just out of reach

The Gods: Spell ‘hope.’
Tantalus: L-E-S-S
The Gods: Spell ‘love.’
Narcissus: L-O-S-T
The Gods: Spell ‘rest.’
Sisyphus: S-I-L-E-N-C-E

These are the questions the gods pose to Tantalus, Narcissus and Sisyphus at the opening of the Kevin Noe/Kieren MacMillan collaboration “Just Out of Reach.” The new work premiered tonight at the final Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble concert and will be performed again in a 17-show run at the upcoming Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Noe and MacMillan have constructed a fresh perspective on the three Greek mythologies by bringing the audience into their stories after centuries of enduring their respective punishments. The earnestness of Tantalus’ (Matthew Romantini) and Narcissus’ (Rob Frankenberry) tales are refreshingly balanced by the comedic interpretation Sisyphus’ (Noe) character.

Though the work really comes across more as musical theater rather than the billed “theater of music,” it is an engaging telling of the trio’s refusal to commit suicide in order to cease their eternal punishments. “Just Out of Reach” is also a commentary on what the meaning and difference is between sanity and insanity. (One funny line that sticks in my mind is Sisyphus' reply to the gods' inquiry as to whether his punishment could be more torturous: “Yes, if you put spikes on the rock.”)

The pacing of the narrative is generally very good and balances its dramatic and lighter notes. The ending though is a bit brusque. The full performance clocked in at just about an hour, and I felt like more time could have been spent with the ending section to match the tone struck in the rest of the narrative; A witty narrative that relied on references to existing philosophical, artistic and psychoanalytic milestones for contextualizing the punished mortals plights.

MacMillan’s score is varied, touching on a mix of aesthetic devices, with moments of real beauty in Narcissus’ arias. I question the lack of scoring for the moving depiction of Tantalus’ crime of filicide. The music, performed by the solo piano was appropriately stark, but the moment could have been stronger with a more colorful orchestration utilizing the PNME’s full ensemble. (As a side note, the instrumentalists acted the parts of the gods…including them as commentators on Tantalus’ and Pelops’ very effective body movements would have increased the musical ties between Tantalus’ actions and the gods’ reactions.)

I wish the ensemble well at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. This project is a huge undertaking that takes artistic and philosophical risks. I hope the festival audiences will embrace this work and the ensemble because they are really trying to make something new within the guise of contemporary art music performance.

schick, yadegari & schwitters

PNME Geust Striking. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, A & E Short Takes. 21 July 2008.

This concert by Steven Schick and Shahrokh Yadegari gave the PNME audience a compelling entry into the artistic world of Kurt Schwitters. After the event, I was left anticipating the duo’s release of their recontextualization of Schwitters’ “UrSonate” on DVD. (For more info on Schwitters and to hear him performing the “UrSonate,” visit this ubu.com page.)

Their performance of Schwitters’ “vocal” work utilized MaxMSP patches devised by Yadegari to create rotating counterpoints for Schick’s excellent performance style. The patches spanned the musical gamut from lyricism to cacophony. (BTW, Schick’s oratory skills make him a percussionist who could perform Rzewski’s “To The Earth” quite compellingly.) Their work was most effective in the 2nd and 3rd movements. In the 2nd movement, Schick swung a plastic tube through the air, resulting in an audible pitch. Yadegari captured this tone and fashioned a descending pattern of pitches that Schick in turn mimicked as he narrated Schwitters’ score. In the third movement, Yadegari set up a rhythmic ostinato from Schick’s short vocalizations. The effect was slightly reminiscent to Ravel’s “Bolero,” though a bit more comical. In short, the pair have put together a performance that, if it comes to a theater near you, should not be missed.

midibox part two

I’ve finally been able to post updates on my Midibox project. The Core module is stuffed and awaiting the IC. Also, the Analog inputs (the knobs) are stuffed and awaiting their IC’s.

Pictures of the enclosure pieces will be coming sooner or later. I’m re-evaluating my initial idea of making a 64 knob controller and may instead opt for a 16-32 for my first effort.

My next step is to attach the LCD module and make the Digital input board for the MIOS system controls.

messiaen & cage

New Music Ensemble Connects. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, A & E Short Takes. 14 July 2008.

Space limitations prevented me from fully describing how the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble presented Cage’s 4’33”. Immediately following the conclusion of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, Danny Spiegel closed the piano’s lids and walked off stage. The remaining quartet members sat in the near dark of the stage that was lit by three strategically placed candles. After some time passed (and the audience, which probably did not expect a silent piece, began to become a little restless) Nathalie Shaw (violin) stood up, positioned her music stand in a single spotlight, walked to one of the three candles and blew it out. She then walked off-stage. The remaining quartet members, cellist Norbert Lewandowski and clarinetist Campbell Macdonald, repeated this process. The only variation was that when Macdonald got to his candle (the last remaining lit) he only pretended to blow it out.

I have learned to accept and go along with most of PNME’s theatricality. In the past few years they have become surer of themselves and are presenting their events with fewer pretensions. Before this particular concert I was curious to see what they would come up with for Cage’s work. I expected a visual accompaniment, like a backward ticking clock, or some other method depicting the passage of musical time.

The theatrics of PNME’s presentation made a strong association with Handel’s Farewell Symphony. But what also happened is that the point of Cage’s work was misrepresented. His work is not about silence as a musically extinguishing device. It is about the inability of pure silence to overcome any environmental ambient sounds, including the sounds of our own circulatory systems.

In the end, I think the PNME was trying to make a literal connection with the idea of ending time and silence. It’s a big, philosophical question, and I applaud them for having the artistic fortitude to ask such a question. I’m just not convinced that Cage’s work was the right work for the end-of-time-left-with-silence connection.

zahab at the frick

Roger Zahab (violin) and Rob Frankenberry (piano) gave a duo recital tonight at the Frick Fine Arts Building on the Pitt Campus. This is a nice, small, intimate space, well-suited for chamber music. But, like all the campus venues the Pitt Music Dept. has at its disposal, this room is also a multi-purpose lecture/recital hall. (Of interest to some is the fact that the piano in this space belonged to the late composer and conductor Robert Black.) Normally an acoustically sound room, tonight’s event was “colored” by the popping speakers that are controlled behind a locked door. I recorded the event and captured the hall's pops.

Roger compared this to a recital on the sea shore; I thought it sounded like an old phonograph. At any rate, it was a very Cage-ian experience because the “noise” of the speakers created a counterpoint to all of the works that their composers did not intend. This backdrop annoyed me the most when I was attentively listening to the quiet moments (especially in Roger’s viola solo, “secret device”). In the louder moments, the speakers were hardly noticeable. At the end of each work, especially following Aaron Copland’s “Two Ballads,” the speakers seemed to give an approving electronic applause.

Roger sometimes describes his performances as resembling “informances.” He approaches each piece on its own terms, striving to find its communicative essence. In this way, his recitals are more of his imparting information (from the composer) to the audience. He makes the music the focus. It is less about his performance and more about the ideas the composers are imparting.

What is always exciting about Roger’s recitals as an audience memeber are the breadth of the composers represented. he gives a multifaceted picture of contemporary music, never afraid to push his or his audience’s aesthetic limits. This is a good thing for music. Too often it seems as if new music outlets are subsumed by a particular group’s subset of friends or a single aesthetic vision.

The program from tonight, titled “Transnational Composers in America”:

• Nketia, “Three Ghanian Airs” (1962)
• Zahab, “secret device” (2000)
• Nytch, “Lyric Suite: Reflections on Carl Sandburg” (1993)
• Zahab, “Enfolding Studies” (1996)
• Copland, “Two Ballads” (1957)
• Mamlock, “From My Garden” (1983)
• Moe, “Flex Time” (2005)
• Vali, “Caligraphy no.5” (2003)
• Rosenblum [arr. Zahab], “RedDust Motes” (2007)
• Zahab, entelechron lullabye (2005)