Concert roundup
Feb. 8th, 2009 06:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariI went to some performances over the last couple of weeks.
I was at the beginning of a really bad cold when I went to this concert, hence both the long delay in posting about it and the lack of sharpness in my listening.
Bright Angel - Roshanne Etezady
This suite for clarinet and piano was quite good. The whole piece really felt like a journey, which was completely fitting since it was inspired by architect Mary Jane Colter's buildings in the Grand Canyon (I didn't even know there were any buildings in the canyon itself). The first (Lookout) and last (Bright Angel) movements had a beautiful expansiveness. Movement 2 (Phantom) made terrific use of the lower registers of both instruments. I liked the last movement best.
But Not Heard - Eva Kendrick
This piece was for cello and folk harp, which turned out to be a wonderful combination. It was an attractive piece that did a wonderful job of using extended techniques and fully integrating them into the music.
(t)here - Marcos Balter
This piece existed not in the notes actually played by the pianist, but in the resonances they generated. I am quite grateful for pianist Sarah Bob's commentary to that effect before her performance. Her comments made it a much more interesting piece than it might otherwise have been for me.
This concert concluded with two pieces by the Chuck Gabriel Septet, written by Gabriel: Coolidge Square, and Last Thoughts on Hillsborough County. Both were good - I liked the full sound of the septet and the great soloing from every member of the ensemble.
:
Clair for solo clarinet - Franco Donatoni
This piece was a little on the noodley and notey side, but it had a wonderful sense of shape and structure. The first movement had a graceful inverted arc from louder and more forceful to quieter and more subtle and back again. The second movement was very sotto voce, which gave it a feeling a privacy, of listening to someone think to themselves.
In Time of War - Jan Swafford
I really liked this gloriously moody piece for cello and piano. It was very melodic and rich, giving a nod to Romanticism without descending into sentimentality. It was by turns combative, passionate, tender, tragic, and menacing.
whatWall? for alto saxophone and electronics - Ken Ueno
I usually really like Ueno's work, but this piece just didn't work for me. It was very hard to figure out what was going on. The beginning and end sections were pretty interesting, but the middle completely lost me with its opaque chaos.
8 Crom-Tech Songs - Jefferson Friedman.
This piece for saxophone and drum set sounded like John Zorn and Napalm Death met in a bar, listened to some Sonic Youth, and then got in a fistfight. It was okay, but this isn't the sort of thing I really get into. And I'm not convinced that it comes across that well in the concert stage context. Plus, from the way the saxophonist's music stand was turned as they set up for the next piece, I saw that the "score" he had been turning the pages of between sections was a large watercolor pad with a torn cover, leading me to the strong suspicion that the page turning and presence of a score was a theatrical pretense. And, in my opinion, a bullshit one at that. This was clearly not the kind of piece that really needed a score, and seeing that the score used was unlikely to be any such thing made me feel like the child in The Emperor's New Clothes. It wasn't clever, it was pretentious.
Psappha for solo percussionist - Iannis Xenakis
This piece was amazing, and utterly riveting. It had a definite feeling of expansion and contraction, of development, and anticipation. It went through a reasonably wide variety of instruments and timbres in a very intelligent and elegant way. Throughout the whole piece I found myself eager to hear what came next.
Kuilenn for nine wind instruments - Iannis Xenakis
This piece was densely and aggressively dissonant, yet without being noisy. I had a hard time getting into it, though. I think, as often happens with the final piece of a challenging program, my ears and mind were tired and thus not up to really digging into the work. Hopefully, I will hear this again sometime when I am fresher.
I was quite impressed with this company - I liked the choreography, and I thought the musical choices were very interesting and quite successful.
Lickety-Split - choreographed by Alejandro Cerrudo, to music by Devendra Banhart
This piece for three couples was playful and subtly romantic. The interactions between the dancers were sweet and sensual.
Gimme - choreographed by Lucas Crandall, to music by Norwegian group Bla Bergens Borduner
This duet for a man and a woman used the device of a cord held by the dancers, connecting them for most of the piece. The dance went through a fascinating progression of emotional dynamics. It started out as something of a power play, morphed into something more like a playful game, and ended up being sexy and flirtatious.
The Constant Shift of Pulse - choreographed by Doug Varone to "Halleujah Junction" by John Adams
This was the work I liked the least. It had too much flopping and glomming together. I kept getting a little bored by it, with a few moments here and there of interest.
Walking Mad - choreographed by Johan Inger to Ravel's "Bolero"
This work was comedic without being silly or leaning on slapstick, and I enjoyed it very much.. It had a charming wit about it. "Bolero" is a rather overused piece that often veers into being a cliche, but I think it worked really well here because its connotations were part of the humor. The piece also used a bit of a set: a grey moveable wall with a couple of doors in it, and a hinge in the middle. The dancers made good use of the doors, folded the wall into a couple of different configurations, and even laid it down to use a surface to dance on during the piece. The wall, combined with the costuming (which included simple dresses, long trenchcoats, and hats) also gave the sense of the piece occurring on the grounds of a rustic Depression-era farmstead.
I was at the beginning of a really bad cold when I went to this concert, hence both the long delay in posting about it and the lack of sharpness in my listening.
Bright Angel - Roshanne Etezady
This suite for clarinet and piano was quite good. The whole piece really felt like a journey, which was completely fitting since it was inspired by architect Mary Jane Colter's buildings in the Grand Canyon (I didn't even know there were any buildings in the canyon itself). The first (Lookout) and last (Bright Angel) movements had a beautiful expansiveness. Movement 2 (Phantom) made terrific use of the lower registers of both instruments. I liked the last movement best.
But Not Heard - Eva Kendrick
This piece was for cello and folk harp, which turned out to be a wonderful combination. It was an attractive piece that did a wonderful job of using extended techniques and fully integrating them into the music.
(t)here - Marcos Balter
This piece existed not in the notes actually played by the pianist, but in the resonances they generated. I am quite grateful for pianist Sarah Bob's commentary to that effect before her performance. Her comments made it a much more interesting piece than it might otherwise have been for me.
This concert concluded with two pieces by the Chuck Gabriel Septet, written by Gabriel: Coolidge Square, and Last Thoughts on Hillsborough County. Both were good - I liked the full sound of the septet and the great soloing from every member of the ensemble.
:
Clair for solo clarinet - Franco Donatoni
This piece was a little on the noodley and notey side, but it had a wonderful sense of shape and structure. The first movement had a graceful inverted arc from louder and more forceful to quieter and more subtle and back again. The second movement was very sotto voce, which gave it a feeling a privacy, of listening to someone think to themselves.
In Time of War - Jan Swafford
I really liked this gloriously moody piece for cello and piano. It was very melodic and rich, giving a nod to Romanticism without descending into sentimentality. It was by turns combative, passionate, tender, tragic, and menacing.
whatWall? for alto saxophone and electronics - Ken Ueno
I usually really like Ueno's work, but this piece just didn't work for me. It was very hard to figure out what was going on. The beginning and end sections were pretty interesting, but the middle completely lost me with its opaque chaos.
8 Crom-Tech Songs - Jefferson Friedman.
This piece for saxophone and drum set sounded like John Zorn and Napalm Death met in a bar, listened to some Sonic Youth, and then got in a fistfight. It was okay, but this isn't the sort of thing I really get into. And I'm not convinced that it comes across that well in the concert stage context. Plus, from the way the saxophonist's music stand was turned as they set up for the next piece, I saw that the "score" he had been turning the pages of between sections was a large watercolor pad with a torn cover, leading me to the strong suspicion that the page turning and presence of a score was a theatrical pretense. And, in my opinion, a bullshit one at that. This was clearly not the kind of piece that really needed a score, and seeing that the score used was unlikely to be any such thing made me feel like the child in The Emperor's New Clothes. It wasn't clever, it was pretentious.
Psappha for solo percussionist - Iannis Xenakis
This piece was amazing, and utterly riveting. It had a definite feeling of expansion and contraction, of development, and anticipation. It went through a reasonably wide variety of instruments and timbres in a very intelligent and elegant way. Throughout the whole piece I found myself eager to hear what came next.
Kuilenn for nine wind instruments - Iannis Xenakis
This piece was densely and aggressively dissonant, yet without being noisy. I had a hard time getting into it, though. I think, as often happens with the final piece of a challenging program, my ears and mind were tired and thus not up to really digging into the work. Hopefully, I will hear this again sometime when I am fresher.
I was quite impressed with this company - I liked the choreography, and I thought the musical choices were very interesting and quite successful.
Lickety-Split - choreographed by Alejandro Cerrudo, to music by Devendra Banhart
This piece for three couples was playful and subtly romantic. The interactions between the dancers were sweet and sensual.
Gimme - choreographed by Lucas Crandall, to music by Norwegian group Bla Bergens Borduner
This duet for a man and a woman used the device of a cord held by the dancers, connecting them for most of the piece. The dance went through a fascinating progression of emotional dynamics. It started out as something of a power play, morphed into something more like a playful game, and ended up being sexy and flirtatious.
The Constant Shift of Pulse - choreographed by Doug Varone to "Halleujah Junction" by John Adams
This was the work I liked the least. It had too much flopping and glomming together. I kept getting a little bored by it, with a few moments here and there of interest.
Walking Mad - choreographed by Johan Inger to Ravel's "Bolero"
This work was comedic without being silly or leaning on slapstick, and I enjoyed it very much.. It had a charming wit about it. "Bolero" is a rather overused piece that often veers into being a cliche, but I think it worked really well here because its connotations were part of the humor. The piece also used a bit of a set: a grey moveable wall with a couple of doors in it, and a hinge in the middle. The dancers made good use of the doors, folded the wall into a couple of different configurations, and even laid it down to use a surface to dance on during the piece. The wall, combined with the costuming (which included simple dresses, long trenchcoats, and hats) also gave the sense of the piece occurring on the grounds of a rustic Depression-era farmstead.
