Category: Field Reports

Gloriously Messy Lodging: Zappa’s 200 Motels

Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels in LA

Photo by Craig T. Mathew/Mathew Imaging

Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels is a glorious mess. In some ways this makes it the perfect thing to put on to celebrate the 10th anniversary of LA’s Walt Disney Hall and its already turbulent history. While there’s a 1971 film version of Zappa’s magnum opus, and excerpts have been performed live plenty of times before, last Wednesday’s performance boasted the world premiere of Zappa’s orchestral version in its entirety. Before the show, the mood in the sold-out hall was practically jubilant, and some pre-concert shenanigans did a great job of setting the tone. Chorus members waved and blew kisses to the audience. The orchestra did a very uncoordinated version of “the wave” and made a deliberate mockery of tuning up. The audience collectively booed the “no photography” announcement. A Zappa impersonator presided over all of this from a neon throne. Finally, conductor laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen came on stage to a rousing cheer. (Four years after the start of Gustavo Dudamel’s tenure as music director, it still feels like Salonen’s orchestra when he shows up.)

Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels in LA

Photo by Craig T. Mathew/Mathew Imaging

As for the score itself, it is—how should I put this?—spectacularly over-orchestrated, bordering on near-cacophony with unsettling frequency. I mean this as a good thing. It’s a bit like the climax of an Ives symphony, except it goes on for two hours, more or less. The ensemble includes a full orchestra, a rock band, a substantial chorus, a bevy of acoustic guitars, an accordion, and a few other things I couldn’t quite identify. The story is also all over the place, more like a series of loosely connected vignettes than a complete narrative arc. The notion linking (most of) these scenes is a trio of touring musicians trying to get back to LA, played with irresistible manic energy by Jeff Taylor, Matt Marks, and Zach Villa. It’s a very broad satire of small-town life in America that still feels relevant, for the most part. When the trio sings that the town they’re in is like a “sealed tuna sandwich,” we know what they mean without having to have it explicated for us. Some bits were also apparently updated or embellished, though it’s hard to say exactly where, except at those points when the characters veer into vaguely topical humor. (It’s kind of a cheap joke, but I enjoyed Rich Fulcher as Cowboy Burt quipping, “French horns? Why don’t you call them freedom horns?”)

Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels in LA

Photo by Craig T. Mathew/Mathew Imaging

This all culminates with a couple of even more over-the-top scenes. First there’s “Penis Dimension,” which features Marks bloviating about male anatomy in the manner of an evangelical preacher while the chorus languidly waves around glowing dildos and two women (Diva Zappa and Sheila Vand) loudly express their disgust. Finally there’s “Strictly Genteel,” one of those gorgeous, endless rock ballads that sweep you up in spite of yourself. Zappa’s lyrics here vacillate wonderfully between the platitudinous (“God bless the mind of the man in the street”) and the nonsensical (“a Swedish apparatus with a hood and a bludgeon”). It’s the perfect ending—the only possible ending, really.

Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels in LA

Photo by Craig T. Mathew/Mathew Imaging

Some of the most interesting stuff, though, happens in the meandering middle. There are long orchestral interludes that are musically fascinating but dramatically inert. It’s a common complaint that 200 Motels is in need of editing, but I have no idea what you’d cut from it, since most of it seems equally essential or non-essential. The narrative is so spotty that I’m not sure that cuts would make the dramatic arc any more effective. And besides, some of the best stuff has little overt connection to the main narrative, like when “Frank” (another Zappa doppelganger, played by Joel David Moore) describes composing another piece called “The Pleated Gazelle.” In this meta-operatic diversion, Zappa drops the bombast and explores a variety of chamber music textures: shuddering strings, skittering acoustic guitar counterpoint, ominous accordion drones. This is seemingly what Zappa does best, presenting an abundance of fantastic ideas without any sort of pretense of development. In a moment that could be read as a manifesto, Frank admits, “It’s not very pretty and doesn’t make any sense.” So to make it more palatable, over the orchestral accompaniment Frank tells the story of a girl who falls in love with a knute farmer. In between Frank’s monologues, soprano Hila Plitmann expresses the girl’s emotions through wordless vocalise as the orchestra swells. (Piltmann, who also played the role of an obnoxious journalist, was a standout soloist in general, hitting elaborate coloratura lines with laser precision while still being engrossingly expressive.) But as it turns out, the tale is just as rambling and capricious as the music, and the love story was merely a pretense to get us to listen to a bunch of nonsense.
But what nonsense!

Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels in LA

Photo by Craig T. Mathew/Mathew Imaging

Double Trio: line upon line and Konk Pack

Funky warehouses are being cleaned up and repurposed at a record pace here in Austin. As the city grows and its rents rise, many artists have found their way to the outskirts of town to utilize spaces in various states of renovation and renewal. Among the most recent additions is Canopy, which houses a variety of sleek spaces for artists of all stripes. I headed over there to check out line upon line percussion’s most recent Austin show, a showcase that featured two new premiers, one classic hit, and one golden oldie. I strolled past several units in which painters and other visual artists were holding court, some actively working on new pieces while others chatted about existing work with patrons. At the end of a line of such units, I found the venue; a large open space with groups of instruments around the perimeter. The setup made for a series of little vignettes, and the audience was invited to grab folding chairs and place them wherever they liked (and move them as they pleased) to experience each piece.

line upon line percussion

line upon line percussion

In recent years, line upon line has been on a real commissioning tear, and their list of upcoming projects is long, stretching over the next few years. This show started with a last-minute addition of one of their earliest commissions, Steve Snowden’s A Man with a Gun Lives Here. I have seen them perform this piece many times, and each performance is spirited, alive, and as full of wonder and humor as the work itself. The three players surround the bass drum and their interaction during the performance goes beyond the simply musical and becomes somewhat theatrical. Brush swoops, stick exchanges, and the passing of a bag of buckshot all serve to visually illustrate the music.  This rendition was no different and these dynamic elements played well with audience members young and old. Following the Snowden was Kate Soper’s In the Reign of Harad IV, commissioned with the support of Chamber Music America. In three movements with no pause, the work featured a sort of fractured speech stuttered among the three players. Each performer engaged their particular kit in fits and starts with each instrumental grouping popping in and out in musical chunks reminiscent of tape splits.

The three-station setup for Kate Soper’s In the Reign of Harad IV

The three-station setup for Kate Soper’s In the Reign of Harad IV

While specific words and phrases were difficult to discern, the small figurations developed their own syntax; some declamatory, others questioning, and all part of a conversation that was at once familiar and foreign. Contrasting the large setup for the Soper, Ben Issacs’s Several Inflections called for each performer to have only the top octave (give or take) of the vibraphone removed and placed on a small stand, arranged on top of a bit of curled rubber tubing. This arrangement allowed for all the attack normally associated with the vibraphone but none of the resonance. The piece was described by line upon line member Adam Bedell (he actually recounted a description from a friend who attended a rehearsal) as “sounding like wind chimes,” which might initially bring to mind a simple, wandering texture, but my impression (while positive!) was anything but relaxed. Fragile, nervous, and anxious were all terms that came to mind, not only because of the aural impression but also because of the performance requirements. An overall extremely quiet dynamic profile (we waited until the AC was shut off before they began the work) coupled with a rapid texture that, while measured, often felt (and occasionally looked) like various overlapping nervous tremolos all made for a very intimate and slightly anxious experience; like chopsticks on tiny deconstructed chimes. It didn’t sound like Scirrano, but there was that “approaching the edge of silence” element that kept me on the edge of my seat.

Ben Issacs’s <i>Several Inflections</i>

Ben Issacs’s Several Inflections

The work can last anywhere from six minutes to two hours, but in this case was closer to the ten-minute mark. The score was highly detailed and specific, and the lengths to which any ensemble would need to go to prepare and present the work are substantial. The show wrapped up with a fantastic rendition of Xenakis’s Okho. Written for three djembes but realized here on three connected drum sets that included tom-toms, congas, and a shared bass drum, Ohko could not have struck more of a contrast to the Isaacs, and the dynamic release coupled with the performers’ physicality felt like cliff-diving after meditation. You know you’ve got a concert on your hands when the Xenakis is the palate cleanser, and the polyrhythms running around that room had heads bobbing and people fully engaged, including a few munchkins outside.

*

The second stop on my reclaimed warehouse chamber music tour was the Museum of Human Achievement to see the German improv trio Konk Pack presented by Epistrophy Arts. The trio includes analog synthesist Thomas Lehn, drummer Roger Turner, and Tim Hodgkinson of Henry Cow fame whose work with co-founder Fred Frith left an indelible impression on progressive rock of the late ’70s. I’ve seen many improv groups play over the years, but very few exhibited the level of communication on display at the MOHA. Gone were the rounded edges and long transformations often associated with free improv and in their place were crisp transitions, precise timbral choices, and telekinetic, turn-on-a-dime shifts in the music. Particularly impressive in this embarrassment of riches was the impressive exchange of timbre and rhythm between Lehn’s synth and Turner’s drums. Granted, the analog synths have a visceral nature and connection to the primary elements of music in much the same way drums do, but it takes deft manipulation by both parties to connect the two so seamlessly that at times I wasn’t sure who was playing what. It’s worth noting that Turner was not amplified, so everything he played was purely acoustic.

Konk Pack at the Museum of Human Achievement

Konk Pack at the Museum of Human Achievement

Not to be left out, Hodgkinson’s work on the lap steel guitar melded similarly with the synth, especially in the high registers. And while the lappy was not without modest processing, the lion’s share of the sound was coming from his hands, not from stompboxes or other devices. Plucking behind the nut, staccato punctuations, and karate chops to the midsection of the neck resulted in gorgeous reverberations, like gongs rich with overtones. Many of these sounds and textures sat squarely in the same timbral wheelhouse as the analog synth, and I had several, “Where did that come from?” moments listening to the guitar/synth pairing as well. It was less like a typical improv show and more like a concept album that developed right in front of you. One “piece” started with Lehn’s synth chugging along in the lower register, skirting the line between pitch and rhythm. This was picked up by Turner rhythmically in the bass and toms and “melodically” by taking a dowel, striking it against the rim of one of the toms and drawing it towards himself as it rapidly rebounded,  creating a tremolo that had distinct, rising pitch characteristics. As those pitches ascended, Hodgkinson took the cue, coaxing similar pitch and motion from the lap steel. This material developed in a strikingly linear way, with little of the wandering and tangential characteristics of your less experienced improv teams. The term “sound world” is thrown around quite a bit to denote the particular style of a given composer or work, but Konk Pack was able to create several shifting sound worlds, all connected, but each with their own distinct characteristics as well.

*

I love chamber music. I love the intimacy between audience and performers. I never thought it odd to hear a string quartet in a seven-hundred seat hall, but when I started going to smaller shows I began to see (and hear) things differently. The irony of intimacy found in a giant old warehouse is not lost on me, but the cordoning off of spaces within these huge buildings makes for a very personal and connected experience. (The only tricky part is that I feel a little awkward taking pictures during these shows, but I suppose that speaks to the nature of what we’re experiencing as a smaller audience and performing group.) Whether it’s at a brand new space like Canopy or a somewhat more funky room like MOHA, the chance to sit up close to performers as they work their magic is what chamber music is all about, and I’m glad to see that opportunities like this in Austin are on the rise.

From the Shed to the Stars: Reflections on the Boston University Tanglewood Institute

I acquired my first orchestral scores in the Tanglewood gift shop, at the age of seventeen. A student at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, I purchased the last copy of the Brahms symphonies the day before the Boston Symphony Orchestra launched a Brahms cycle under James Levine at Tanglewood’s legendary Koussevitsky Shed. A geek-cellist friend, alarmed at the prospect of listening without a score, offered me $200 for it; I declined. This was a new experience, a worth attached to music that I had not encountered before.

Many a college essay, I’m sure, has included a variation on a similar anecdote: “Gazing up at the stars while listening to [insert canonic symphony here], I realized that music was my true calling.”

Mine certainly did. NewMusicBox readers can probably recall similarly seminal, early memories of summer music festivals in high school or college, experiences of communing with nature and other young musicians that helped drive them to be the composers or performers they are today. But beyond the pat clichés of staring at the stars while listening to Brahms—for me at least—there was something more powerful at work: an expansion of musical consciousness and igniting of an intellectual curiosity that made me want to study music for the rest of my life.

I attended BUTI—affectionately known as “booty”—in the summers of 2005 and 2006; I played saxophone in the wind ensemble, a four-week program that ran alongside similar programs for high school-age composers, vocalists, pianists, and orchestral musicians. Those eight weeks are powerfully etched into my memory.

Sam Almaguer (clarinet), Molly Yeh (percussion), Nathan von Trotha (percussion), and Chris Pell (clarinet) before their last orchestra concert in the summer of 2007.

Sam Almaguer (clarinet), Molly Yeh (percussion), Nathan von Trotha (percussion), and Chris Pell (clarinet) before their last orchestra concert in the summer of 2007.
Photo courtesy Molly Yeh

Today, that program is in a certain amount of danger, and thus this article; I write less from a “Save Our Classical Music Institution” perspective but rather out of an obligation that is both personal and historic. The stories of young musicians at BUTI are stories that are crucial to the narrative of music in the past half-century. Cutting BUTI or relocating it from its current campus would be a sad erasure of a rich legacy that stretches back forty-five years and encompasses the early careers of many prominent musicians.

Earlier this month, the Berkshire Eagle reported a few of the issues at hand with the future of the BUTI program, which is run by Boston University (unlike the Tanglewood Music Center fellows program, which is facilitated by Tanglewood and the Boston Symphony). BU is currently reviewing their financial stake in the program and its future—both as part of the larger university and as directly connected to Tanglewood itself.

Sam Solomon—a percussionist who participated in BUTI in high school and today teaches at BU and BUTI—has recently begun to speak out publicly about the issues in order to draw attention to the dangers of altering the program. I communicated with Phyllis Hoffman—a professor of voice at BU and the executive and artistic director of BUTI—who let me know that the BUTI and BU administration are working closely together to offset the budget problems; she wrote to me that “there is a strong recognition of the excellence and importance of BUTI.”

That said, the current facilities—located on the beautiful West Campus, within walking distance of Tanglewood’s main grounds—are in need of overhaul and can’t currently accommodate all of the programs that BUTI offers. Fortunately, the Eagle recently confirmed that BUTI will definitely continue next summer. But serious investment is required, and BU is reportedly considering moving the program from Lenox to Boston.

Nathan von Trotha practicing the cymbals outside at BUTI

Nathan von Trotha practicing the cymbals outside at BUTI
Photo courtesy Molly Yeh

That would be a huge mistake. In her study The Sounds of Place: Music and the American Cultural Landscape, Denise von Glahn writes of the particularly American relationship between music and place, the “unique way in which music of the cultivated tradition expresses, defines, and celebrates place.” Tanglewood has already been similarly inscribed into American musical history. Nico Muhly, a BUTI alum, has written It Remains To Be Seen, a lovely, loving orchestral work that pays tribute to his wistful nighttime walk from the Tanglewood main grounds back to West Campus following a concert. Osvaldo Golijov’s cello concerto Azul was inspired by the composer’s memories of hearing the Boston Symphony play outdoors when he was a Tanglewood fellow (though not in BUTI). The Tanglewood experience has become part of this grand American tradition of tonalizing space, a place-based muse.

I asked several prominent alums of BUTI to help paint a broader picture of what BUTI, the program and the place, meant for them, and how their early experiences as high school fellows made them the musicians they are today.
Nico Muhly, composer

It was just amazing…For me the West Street campus is just so romantic and lovely, and site specific, and being that close to the grounds is amazing, and walking to the grounds is amazing….There’s nowhere else like that.

It’s that sense of continuity. For instance, one of my other friends I met that first summer, Dan Bauch, went on to the Tanglewood Music Center and went on to be a timpanist in the BSO. You can hear the same music by someone who, when you were a sixteen-year-old, you sat on the lawn and listened to The Firebird with; [he’s now] playing it with that orchestra 15 years later—it’s such a magical thing.

One of the things that people talk about, even just on the BSO side of it, is that it’s not just great music-making—it’s the whole culture of being there and the whole intergenerational chilled-ness. It’s so important for young musicians to see that. It connects to people, but it also connects to the idea of musical community.

This last summer I volunteered for a week and did master classes and taught lessons. I did the same thing two years ago. I go up as much as I can.  If I can volunteer at BUTI, it literally makes my summer. For me it’s not a summer unless you go to Tanglewood, and I’ve done crazy shit, like a couple years ago I flew back from, like, Singapore or something just to go. It’s not just fun, I think it’s vital

Molly Yeh, percussionist and food blogger

An earth shattering Mahler 5, a terrifying but triumphant Copland 3…While my love for music led me to BUTI, it was my time at BUTI that made me love the music world and desperately want to be a part of it. It was there where I met many of my very best friends, where I learned how to change a timpani head and work with composers on new works, and where I got to know Tanglewood as one of my most favorite places on earth. My BUTI summers were the first flaps of the butterfly’s wings in my career as a percussionist.

My bonds with my peers at BUTI, both professional and personal, still hold tight today, however it is also important to mention that my interactions with the Tanglewood Music Center percussionists also had a profoundly enriching effect. To this day, I consider a few of them to be my most valuable mentors. With their encouragement and support, I had extra confidence in my college auditions, and I’ve since had the opportunity to play with them in orchestras around the world. Having the TMC percussionists as role models during my years at BUTI was a unique and unforgettable experience that I would not have gotten at any other music camp.

Forgive me for being dramatic, but when I’m old and crusty and dying, the montage of my adult life will open with Mahler’s Adagietto playing to a memory where I’m dancing with my three best friends, barefoot on the Tanglewood grounds. Laughing, frolicking…and then taceting in tears until the next movement. Without a doubt, these were some of the happiest moments of my life.

Sam Solomon, percussionist and faculty member at BU and BUTI

I’ve been fortunate to be a part of BUTI for 13 years: three as a student, and now ten as a faculty member. In and of itself, it is a top-notch program with top-notch faculty, but what sets it apart from other great summer festivals is the location. The students are provided an unparalleled education on top of that offered by the Institute because of their access to Tanglewood concerts, rehearsals, and masterclasses, as well as the community of musicians that spend their summers there. All of the Boston Symphony, Tanglewood Music Center, and visiting artist concerts expose these young minds to dozens of conductors, composers, and performers.

For me it was revelatory. I was a BUTI student nearly 20 years ago, and every musical experience I have had since is filtered through the education I received there. I am still in close contact with many of the students that were with me those summers, all of whom are at the top of their fields, playing in, composing for, soloing with, or conducting major orchestras, touring with successful chamber ensembles, teaching at top-tier music schools, and even in high-level music administration positions.

Nadia Sirota, violist and daughter of Robert Sirota, who taught composition at BUTI (Nadia did not herself attend the program)

Hanging around BUTI and Tanglewood laid the single most-impactiful groundwork for my becoming a musician. Without a doubt. There was a true respect for music-making that pervaded the place, not music-making as industry but as art. There was a joy to the program. I remember all of my dad’s little composition students hanging out at our house and having barbecues. Composers, performers, and audience members are all thrown together in this little town. Everything feels vital. Also, musicians that are 16 years old get to consort with musicians who are 23 and musicians who are 63. The whole musical ecosystem is temporarily housed in one zone. It’s like a terrarium.

Judd Greenstein, composer and co-founder of New Amsterdam Records

Having friends who, like me, knew they were composers, that they had already discovered their passion and were pursuing it at a high level, was extremely encouraging and gave me a sense of being part of a supportive community even before we all wound up in New York together, years later. The other important experience was getting to interact with really great older composers. That’s where I first met David Lang, and Sofia Gubaidulina visited, which was incredible, even in translation. I remember her talking about silence. It was one of the most profoundly important musical education experiences of my life, as was David’s talk. Especially so because I was with Nico [Muhly] and we could talk all day about what they said, as teenagers, when you really are learning so much.

It’s really my relationship with Nico that has meant the most to me. When you have a good friend in a challenging creative field who you’ve known for a long time, whom you meet at such a young age, it gives you a lot of confidence. Like, whatever else people may say, I know that we get each other and what we’re trying to do. I recently found some letters that we sent to each other where I was basically complaining about all the things that I wound up trying to address in the world of music, later on, with NOW Ensemble and New Amsterdam and Ecstatic, and which I’m still trying to address. Having friends with whom you can share those thoughts, and who agree, and where you’re supporting each other, is invaluable. Now I have many of those friends, of course, but Nico was the first, and BUTI is the avenue that made it happen.

Logan K. Young, editor-in-chief, Classicalite

Growing up in a small Southern town, attending the Boston University Tanglewood Institute was my first real, extended exposure to a world-class symphony orchestra, with every attendant benefit therein. I was 18 years old, freshly graduated from high school with an even fresher beard. Sure, I had been to Spoleto. I had studied trumpet at the Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, as well as the Brevard Music Center, and I had just finished a week at the Conductors Institute of South Carolina. But BUTI truly was a different experience in an altogether different land. (I never will forget the 24-hour-plus Greyhound ride from Georgetown, South Carolina, to Lenox, Massachusetts!) I had no formal training in composition beforehand, but as soon as I got off that bus, I was thrust into hard lessons with Richard Cornell and Julian Wachner, intense classes with Steve Mackey and the late Lukas Foss. Of course, the Festival of Contemporary Music was its own great teacher, too. If I’d never heard Copland or Bernstein performed live by anything other than a per-service orchestra, I certainly had never heard any Leon Kirchner in person, much less a thing like Satie’s Socrate. And when I bought a double-CD of Tod Machover’s Valis at the gift shop on the grounds of Tanglewood proper, well, it’s no hyperbole to say that my life was changed forever. Come college, I would go on to summer at places like Banglewood and, stranger still, the Stockhausen Courses in Kürten, but none of those would have been possible were it not for the invaluable training in the most solid fundamentals which I received at BUTI. Granted, I write more about new music now, but again, if BUTI didn’t exist back then, my life would sound a lot more dull. I’m a better musician, writer, and overall person for having taken that Greyhound to Lenox; I sincerely hope the brass don’t shut the place down.

Jeffrey Beecher, principal bass, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and member of The Silk Road Ensemble

I attended the Boston University Tanglewood Institute as a 14-year-old in 1997.   While I had some experience at other music programs under my belt, I remember feeling a little scared when I arrived in Lenox, not knowing what I was in store for.  From the moment I arrived at BUTI, I knew I had found a very special place.  I was immediately struck by the impressive level of talent and dedication coming from the other students.
I was inspired to meet young musicians who not only excelled at their instruments, but passionately debated the best recordings of Mahler symphonies, were floored to rehearse and perform the great orchestral masterworks (Nielsen 4!!), and who eagerly attended the Boston Symphony’s Shed concerts like rock shows.

All of this was greatly influenced by the location on the Boston University campus.   To be that close to the Tanglewood grounds afforded me unparalleled access to the pros.  It also inspired the dream of a long journey: with hard work, I might one day be a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center.   And with even more hard work, I might get the chance to play in a professional orchestra?!

I am extremely grateful to say that I am living that 14-year-old’s dream—I perform as professional musician in a phenomenal orchestra and a world music ensemble.  As a teacher, I get to pass on the traditions and generosity of spirit I learned at BUTI to today’s aspiring young musicians.

In August 2010, my relationship to BUTI came full circle when I performed with the Silk Road Ensemble and Yo-Yo Ma at the Tanglewood Shed.  Feeling nostalgic, I gave a quick shout-out to the BUTI students in attendance.  As a youthful cheer exploded from beyond stage left, I was thrilled to observe that the vitality and passion of those students was just as impressive as it had been to me thirteen years earlier.

Missy Mazzoli, composer

It was vital to me to see as much music as possible.  I saw two or three concerts a day, plus rehearsals.  I remember seeing Peter Serkin in a rehearsal with the BSO, Anonymous Four, Van Cliburn, and John Williams conducting the premiere of a new orchestral work, among many others.  I was only seventeen but managed to meet Mauricio Kagel, Elliott Carter, Joan Tower, Bright Sheng, John Harbison, and Aaron Kernis that summer as well.  These were among the first living composers I met, believe it or not.

The location near the Tanglewood campus is absolutely essential to the power of the program.  Many of the best experiences I mentioned had to do with the fact that for the first time in my life I felt that I was being treated as a professional.  The ability to walk on the same grounds as the BSO and the chance to meet the top contemporary composers made me feel that I was on my way to having a life as a musician.  For a girl from small-town Pennsylvania, this was absolutely essential to my feeling that I could go on as a composer.

Timothy Andres, composer

I didn’t know a lot of kids my age who were interested in the same things I was. That first summer at BUTI was the first time I could meet other 14-year-olds who were obsessed with Ravel; no longer a social disease, my obsession made me popular. It wasn’t an education so much as a combination of osmosis and moral support. It confirmed my desperate need to be part of this thing—to be a musician was a real possibility, and if not exactly attainable, at least conceivable. And it was the beginning of my attachment to a place that would continue through college (when I returned for the Tanglewood Music Center) and my professional career (we recorded Home Stretch in Ozawa Hall).
It’s an integral part of Tanglewood and the larger music world, and its survival is vitally important to young musicians.

Craig Hubbard (French horn) and Yeh, frolicking on the Tanglewood grounds in 2007.

Craig Hubbard (French horn) and Molly Yeh, frolicking on the Tanglewood grounds in 2007.
Photo courtesy Molly Yeh

I myself have many memories of great performances, but perhaps more importantly, many memories of the value that my peers placed on those performances; thus, the $200 offered for that Brahms score! That value was in part a kind of cultural cold war that I engaged in with my fellow high schoolers, a battle over knowledge of the canon. I was a classical saxophonist with a very light schooling in the orchestral rep, and phrases like “Bruckner Four” and “the Meistersinger Prelude,” tossed off with such ease by other musicians (well, let’s be honest, brass players) endowed me with a peculiar kind of inferiority complex.
I tried to catch up, learning as much as I could as fast as I could. Following my first BUTI summer in 2005, I spent my senior year of high school fastidiously reading Wikipedia pages and biographies of the great composers. I returned in 2006 with the lingo, knowledge, and constant quest for new information about music that undergirds my research today. At age seventeen, it felt very good to know who Brahms was and why it was so special to hear Levine lead a full cycle of his symphonies. (New music, I should say, remained a bafflingly unknown element; I wish I had taken advantage of the offerings at the contemporary festival. And to this day, I regret most of all opting out of hearing the famous performance of Histoire du Soldat narrated by Babbitt, Carter, and Harbison.)

I could list the many concerts that inspired and overwhelmed me. But it was the overall sense of the environment and the coming-together of several generations of musicians—from high schoolers to college-age Tanglewood Music Center players to tenured members of the Boston Symphony—in a single place that was unique. With immense pride, I watched close friends rise through the ranks each summer, ascending the professional ladder amid the pines. A percussionist, Kyle Brightwell, was an early star in my first BUTI summer. By the next summer, he was already subbing with the TMC orchestra. This past August, I visited Tanglewood and saw Kyle pound away at the big drum in The Rite of Spring, as a tenured member of the Boston Symphony’s percussion section.

That sense of lineage, and the opportunity to forge an early relationship with musicians that will be maintained over the course of a lifetime, cannot be underestimated. Sitting outside the Shed and listening to Brahms, I can gaze up at those same stars today—as can Muhly, Andres, Mazzoli, Beecher, Young, Sirota, Yeh, and Solomon—and imagine a musical past and a continuity extending into a bright future.

Ostrava 2013

If I might be permitted to adulterate a bit of Emily Dickinson, the 2013 edition of the Ostrava Days festival opened twice before its opening. (In addition to hosting a weeklong institute for student composers and two other evenings of composition and improvisation, all before the official Philharmonic Hall opening night.) The intense biennial in the Eastern end of the Czech Republic has long been known for stretching into long nights across August. But this year seemed especially expansive with an unofficial opening night featuring a four-hour Philip Glass performance on August 16 and a presentation, one week later, of Petr Kotik’s nearly six-hour Many Many Women.

Glass 12 Parts

The Philip Glass Ensemble in mid performance of Glass’s Music in 12 Parts. Photo courtesy Ostrava Days.

Glass and his Ensemble performed his Music in 12 Parts (composed 1971-1974) in the Gong, a massive sphere that was an underground gas tank before being raised last year and renovated into an impressive auditorium, nicely finished without trying to hide its former life. Kotik booked Glass and company after seeing them play at New York’s Park Avenue Armory in February 2012, and it was far and away the most popular concert of the festival, with a good 80% of the theater’s 1,500 seats filled. The spiraling repetitions of the music—presented with three intermissions—were remarkable inside the big globe, the changes fluid, always present yet often imperceptible (with the exception of some surprise dissonance at the beginning of the seventh part).

A full week later, Kotik (the festival founder, artistic director, and leader of the resident chamber ensemble Ostravská Banda, as well as New York City’s S.E.M. Ensemble) presented Many, Many Women, his setting of a Gertrude Stein text which (like the Glass) calls to question the use of the phrase “evening length” to denote a work of a mere two hours. But where Glass for the most part had all his musicians going all the time, Kotik worked in strict rotation and augmentation amongst the paired singers, flutes, trumpets, and trombones; instrumental combinations changed every three to five minutes. It’s an active piece, creating a sensation of ever-shifting and interlocking elements, as if it were a jigsaw puzzle with pieces that morphed as they were fitted together—duos, quartets, up to a tentet at times, and finally a full dozen at 75 minutes in, although not for long before the basses dropped out. But it didn’t mark the culmination of a cycle; it’s not as easy as that. The score is linear and it’s scripted from beginning to end, but the pairs of players are free to enter each of their sections when they choose. It is also quite arguably the most effective musical setting of Stein to have been attempted, and that includes Virgil Thomson! To read her texts on the page is (as with any great writer) a rich and deeply private experience. To hear it read aloud is exhilarating, as the hypnotized mind can wander without leading the text astray. But music courses many channels, and Kotik better than anyone has realized the poetics of her repetitions in a layered, auditory setting.

Kotik’s Nine + 1 (composed this year and presented later in the week) was a piano and drum kit boxing match with pizzicato strings finding their way into the gaps and brass and winds yelling from the sidelines until the strings demanded some romance. Eventually they too were pulled into the fray. A lush piano interlude played by the stunning Daan Vaandewalle pulled the factions together and then a second, unaccompanied piano section ended the piece mid-stream. Kotik’s string quartet Torso (2011-12), played by the OBSQ (Ostrava Banda String Quartet), opened in lovely unison then pushed into quick density then pulled back the fast lines and crossfaded into another elegiac passage, with brisk arpeggios occasionally returning ever so quietly in the violin. Krulik also played institute resident Kristina Wolfe’s Planctus that same night, a dense and lovely six minutes of incongruous lines and scratchy cello that at some points felt quite formal and at others left the impression of turntable mixing.

Kotik was represented once again during the festival in Bernhard Lang’s 2011 work Monadologie XVII [SheWasOne – For Petr Kotik] played by the resident chamber ensemble Ostravská Banda conducted by the dedicatee. Kotik introduced it by repeating a segment from his Many Many Women, which was the basis of Lang’s piece. Monadologie echoed the Kotik-by-way-of-Stein overlaid phrases with 13 musicians, including Kubera on piano and synthesizer, but perhaps this time with a stammer: muted piano strings struggled against the violin, viola, cello, and bass, locked in a loop while insistent rhythms were set by percussion and reeds. Lang’s Monadologie XX … For Franz was played the following night by the German ensemble elole-Klaviertrio. It was a mechanistic re-envisioning of Franz Schubert’s Trio in E Flat Major, op. 100. Despite the conceit, and even with the use of extended technique to create a sort of fractal echoing, powerful feelings of urgency and, later, lament came through.

The stellar elole also played Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino’s ghostly Trio No. 2 (1987), with whispering strings bowed on the bridge, the piano sounding only several minutes. While it was hushed, it wasn’t all so quiet; and for hushed music, it was quite fast and full. Sciarrino clearly loves and fully inhabits his sound world, but a lot of things happen there even if he tends to stay within his own boundaries. Such is the case with his 1984 Lohengrin Azione invisible for soloist, instruments, and voices—an hour-long “short story” (based on the Wagner opera, though Sciarrino himself avoids the word “opera”) which, for me, was far and away the highpoint of the festival. Scripted from the point of view of Elsa, Lohengrin’s bride, who is accused of losing her virginity before the wedding, the operetta was performed by the Ostravská Banda under Roland Klutting and sung with an elusive pathos by Marianne Pousseur (who was anchored to a sort of tombstone podium). Pousseur played the part as a child in a wedding gown, a large balloon above her head. The ensemble, which included three male singers who accompanied her vocal lines—which combined singing, guttural whispers, gnashing, crying, exaggerated exhalations, and chomping of teeth—was never more than incidental and yet supremely dramatic.

Although not present at the festival, Sciarrino tied Kotik for most-played composer after the last-minute addition of his brief Capriccio No. 4 (1975-6) by the staggering violinist Hana Kotková. Sciarrino may also be the Ostrava patron saint of hushed tones: light bowing and blowing was pervasive, especially among student pieces, so much so that it almost came to feel like it was a given. That said, when Daniel Lo Ting-cheung’s nine-minute Rude Awakening for an 80-piece orchestra built to an onslaught of five percussionists hitting hard with the full contingent punctuating, it was truly exciting. The Iranian composer Idin Samimi Mofakham’s Mirage nicely melded the near silent strings with Chris Nappi playing percussion on the surface of a container of water (even if it seemed less cunning during the second half of its 25 minutes, making it one of the longer student pieces played).
Also before the titular “Opening Night” was a concert of improvisations and small ensemble compositions at an old coal mine which featured works by Alvin Lucier, Christian Wolff, and Jon Gibson, whose Down the Road (played by Joseph Kubera on piano and Chris Nappi on percussion) was the standout, with Gibson’s spirited soprano saxophone injecting an energy into the tightly constructed yet lightly swinging piece. The evening also included a spirited improvisation by Gibson and Wolff with past and present institute students.

The final events before the proper opening on August 25 were an homage to Luigi Russolo (author of The Art of Noise and arguably the first person to build something with no function other than to make “nonmusical” noise) followed by a concert by the New York violin duo String Noise, both held in an institutional building converted into an art gallery. Highlights of the afternoon noise fest included a set by vocalist Amelia Cuni (whose interpretation of Cage’s ragas, the Solo for Voice No. 58 from his Songbooks released on CD by Other Minds is well worth seeking out) and instrumentalist Werner Durand. Acoustic sound samples emanating from (and being molded by) the electronics were pitted against some unusual vocal techniques such as singing into a pie tin (which resembles the sound of radio interference) and more often using a megaphone than a microphone. While employing reeds and a variety of tubes, Durand also pushed electronics waves of tambura into the wash. Also of interest was Pavel Z. and the Opening Performance Orchestra, who collaged train sounds and video with four laptops, three of Russolo’s intonarumori, and narrator. String Noise played a bold set of duets composed for them and, in the case of Robert Constable’s Vicious Cycles, the pair with backing tape. The set culminated in a matrimonial humoresque by Eric Lyon entitled The Book of Strange Positions, and they encored with Lyon’s arrangement of L.A. punk band the Germs’ “Lexicon Devil.” It was not just a nicely irreverent program during a fairly formal festival; it proved to be a formidable display of virtuosity.

Amelia Cuni

Amelia Cuni (left) working the megaphone. Photo courtesy Ostrava Days.

It should, of course, go without saying that a part of such a festival is (or had better be) musicianship at an absolutely stellar level, and yet letting it go at “it goes without saying” would seem a shame. An evening under the banner “Into the Night” included a remarkable succession of string solos, which began with Hana Kotková’s aforementioned delivery of the Sciarrino capriccio. Niolaus Schlierf then deftly played Berio’s 1967 solo viola workout Sequenza VI followed by Conrad Harris effortlessly tackling the first four of Cage’s infamously difficult Freeman Etudes. Harris also gave a staggering reading of Iannis Xenakis’s 1991 Dox-Orkh for orchestra and soloist. Opening with a strangely dissonant fanfare of reeds and horn and an off-kilter violin, the full regimen then came in in profoundly out-of-time unison figures, all doing a wonderful job—ironically perhaps—at sounding as though the whole thing were poorly performed except for the violin soloist who was put in the best possible light. It was in that sense almost funny but it was also breathtaking, its dissonance coming to feel, over 20 minutes’ time, like the way of the world. The full outfit of strings sounded like a very old organ that was panting for breath. Harris, on the other hand, was lithe and on task, coming off as more precise against the orchestrated quagmire. It was, in short, fascinating, and ultimately resolved with the orchestra fully in time and on cue.

Later in the evening of solo string pieces, Pauline Kim Harris approached John Zorn’s 2011 solo Passagen (a work which she premiered and recorded) with supreme confidence. Joseph Kubera, a fixture of the festival, beautifully played Julius Eastman’s 1986 Piano 2, an unusually lovely and nebulous solo. And Kotková boldly shone again in Kaija Saariaho’s 1994 Graal théâtre on the opening night with the Janáčkova filharmonie Ostrava. Its eerie themes and amazing soloing darted about underneath the orchestral blanket which at the same time worked a stereo field between the piano and the bass viols at the opposite end of the assembly.

The opening night proper, then, at Philharmonic Hall, featured an orchestra of more than 50 players, including five contrabasses and a harp. Carola Bauckholt’s Helicopter, written in 2001-02 for the amazing vocal interpreter Jaap Blonk was built from, very literally, the sounds of a helicopter. But unlike a helicopter, it was fairly quiet and traveled over the course of its 20 minutes from something fairly soft to begin with into a pronounced whisper from Blonk as well as the strings: It never took off, but doing so didn’t seem the point. Christian Wolff’s half-hour individuals, collective received its European premiere on the opening night, following its world premiere at Kotik’s Beyond Cage festival in New York last year. It was an amalgam of starts and fits in small groupings across the orchestra with complimentary sections seemingly placed end-to-end and interspersed with occasional fragmented fanfares. As the piece built, the voices found congruity with each other, a mysterious commonality as the groupings—and what they voiced—never seemed to repeat. It was at once akin to and very different from Bauckholt’s Helicopter, which was more unified but also refused to build to a conclusion. It was full of anticipation, a dynamic in which Wolff excels. The following night featured Wolff’s 2012 work Trust (played by the Ostravská Banda). Immediately before conducting the piece, Kotik remarked that it was “very similar” to individuals, collective. It was much smaller, employing only nine instruments and lasting just ten minutes, but it too dealt in parsed phrases and toyed with resolution. Sandwiched between the Bauckholt and the Wolff was an enticing work by institute resident Ravi Kittappa titled exordium, four minutes of pulse and counterpoint moving extremely quickly like flies on a pond surface, one ripple starting as the last died off.

Charlemagne

Charlemagne Palestine (left) with Lucie Vitková (middle), James Ilgenfritz (right) and teddy bears (beneath the piano).
Photo by Kurt Gottschalk.

Charlemagne Palestine was not unannounced but was still a surprise guest at the festival, his long, improvised meditations being a bit out of step with the composed orchestral works that usually dominate the programs here. But he played a wonderful piece to which he gave the title Schlingen Schängen for Ostrava. It opened, as per his usual, with the placement of teddy bears around the piano and organ and the ringing of a brandy snifter. He then took a seat at the piano and began a repeated figure over a drone provided by James Ilgenfritz’s bass and Lucie Vitková’s accordion. They were soon joined by Renāte Stivriņa at Philharmonic Hall’s massive pipe organ. Stivriņa put weights on keys and primarily played the stops, avoiding the bass pedals until 20 minutes in. One huge, snowballing chord drenched the room. After closing the long arc of the piece, Palestine said to institute resident Rita Ueda, “Come play the bells – hard.”

kotik at church

Kotik leading the S.E.M. Ensemble at St. Wenceslas Church. Photo by Kurt Gottschalk.

A concert at the 13th-century St. Wenceslas Church included a gorgeous performance of Feldman’s Rothko Chapel featuring vocalists Kamala Sankaram and Silvie Jensen which filled the sunlit chapel. Belgian pianist Daan Vanderwalle, another Ostrava Days virtuoso cornerstone, performed Galina Ustvolskaya’s Composition No. 2 “Dies Irae” (1972-73) with S.E.M. Ensemble. It is a pounding lament, quite literally, with the heavy piano lines abetted by an octet of basses and a wooden box being hammered away at by Chris Nappi. Those two works, plus a number of student pieces, somehow made a perfect frame for Ligeti’s 1982 Trio played by Vanderwalle, Conrad Harris, and Daniel Costello on French horn. There is probably no context where Ligeti isn’t refreshing—amidst minimalists, after a car chase, during a break in the evening news. His music is fresh, thoughtful, and digestible, and his compelling trio made for an enjoyable respite during the intensity of the church concert; it seemed like a reward after hard work until it grew fragmented. Short lyrical lines began to discontinue, shared statements fell apart, the equanimity among the three began to unravel and each guarded his own corner, only to go positively baroque, then thoughtful, then profound. It ultimately made for an unerring joy ride.

A new choreography by Daniel Squire for Cage’s Concert for Orchestra (e.g. a piano-less performance of his Concert for Piano and Orchestra), Aria, and Fontana Mix (played concurrently, naturally) was presented at the large Jiří Myron Theater. It was impossible not to think of Merce Cunningham during all of this, especially since Squire’s approach was not entirely dissimilar: dancers existed in their own cells but occasionally moved with a common physical language. Eventually the company of close to 20 took the stage en masse and spun their way off again. Sankaram gave the vocal solo an animated read. She was jazzy at times but more often slid between operatic vibrato and childlike, gleeful yells. The electronics of Fontana Mix were slow to come, but eventually overtook the room.

The final day included a matinee of resident compositions followed by an evening that proved a perfect finale for a headspinning couple of weeks. Highlights from the afternoon concert included New Yorker James Ilgenfritz’s Burnham’s Folly, a piece inspired by the famous Flatiron Building in Midtown Manhattan. It started with a jazzy chaos then found a peace, then bits of quiet noise, and ended in an unexpected congruity—perhaps like traffic patterns on 23rd Street. Michal Indrák’s Standing Wave was a hypnotic piece of counterpoint between wind and mixed ensemble. While it wore its structure on its sleeve (the two sections grew slower and increasingly out of sync with each other), it was great to hear the process work its way through and to contemplate just how slow it might get, which by the end was nearly a snail’s BPM. Nissim Schaul’s Hell Study for two percussionists, blocky prepared piano, bowed violin, cello, flute, and trombone came off as cinematic, but there were several movies playing at the same time. The work was actually rooted in Schaul’s impressions of Bosch and in the sound of the hurdy gurdy, although there wasn’t one present. Instead, cello and bass clarinet swapped off providing drones and the impression of keyed strings. Lörinc Muntag’s 18,8, scored for piano, cello, and two percussionists, began with several minutes of beautiful stillness, nothing but sustained muted cello notes, before the other instruments entered making the cello seem like a clothesline onto which sounds were very occasionally hung. The music’s approach to space would have made Feldman proud.

The final concert featured orchestral works by two more institute residents (both from New York) and one esteemed recent graduate, as well as two remarkable works by composers outside the institute. The first half was quite daring, with three similar pieces—or at least three similar concepts—executed rather differently. Jack Callahan’s If You Cannot Ignore the Response – Delay It was one of the more successful of several exercises in sustained tone over the course of the festival, moving pulses held for 5 to 15 seconds across the orchestra, each one varied by shape and attack. Other events were gradually introduced, at the forefront a very quiet bass drum in uneven time and eventually breaking down into individual tones guided by the oboe.


Lucie Vitková, a 2009 institute graduate, presented her master’s degree project, bearing the not falsely modest title MAsterpiece. Vitková sat in the reed section playing harmonica alongside accordion and melodica, with an orchestra further complemented by Diale Mabitsela on electric guitar and Callahan on a less-than-subtle snare drum. Vitková also found her way through the problem of static music. Percussion popped around the perimeter of the room and while many of the sounded notes lasted between one and three seconds, the overall effect was of a serpentine drone. Ben Richter’s Farther Reaches was perhaps the most “listenable” of the three. A low tone pervaded with bows rolled on the backs of violins, sounding something like the crackling of a fire until gong rolls and muted piano strings broke the stasis. Still, it was barely an arc.


The second half tore it up with two Czech premieres composed 90 years apart. Helmet Oehring’s Die vier Jahreszeiten (e.g. “The Four Seasons”) with 15 strings (the sole bassist doubling on harmonica) quoting and vivisecting Vivaldi with, again, sustained tones and intermittent pulses. But vertigo-inducing unison lines in arco and pizzicato dominated the piece as soloist Pauline Kim Harris slowly became apparent, before dropping back into the ensemble and then rising even more boldly a few minutes later. It often seemed like a solo blown up to the size of a string orchestra, or a violin duo between one player and fifteen players. But their numbers were made apparent when the ensemble was led to make staccato vocal utterances introduced by Harris, percussiveooh ooh uh soh oh suh toh kinds of things. Later passages of paper tearing or bow whispering were quickly, almost immediately, interrupted by more unison strings. One would be forgiven for counting at least six or seven seasons, but in any event it ended with a surprisingly sweet melody, a solstice snowfall, complete with softly ringing bells.

The final piece made for a rather perfect ten-minute festival finale. Is it possible that in 1921 Edgard Varèse touched on everything heard over two weeks in 2013 with his Offrandes? Well, no, but with the expansiveness of the orchestra and given enormous voice by soprano Sandra Rosales, it still seemed to presage in reverse everything heard in Ostrava Days 2013—if not in stasis, at least in velocity.

Diligence is to Magic as Progress is to Flight

Austin Wulliman

Austin Wulliman
Photo by Doyle Armbrust

Two weeks ago, I visited a pair of dynamic, hardworking Chicago musicians in their studio. I was intrigued to see violinist Austin Wulliman (known for his work with Spektral Quartet and Ensemble Dal Niente) and composer/bassoonist Katherine Young (known as a great improviser and increasingly in-demand composer) working together in an entirely new context. The pair was preparing to reveal Diligence is to Magic as Progress is to Flight, the result of more than a year and a half’s worth of improvisation, sound creation, and collaboration. The immersive, fifty-minute piece would find its first home in the Defibrillator Gallery for a weeklong residency and culminating performance.

The instruments Wulliman would use for the performance—a prepared viola, two prepared violins, and a “normal” violin—were scattered throughout the small, windowless electronic music studio where the pair had holed up for the day. Young was stationed at the computer with an enormous array of sound samples arranged on the screen in front of her. Although they were at the end of a long day in the studio, the pair spoke with great energy about their upcoming performance. It was evident that their long-term, close collaboration had led to great mutual admiration and a wide array of new experiences for both of them.

When I asked Wulliman what was new for him in the collaborative process with Young, he answered: “Basically everything.”
“That was the intention going into it,” he explained. “When I approached Katie about this over a year and a half ago, I wanted to do something where I had the freedom to explore sounds with somebody who’s great at that.”

Wulliman saw the collaboration with Young as a chance to embark on sonic explorations that performers aren’t often afforded in the context of a fully notated score. Young began their collaboration by sending Wulliman videos and photographs for him to respond to with improvisations, and from this jumping-off place the pair began to develop a common language of sounds that would comprise Diligence. “This has been by far the most I’ve been in the workshop with somebody,” Wulliman said enthusiastically. “I feel like we made the materials together. I’ve always been in the room helping to make the sounds; Katie has always led the way in terms of shaping things, and guiding it becoming a piece.”

Prepared string instrument

Photo by Doyle Armbrust

The collaborative process revealed exciting new territory for Young as well. “It’s been really exciting to be able to spend this much time with sounds that I am not responsible for producing in the moment,” she said, referring to her work as a performing bassoonist. “I’ve been able to get outside of the closeness of having this instrument that [I’m] so connected to. I can say, ‘What if you do this thing, Austin?’ It’s hard to ask yourself those questions in terms of your own instrument. You feel it’s not possible. You think you know what’s possible, with your own instrument. It’s been exciting and has freed me up to think more about structure.”

The result of this collaboration, revealed September 27 at Defibrillator Gallery, was a subtle, sensual performance that enveloped the audience in an ever-changing ecosystem of sound and color. Many moments of Diligence were surprising, even revelatory: Wulliman tearing into a growling prepared G string with cadenza-like fervor, blending hushed bridge sounds with the surrounding tape part, or turning wild pizzicato textures into a virtuosic anti-caprice.

What made Diligence so satisfying was that it brought the greatest strengths of both composer and performer into bold relief. Young’s compositional hallmarks—her visceral approach to sound; her organic use of repetition, structure, and pacing; her attentiveness to the smallest details of timbre; her adventurousness in using instruments in unexpected ways—made the work feel like a living thing, breathing and unfolding as the evening progressed. And Wulliman’s strongest characteristics as a performer—his intensity of focus, his absolute commitment to each musical gesture—made listeners feel that the pair’s collaborative vision was being fully embodied in each moment.

As the performance ended and the packed gallery gave a series of enthusiastic ovations, an unexpected quote came to mind: Mother Teresa’s adage that “we can do no great things; only small things with great love.” In our contemporary music landscape, long-term collaborations can be logistically and financially difficult to achieve. We live in a culture where bigger is better, where more is more. Composers and performers are often required to write, learn, and perform music on tight timetables, and without a great deal of time for inquiry and reflection. Diligence, then, was a particularly rare treat: the chance to enter a sonic world created by two gifted musicians over a long period of time; the chance to hear sounds that were crafted intentionally, gradually, and with great love.

Austin Soundwaves: A Challenge Like Nothing Else

Video by John Elliot

When considering new directions in music education, examining how students are taught is important, but so to is developing ways to reach students who otherwise might not have the opportunity at all. Many youth ensemble directors will tell you that if they could choose one characteristic in their students it would be enthusiasm, and my conversation with conductor/composer Hermes Camacho revealed a group here in Texas that has that particular attribute in spades. Camacho is on faculty at Austin Soundwaves where he conducts the wind ensemble, teaches violin, and coordinates the theory program. Austin Soundwaves is part of El Sistema USA, a “support and advocacy network for people and organizations inspired by Venezuela’s monumental music education program.” Through El Sistema, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan musicians have been educated over the past three decades; Los Angeles Philharmonic Music Director Gustavo Dudamel is perhaps its best-known graduate. Growing from just a handful of programs in the US to over fifty in just a few years, El Sistema USA is now providing ensemble music lessons to thousands of underserved students throughout the U.S. as well.

Austin Soundwaves rehearsal

Austin Soundwaves Rehearsal
Loren Welles Photography

Andrew Sigler: When did El Sistema come to the U.S.?
Hermes Camacho: I’m sure the ideals of El Sistema have been felt in the United States for quite some time, but the 2008 formation of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s Orchkids program is generally recognized as the spearhead of the El Sistema USA movement. There are only about 35 programs in the country and only three in Texas. We are in our third year and this is my second year. It’s been great to be a part of something that is still new in that I’ve been able to have a lot of input and a real hands-on experience.
Austin Soundwaves pullquote
AS: How does one go about starting a program like this?
HC: There’s no official certification, but our program director Patrick Slevin completed the Sistema Fellows program at the New England Conservatory where they are fully immersed in the teaching culture and philosophies of El Sistema.
AS: What are those philosophies?
HC: I think of El Sistema-inspired programs like Austin Soundwaves in much the same way you might think of the Boys and Girls Club or other similar organizations which are focused on youth development, but in this case music is the vehicle. It’s a really amazing program; I gush over it, honestly. The staff and kids are great. It goes to show you that no matter what socio-economic background you come from, the reaction to music is the same. Often after a concert I hear, “I missed all those notes!” to which I respond, “No one noticed those, they heard the good stuff!” I’ve found that no matter if they come from a musical family or not, the kids have the same concern and drive to do it right.
AS: Are there particular similarities/differences between the original program and what Austin Soundwaves does?
HC: The emphasis on ensemble playing is shared between the two. It’s more about everyone coming together and working as a group. We teach sectionals, which are essentially group lessons, and last year started a music theory program which acts as a basis for fundamentals. I can count on one hand the number of students who have private lessons outside the program, so virtually all their music education occurs in-house. Also, Soundwaves has actively pursued new music opportunities for the students. Between performances at the Fast Forward Austin festivals in 2012 and 2013, as well as several premieres of new works for band and orchestra in the last year, we have made a point of bringing plenty of new music into the mix. Patrick and I have spoken about this on occasion, and he doesn’t know of any other El Sistema-inspired program that has as much new music activity as Austin Soundwaves.
AS: Are they doing any private lessons through Austin Soundwaves? Is there a private element to it?
HC: There is to a certain extent, but it’s not part of the structured curriculum. It’s really informal; if a student needs extra help for an audition or on their orchestra music they arrange to work it out with the teachers.
AS: Where is the program located?
HC: It is based at East Austin College Prep, which is a charter school. It’s co-ed and completely free and a big part of their goal is to provide opportunities to underserved communities of east Austin. Their emphasis is not only on getting students through high school, but getting them to attend and graduate college. In particular, it’s the goal of the Hispanic Alliance for the Performing Arts (HAPA), the non-profit organization that oversees Austin Soundwaves, to not only reach communities with limited resources but also target the artistically underserved.
AS: How many kids are in the program?
HC: Between the campuses of East Austin College Prep we have over 100 students in grades 5-10. At our finale last year we had nearly 100. In the three years it’s nearly tripled in size, starting with just under 40 students in grades 6 and 7.
AS: To what do you attribute that growth?
HC: I think that the opportunity to play an instrument is the big contributor. The students pay a $15 insurance fee, but everything else is covered. If you ask them, the answer is always, “This is something I wouldn’t get to do anywhere else.” They are jumping at the opportunity and recognizing the chance to play an instrument, to do something they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. Also, there is often the stigma which is sometimes associated with playing in band or orchestra, right? In many schools, if you’re not playing a sport you’re not cool. None of that really applies to these kids. A lot of the “cool” kids are musicians, so there’s a social element that partly drives the growth. Speaking to that social aspect, a lot of the Austin Soundwaves kids also participate in football, volleyball, cheerleading, soccer, baseball, and a variety of other activities.

Hermes Camacho conducts the Austin Soundwaves Orchestra

Hermes Camacho conducts the Austin Soundwaves Orchestra
Loren Welles Photography

AS: What is different about this teaching experience relative to your past involvement?
HC: Many of the kids come in with a variety of challenges, socioeconomic ones being the most common. I’ve taught students in other programs who come from backgrounds where music lessons are a given, and sometimes those students are less personally motivated and more parentally motivated—do you know what I mean? Now, the Soundwaves parents are certainly supportive—they are extremely supportive!—but most of these kids are here first and foremost because they want to be here. In my past experience, there have been times where I wasn’t sure if a student was doing it because they enjoyed playing music or because their parents enjoyed them playing music. That has never been the case with Soundwaves; the kids are doing it because they love it. Also, the parents and siblings are always so excited! The applause at the concerts is deafening, every single time, for every single piece. And I’m talking about Go Tell Aunt Rhody and unison versions of Iron Man. They are cheering like it’s the best thing they’ve ever heard, and the enthusiasm is, in my experience, unprecedented. There is no pretense of formality in terms of applause or reaction, nothing is pro-forma. The kids say, “I wish we could have a concert every day,” especially right after a show, and before a show they are truly as focused as any group I’ve ever run, including college and professional new music groups. They do it because it makes them feel special. They are wholeheartedly throwing themselves into it because of their love of music. They work very hard on their own. And I find I can be harder on them, in a constructive way of course, than other ensembles. They respond well to discipline because they want to be good, they want to play well. They don’t hold it against you; they seem to crave it.

The other day the group was particularly rowdy and with six minutes left in rehearsal, I’d had enough. I said, “You’ve wasted most of this rehearsal today. You’ve wasted my time and your time. You are all better than this. For these last six minutes I want you to sit; don’t talk, don’t pack up. Just sit.” Two things happened afterwards. One was that most of the students came up and apologized, both personally and for the group, for their behavior. The other is that the other teachers and aides who remained with the students during the six minutes said that nobody moved, they sat there in perfect silence. The only exception was when, after several minutes, someone asked if it had been six minutes yet, which was met by a resounding “shhhhh!” by the rest of the students. These students know that when I get frustrated or angry, it’s only for the moment. It’s not something that I ever hold onto. Many of them have even said I don’t stay angry long enough. That I smile too much!

Post-concert meet and greet

Post-concert meet and greet
Loren Welles Photography

AS: It seems like the kids in general are quite enthusiastic. Have you had any students who are indifferent or treat it like a compulsory class?
HC: Well, one student comes to mind who was having some issues. He’s a tough kid, concerned about his reputation as being “very cool,” and had started talking back, missing rehearsals, and generally seemed like he’d grown indifferent. So we sat him down and had a talk with him and asked if he really wanted to be here or not. And he started crying. He said, “This is the best part of my day. It’s what gets me through the day. I don’t want to leave.” And that was the end of the issue.

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AS: How would you describe your experience working with Austin Soundwaves? You are an active composer, new music ensemble director, and you teach at a university, so how does this fit in?
HC: I never take a job that I don’t want to do, and when I took the position at Soundwaves I thought it would simply be another teaching gig like the ones I’d taken before. But I’ll tell you that this has affected me personally much more than I ever could have imagined. A year ago, I never would have thought, “This is the best part of being a musician for me right now.” I love all the things I do, but this is the most rewarding and satisfying thing I’ve done as a musician. These kids make me want to work harder and to be a better musician, teacher, and person. It’s a challenge like nothing else.

Iron Composer 2013

On September 6, five composers arrived in Cleveland to compete for the title of Iron Composer 2013 at the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music. The brainchild of Lucky Mosko’s composition workshop at CalArts, Iron Composer is an aural takeoff on the famed Japanese television cooking show Iron Chef. The competition took its current form in 2007 in Omaha, Nebraska, before relocating to Cleveland in 2009. Narrowed down from an international pool of applicants, the five finalists were each assigned a different form of audience participation as their “secret ingredient.” They were then given a studio, an ensemble (a brass trio of double bell trumpet, horn, and trombone), and only five hours to compose a new work that incorporated their ingredient.

The finalists and their assigned audience participation were:

Can Bilir (Ankara, Turkey) – humming
Jennifer Jolley (Cincinnati, OH) – stomping
Jakub Polaczyk (Krakow, Poland) – whistling
Christoffer Schunk (Santa Clarita, CA) – clapping
David Wolfson (New York, NY) – snapping

Iron Composers

The five Iron Composers sit in alphabetical order–(from left to right) Can Bilir, Jennifer Jolley, Jakub Polaczyk, Christoffer Schunk, and David Wolfson–and await their fate.

At the end of the five-hour period, each composer received an anxiety-ridden 30-minute rehearsal with the brass trio before the concert began. Composer David Wolfson commented that the five hours of writing time were the fastest hours of his life, while Jennifer Jolley took some time during the process to blog about the experience. Admittedly, it was fun to keep track of Jolley’s progress as she posted about her ABACA piece turning into an ABABA composition, and then finally just ABA due to lack of time.

Clapping

Christoffer Schunk instructs the audience that its time for them to clap during the run through of his composition, To Listen to Us

During the concert, each composer spoke briefly about his or her work and explained how the audience would participate. Through a series of projected instructions, navigated by yours truly, the audience hummed, stomped, whistled, clapped, and snapped throughout the evening, which offered an exciting, if not unusual, element to each work. The brass trio, comprised of trumpeter Joe Drew (director of Iron Composer), horn player Alan DeMattia (Cleveland Orchestra), and trombonist James Albrecht (professor at the University of Akron), performed each work with conviction, ensuring that each composer had a fair shot at the title.

Here are the five compositions:

 

 

 

 


The judges included Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music director Susan Van Vorst, Oberlin College composition professor Josh Levine, and performer judge Alan DeMattia. While each composer received specific individual comments and critiques, the judges collectively praised all of the finalists for showing a high level of craftsmanship in such a short period of time. Conservatory director Van Vorst also commented on the unique creative energy and vastly different artistic voices the finalists brought to the stage.

The Performance

As Drew, DeMattia, and Albrecht run through one of the scores, the judges take notes.

Ultimately, Jakub Polaczyk emerged victorious with his work Finding You, edging out his closest competition by just four points. In fact, only 11 points separated first and fifth place. In addition to being named Iron Composer 2013, Polaczyk received a commission from Cleveland’s Blue Water Chamber Orchestra as part of his award. Adding a new element to this year’s competition, Iron Composer asked the audience to weigh in on their favorite composition via text. Jennifer Jolley took home this honor as well as a heavy brass clock, an appropriate reminder of those five hours.

The Travis Weller Instrumentarium

When I moved to Austin 13 years ago, I’ll admit that I came for the weird. In my defense, the official “Keep Austin Weird” phrase was coined just after I arrived (a coincidence, I’m sure) but it was, and occasionally still is, an appropriate moniker. I’d had a few professors who had studied at The University of Texas and spoke in hushed tones about what a wonderful time they had here in this strange and unique city. Many of these discussions were not centered on music necessarily, but rather the feel of the town—a place where you could just forget about what was going on in the rest of the world and do whatever you liked. When music did come up, a few venerated venues, annual festivals, and gatherings would populate the discussion, along with mention of various musicians who set the tone for the city and the times. Among these were Ellen Fullman’s performances on the Long String Instrument at the Candy Factory in the early 1990s.

Fullman’s instrumental design concepts for the LSI were influenced by Lucier’s Music on a Long Thin Wire from the previous decade, and they had an impact on a young musician named Travis Weller. Born and raised in Austin, Weller came up playing violin and listening to all sorts of music, eventually gravitating to sounds and instruments that were well outside the norm. Over the years, Weller has not only developed his own compositional voice and instrument designs, but he has worked with Fullman on a number of projects. He is also a regular performer and curator of contemporary music. As a co-founder of Austin’s New Music Co-op, Weller helped establish a regular clearing house for the composition and performance of experimental music, as well as for the exploration of important late 20th- and early 21st-century works. I’ve known Travis for several years, and we’ve talked about composition, performance, and curation, but I’d never taken the time to speak with him about the instruments he builds. To remedy that, we sat down and talked about three of his creations: The Owl, The Skiffs, and The Steel Bells.

The Owl in the Mexican American Cultural Center in Austin

The Owl in the Mexican American Cultural Center in Austin


Travis Weller: The Owl was a convergence of a bunch of ideas. It didn’t even start by wanting to build an instrument.
I really love Cage’s prepared piano music, and his piece Fourteen which calls for a “bowed” piano. I’d also been working with Arnold Dreyblatt, who uses piano wire on his contrabass. There were so many great timbres coming off this high-tension wire, but it’s locked up in the piano. The piano is really difficult to move and it’s difficult to get around and in between the strings. You never know when a piano will be available in a particular venue. Plus, the speaking length of the strings varies from piano to piano and so it’s hard to know what you’ll end up with. This can be great fun, but it isn’t always what’s called for in a piece. Cage really embraced the indeterminate element, but sometimes I want that one perfect sound. So really, I wanted to have something that gave me easy access to those sounds. It’s still a pretty big instrument, but you can load it into the back of a car by yourself! In the design process, I made sure I could change the speaking length of the strings via moveable bridges to allow may different tunings, including microtonal ones.

Andrew Sigler: Do you re-tune at all during performances?

TW: I don’t because I typically tune the instrument very precisely. And moving a bridge doesn’t just change the tuning of a particular string; it also changes the tension of the entire instrument and that impacts the tuning of the other strings. When I worked with Ellen Fullman in 2011, we spent days moving the bridges of the Owl in a way that aligned its tuning with that of the Long String Instrument (for the Music in Architecture/Architecture in Music Symposium).

The Owl in the Berkeley Modern Museum

The Owl in the Berkeley Modern Museum


While I was really inspired by Cage and Dreyblatt, so much of the construction of the Owl is based on piano technology. Years ago, I encountered the monochord, an instrument with adjustable bridges to demonstrate mathematical relationships between sounds. When I was thinking about this “piano-wire contraption,” that ended up being a good jumping off point. I started sketching things out and tried to make one from wood, which broke, as the tension was too great.

AS: Did it break apart in a dramatic fashion?

TW: No, it just slowly ripped the wood apart. As you would start tuning it up, you could hear it crunching and cracking! After that, I talked to my friend Brian Frisbie, a metal artist, who taught me a lot about metals and working with tools that can cut metal.

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The Skiffs

The Skiffs

AS: Did you have a background in building and so forth?

TW: No, not really. I just picked skills up here and there. I’ve been working on my old house for over a decade, and that has taught me a lot. Apart from that, I just learn what it takes to complete a project as I go along. And I’ve always enjoyed tinkering with things.

AS: Did you take shop class or anything like that?

TW: No, no classes. I love learning from people one-on-one. Folks are often really excited about sharing their skills. Sometimes, they’re interested in the project, so it leads to a collaboration of sorts. Welding is a great example. I don’t do any welding yet, so I always get help in that department. But I hover and learn a lot through the process. I do what I can with the equipment I have, but I know my limits and when to call in reinforcements. Norma Yancey, an architect, and I collaborated on the Skiffs. They are three instruments that borrow a lot from the Owl. We worked together to get a viable design. I fabricated the parts like the angled pin blocks, and she welded things together.

The Skiffs in rehearsal with line upon line percussion and Convergence Vocal Ensemble

The Skiffs in rehearsal with line upon line percussion and Convergence Vocal Ensemble


AS: What do the Skiffs do that the Owl doesn’t?

TW: The Owl is very wide and is based around a flat soundboard. The Skiffs have three pairs of strings instead of eight, which makes them more portable. They also have a resonant chamber, originally wooden organ pipes, instead of just a soundboard. I’m currently experimenting with a new set of resonators for the skiffs that might replace the organ pipes. The pipes work fine, but they aren’t as resonant as I’d like.

AS: Are you doing this in a shed in the back of your house? Do you have the mad scientist shed?

TW: Yep. I do most of my work in the backyard by the shed. My workspace, like the instruments, is a work in progress.

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The Steel Bells

The Steel Bells


AS: How about the Steel Bells?

TW: I’ve been working on various iterations of the bells for many years. They are essentially lamellophones, like a giant kalimba where each tine is independent. They can be struck as well as bowed, and you can get very precise with their tuning.

AS: What were you going for in terms of sound/playability with them? For instance, the Owl/Skiffs were a response to difficulties inherent in prepared piano performance.

TW: I started experimenting with them simply because I liked the timbre of similar instruments. Once I started exploring, I discovered all sorts of new tricks they could do, like how they sound so amazing when you use a violin bow on them. After years of grinding away on them (I’ve made dozens) I feel like I finally have a pretty good feel for how to make them sound good.

The Bells with contact mics and mixer

The Bells with contact mics and mixer

AS: Could you talk a bit about their construction and how the electronics fit in?

TW: They’re cut from large pieces of scrap structural metal. I used a drill press and an angle grinder. They are acoustic instruments, but contact microphones bring a whole new family of sounds out of them. Earlier this year, I used contact mics to send audio from the bells to a low power FM radio station in my piece Concerto Laguna.

The Bells on site at Laguna Gloria

The Bells on site at Laguna Gloria
(note Leanne Zacharias playing cello in the boat on the left)


AS: What are you working on right now? Are there any other instrumental designs or other projects you have on the horizon?”

TW: This week, I’m finishing up the score for a project that incorporates several of my instruments; Owl, Skiffs, and Bells plus violin, viola, and cello. I’m in the middle of major changes to my work space, so it’s been doors and windows as much as instruments the past few weeks. On top of that, I’m getting my instruments ready for a performance coming up on October 19 with Ellen Fullman at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston. I’m really excited about that one!

Wellesley Composers Conference and Chamber Music Center

Nestled in the picturesque Wellesley College campus each summer is the Wellesley Composers Conference and Chamber Music Center, a two-week meeting of composers, professional performers, and dedicated amateur players who come together to live and breathe chamber music old and new. I was fortunate to have been invited to be a fellow at Wellesley in the summer of 2012 and to have been asked to return as a commissioned composer this summer, so let’s start with that full disclosure. The conference is among the old guard of summer composer institutes and will celebrate its 70th anniversary next summer. Headed by Mario Davidovsky for nearly 40 years, the primary goal of the conference is to provide emerging composers with an opportunity to work with some of the best players from New York and Boston and to have their works performed and professionally recorded.
To say that my time at the conference was positive is an understatement, but let’s talk for a moment about what goes on there. During the program, the fellows participate in daily forums in which they present and discuss their music with each other and the guest composers. Formal presentations concerning technique, performance practice, pet peeves, etc. are made by the staff instrumentalists, but the atmosphere is such that informal conversations during meals are common as well. Afternoons are populated with rehearsals for the various concerts that are held over the two-week period. The Wednesday and Saturday night concerts are the main shows and feature two or three works by the fellows, as well as a variety of works from the canon.

Fellows check out a few scores

Fellows check out a few scores.
Photos by Andrew Sigler, except as noted.

Composers may write for any combination of the available instrumentation. This varies slightly from year to year but includes virtually all traditional instruments (though no harp presently, for instance) and tops out at chamber orchestra. The players are extraordinary and approach each piece with enthusiasm. Though the conference is all about new music, the concerts feature new works alongside well-known (and occasionally obscure) pieces from a variety of periods. When I attended the first Wednesday concert last summer I was preoccupied with the fact that my piece was going to be played that evening; I was sweating bullets, no doubt. When I sat down and looked at the program, I saw the other works to be played and initially thought, “Okay, a little Schumann, some Bach, some guy I’ve never heard of from the early 18th century. I’m sure it will be lovely, but aren’t we all here for the new stuff?” Then it occurred to me that I wasn’t going to hear just another run-through of one of the Brandenburg’s; I was going to hear a really good version of it. It added a whole new element of excitement and anticipation to the proceedings, and the players (while certainly top-notch new music performers) were also impeccable interpreters of the canon.

Rehearsal for Dan VanHassel's work Even Exchange

Rehearsal for Dan VanHassel’s work Even Exchange

Thursday nights are reserved for presentations by the guest composers. Though these composers typically change from year to year, it just so happened that both years I’ve attended the guest composers have been Melinda Wagner and Eric Chasalow. The presentations typically involve a discussion of the composer’s life and work as well as a live performance of at least one work, as well as recordings of previous works. They are, like all of the concerts, free and open to the public. Wagner’s live piece, Wick for Pierrot plus percussion, was fast and furious with only a brief respite while Miranda Cuckson’s performance of Chasalow’s Scuffle and Snap exhibited her deft technique alongside his rhythmically complex fixed media. Past guest composers at the conference have included Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Jacob Druckman, John Harbison, Lee Hyla, Earl Kim, Donald Martino, David Rakowski, Shulamit Ran, Gunther Schuller, Joan Tower, George Walker, Ollie Wilson, Charles Wuorinen, and Chen Yi.

Mario Davidovsky, Emily Cooley, and Jenny Beck chat after the Meet The Composer evening

Mario Davidovsky, Emily Cooley, and Jenny Beck chat after the “Meet the Composer” evening

One of the particularly fun moments early on in the conference was when the group of fellows learned that public speaking was part of the fellowship. Tuesday nights are the “Meet the Composer” nights, and there’s nothing like a putting the spotlight on a bunch of nervous composers who spend much of their time working alone. Though the law of averages would seem to dictate a few awkward moments, all of the composers gave compelling snapshots of their backgrounds, the pieces to be performed at the conference, and their plans for the future. It’s good that these presentations happen relatively early in the conference as it presents an opportunity for the amateur players (“ammys” as they’re affectionately known around the campus) to get to know the composers and perhaps get a snippet of information that might spark a conversation at lunch. It’s been a long-standing goal to introduce the ammys to new music, since very few of them perform it with any regularity. The Chamber Music Center portion of the Wellesley experience is largely a separate entity in which these talented amateurs typically spend one of the two weeks (they rarely attend for both weeks) being coached by the professional players in several ensembles.

Chris Gross leads an "ammy" rehearsal

Chris Gross leads an “ammy” rehearsal
Photo by by Kathryn Welter

In 1987, the Chamber Music Center instituted a commission to be fulfilled by one of the ten fellows from the previous year. A panel of the ammys selects the composer to be commissioned. The first winner was Lee Hyla, and though his piece Anhinga was written for amateur players, it was well-received by the professional players as well and picked for performance more than once! Among the players I worked with on the commissioned piece this summer was violinist Joseph Singer. Joe has participated in the Chamber Music Center for 26 years and provided me with the following anecdote concerning his and other ammys growth as a result of the conference:

About fifteen years ago, one of the coaches was tired of hearing the amateurs complain about the new music and how dissonant it was. We came to the coaching session (the Scherzo of a Beethoven string quartet) and the coach gave us a line of music he asked us to play. We played it and were perplexed. It sounded familiar; it was the last line of the Scherzo but different; it was the same piece but it wasn’t the same piece. It was awful; it was sickly sweet and boring. “What did you do?” we asked. “You murdered Beethoven!” He smiled. “I changed eight notes,” he said. One by one he changed them back and we played the line each time, and each time it got better and better.
He was trying to make a point. Some of us thought we did not like dissonance, but he was showing us that what made the music beautiful, poignant, moving, what made it move forward and made us want to hear what was next, was—dissonance. It was the notes that did not “belong” that impelled the music forward and created tension that could then be resolved. So it was the structure that created expectations mixed with the dissonance that disrupted them, and all of this shaping moments in time.

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Composer Jenny Beck, a 2013 Wellesley fellow, said of the experience, “The best part…for me was the emphasis placed on getting a good performance and a stellar recording of the pieces we had written. I think I can comfortably say that this was the best experience I’ve had working with an ensemble. Not only were they remarkably capable, but to have them display such commitment to the success of each piece was inspiring. James Baker’s rehearsal process is brilliant, and he seemed to know exactly what I wanted and what I was trying to do in the music without my having to say much. Finally, the recording engineer [Anthony Di Bartolo] handed my recording to me immediately after the concert: a flash drive containing the dress rehearsal and concert, broken down for mixing and also mixed together for immediate listening. You know how frustrating it can be to wait for a recording; it was really nice to skip that part.”


The flash drive was a new addition this year, but I can attest to the high quality of the performance and recording, as well to having been amazed that I got my recording (a fully printed disc with numbered tracks and the Composers Conference logo to boot) during intermission! The methodology of running and recording the dress rehearsal is the result of years of experience on the part of both Baker and Di Bartolo. Baker doesn’t simply run the works once or twice, he makes sure that each section is recorded such that alternative takes are available (and more easily spliceable) in the event that there are any issues with the live performance.

Eric Chasalow, Mario Davidovsky, and the Fellows discuss Aaron Brooks's music

Eric Chasalow, Mario Davidovsky, and the Fellows discuss Aaron Brooks’s music

Again, the stated purpose of the conference is to provide the fellows with quality performances and recordings of their works, and if that was the extent of the offerings it would be time well spent. But the connections and friendships that are made are a large part of what I took from my time at Wellesley. I truly anticipated a more adversarial environment in which various camps and dogmas played a larger role, and while all the composers had distinctive sounds and strong personal opinions, the overall tone was supportive and genuinely inquisitive. Most people seemed as interested in hearing and learning about other people’s work as they were in discussing their own. The daily schedule was also thoughtfully constructed. A three-hour morning seminar (with coffee break!) followed by lunch, three hours of rehearsals for the fellows’ works (attendance encouraged but not required), dinner, then a concert or presentation provided just enough structure to keep us focused. But it was flexible enough that we could take care of upcoming projects, get in some practice, or just take in the picture postcard that is the Wellesley campus.

To cap it all off, there are the infamous nightly parties which are held in one of the larger rooms in the same dormitory where fellows, players, and amiss alike retire in the evening. Like any conference, having a few hours to unwind with your colleagues after a long day provides the perfect opportunity to really let one’s hair down. Discussions veer away from music in particular to life in general and back again. It was particularly nice to have frank, workaday conversations about gardening, exercise, and cooking with people who had negotiated one gnarly nested tuplet after another just an hour before.  War stories from the road gave way to the challenges of raising a family while maintaining a career. I heard more than one story about the role that Skype played in traveling musicians’ lives; about the quick and often harried trip to or from a concert to make sure that time with a partner or child would not be missed. These shifts from the sublime to the daily grind are not part of every career, and in the world of art the focus is typically on the former and rarely on the latter.  The Wellesley Composers Conference puts a frame around all aspects of this path, providing perspective on our present condition and giving insight into our future.

Music is Music: The 2013 PARMA Music Festival

The Music Hall Historic Theater Lobby

The lobby of The Music Hall, a landmark 1878 Victorian theater. (All photos by Osnat Netzer.)

“Music is music,” says Bob Lord, composer, bassist and CEO of PARMA Recordings. This is the only way in which Lord apologizes for otherwise unapologetically programing acts such as a rock singer/guitarist, a jazz band, a string quartet, and a symphony orchestra in one concert. As for the crowd for this show, it went wild no matter what the genre. There were standing ovations and cat calls after almost every number. The concert was the main event at the inaugural PARMA Music Festival in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on August 17.

The festival ran for three very full days of concerts, presentations, panel discussions, and a potpourri of socializing and networking events. While I normally expect music festivals to materialize around a common musical denominator such as jazz, chamber music, early music, fiddle music, etc., what was most striking about the PARMA Festival was its diversity; diversity within musical styles and event types, its combination of local, national, and international artists, and also its audience. The combining of genres normally thought of as “high-brow” and “low-brow” in the same concert, the accessibility of the venues, and the potent marketing brought in an encouraging mix of people. The performance venues were spread over less than a mile radius and included spaces such as churches, bars, concert halls, and wharfs.

Busy streets in Portsmouth, NH

The busy streets of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

One of the sources for this diversity is PARMA itself. PARMA Recordings is a production company based in New Hampshire that serves as a middleman between music makers and their consumers. No matter what the genre, composers and performers invest their money, time, and talent to have their music recorded and distributed by PARMA. These musicians ultimately hope to attract greater exposure and income than they could on their own by having their works produced and marketed by the company. Most of this revenue comes from selling the music to television and film companies. Composers who sign up with PARMA know that their music may be licensed for use in TV and film. “We’ve definitely gotten concerns such as, ‘Is it going to be in a deodorant commercial?’ but ultimately, it’s a fantastic exposure opportunity and we don’t strive to do anything vulgar with the music, so usually they’re pretty happy to get their music out there,” says Jacob Weinreb, managing director of the licensing department.
Lord encourages musicians to “think more like a band.” In a rock band, everyone contributes different talents, such as composing, arranging, marketing, driving, licensing, etc., but, “it all washes out in the end.” Lord’s point is that a tiny organism such as a rock band thrives on the fine balance between the successful collaboration of its members against a real market of music consumers, and that’s precisely what he feels is missing from the world of new concert music and symphony orchestras. From talking to some of my string player friends, many chamber ensembles function in a similar way.

In addition to the festival promoting the agenda and products of PARMA Recordings, the inclusion of several other institutions demonstrates that the concerts were not entirely self-serving. The festival also hosted an offshoot conference of the Society of Composers, Inc., featuring performances of pieces by its composer members as well as paper sessions. Surprisingly or not, a large number of the SCI paper sessions also approached the problem of genre and accessibility to audiences. Scott Robins spoke about making 21st-century rhythmic topics accessible to college students through the use of prog rock examples.

Scott Robins with projection of old rock bands

According to Scott Robins, “If you recognize these bands, you came here without a date today.”

Kevin Zhang talked about Mark-Anthony Turnage’s opera Anna Nicole. These talks were presented alongside what would seem to be more conventional fodder for papers given at an academic music conference, e.g. explications of the music of Grisey and Zwilich presented by Brian Penkrot and Jessica Rudman, respectively. Some of the presentations found their way to the concert hall: Iowa undergraduate composition student Adam O’Dell performed his solo percussion piece right after presenting a paper. Some of the SCI members expressed great appreciation for the conference being held at this lively festival, rather than in a stuffy lecture hall housing only fellow composers.

The other striking collaboration in this festival had to do with the locale of New England, and Portsmouth in particular. Many of the performers were local—including bands such as Tan Vampires and fiveighthirteen, students and faculty from the jazz ensemble of the Portsmouth Music and Arts Center, players from the Boston New Music Initiative, and the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra, led by the exuberant maestro John Page. Also included in the mix was Classical Music By the SeaTM, a local educational organization that strives to promote the understanding and appreciation of classical music.

Xenia Dunford

Singer/songwriter Xenia Dunford performing at the Music Hall loft.

The audience for the larger events included both many musicians (and the usual obligatory friends and families of musicians), and a wide variety of locals, as well as passersby who happened to see a poster on the street; one tourist confessed that he saw someone carrying a cello and simply followed him to the next event. The panel discussion on licensing and the music industry attracted students from UMass Lowell majoring in music business. I’m also sure that the wide variety of venues in use helped attract a good mix of people, whether a concert was held in a church, a bar, a wharf, or a music hall.

Licensing Panel Discussion

Licensing Panel Discussion

The main event concert was well worth the drive from Boston. Rarely have I borne witness to the world premiere of a piece by a prominent deceased composer; at this concert, I encountered Lukas Foss’s Elegy for Clarinet and Orchestra, a piece recently uncovered by Christopher Foss, the composer’s son. It was brought to life at the concert by the assured hands of Richard Stoltzman. Incidentally, this performance, along with the process of uncovering the piece, is being turned into a documentary.

PARMA Orchestra

The PARMA Orchestra

I had many favorites at the concert. High school senior Anna DeLoi was dazzling in her rendition of Alberto Ginastera’s Harp Concerto. I was most excited for composer Tina Tallon, who won PARMA’s 2013 student composer competition and had her string quartet selective defrosting performed competently by members of the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra.

Tina Tallon

Tina Tallon

Switzerland native Martin Schlumpf was one of the featured international composers. His piece Streams received its world premiere at the event and featured a savage duo: Matthias Müller on clarinet and David Taylor on bass trombone. The piece is rich and eclectic and provides room for the soloists to improvise their own cadenzas, in this case a successful Third Stream-like extension of the old concerto tradition. The concert was perhaps too long, but was quite well conceptualized by the way in which Will Dailey and Ovidiu Marinescu provided both stylistic variety and interludes during the set changes; a clear differentiation of genre was obtained by an effective change of lighting on stage. The lighting was neutral for the classical music and colorful for the jazz and rock music. It’s a shame, actually. Why couldn’t Arthur Gottshalk’s Ceremonial Fanfare get a little touch of green from the lighting team? Finally, one of the crowd pleasers on the program was Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No. 2. I enjoyed it as well, even though I thought that Márquez could have taken greater liberty and added more personal touches to the traditional Mexican danzón.
I got a lot from this festival. It’s good to see that there are so many composers out there who, like me, grapple with the need to write music that will please themselves and help them grow as composers and humans. At times those two pursuits can seem diametrically opposed to one another, but at other times it is possible for the two goals to work hand in hand, resulting in music that will bring us some income as well as recognition and respect from our peers. I am very glad that in all of my encounters at the festivals no one expressed an urge to “dumb down” or “sell out” in order to find an audience. However, when I encounter the wonderfully pluralistic “anything goes” American attitude, I also become concerned that we may be setting ourselves up for mediocrity or for music that is inoffensive—and thus, by our inoffensiveness, offend the music connoisseur who is seeking true expression and challenge.

Bob Lord and David Taylor

Bob Lord and David Taylor

One of the topics I discussed with Bob Lord concerned context. Many of us remember Joshua Bell’s experiment of playing in the subway and finding out just how different his audience’s reaction was when he was just an anonymous street performer. Maybe you take the most artfully created piece of music and put it in a commercial, but you run the risk of completely changing the intention of the piece. There is a responsibility for the composer to understand the context in which she is writing a piece; what is her audience, and what is her place within society; how does her piece contribute to the betterment of music, art, or society.
But this is perhaps a topic for another time and another essay. In the meantime, I’m so glad to see so many performers and living composers received so well and I’m looking forward to next year’s PARMA Music Festival.

free refreshments courtesy of PARMA

There were even free refreshments!

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Osnat Netzer

Osnat Netzer

Osnat Netzer is a composer and pianist based in Boston. Her opera The Wondrous Woman Within will receive its world premiere in her home country of Israel in 2014. She teaches theory and composition at Harvard University.