24: info), showcasing avant-jazz in the Lower East Side.

If all of this concretizing is beginning to seem a little overwhelming, I can offer you an alternative to all the jet-setting. Here’s a few chill-pills, the first one comes in the form of a Deep Listening Convergence. This on-line project involving over 45 artist began back in January and it all comes to a non-virtual conclusion in New York’s appropriately serene Hudson Valley with a series of evening concerts (June 8 –10: info). If you’re hunting for similar gentle ear massages, checkout Zach Layton’s electro-drone set at Roulette (June 22: info). And finally for some even deeper metaphysical vibrations there’s Hearts of Space alum Steve Roach performing inside San Francisco’s ethereal Grace Cathedral (June 29: info). When Roach’s atmospheric drones meet projection artist Lynn Augstein’s grand-scale light installation, we have the makings of something sure to be, like, totally cosmic dude.

Did I leave anything out? Of course I did! If you want your event, festival, sound installation, time-based performance, or whatever-you-call-it considered for future incarnations of NewMusicBoxOffice, drop me a line and tell me about the goings-on in your neck of the woods. See you next month for more summertime concert hopping.