Shifting Gears

Posted on May 19, 2015 by maestrobeats

Follow Joshua on Facebook, Twitter, and see his schedule at joshuaroman.com

Dear Reader:

Is it really May, already? It’s such a cliché, but I really do feel sometimes that the calendar must be lying. April was a more typical month for me, with multiple concertos and recitals. Mostly traditional repertoire: Dvorak’s Cello Concerto, Haydn’s C Major Cello Concerto, Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations, Bach Suites… there were a few newer pieces mixed in as well, including my own “Riding Light”. In fact, that particular performance was one of the few in my life where my Cstring has had the audacity to snap during a juicy moment. Audiences seem to love that, although for me it’s just a pain to have to go grab another one and retune, then decide where to start again.

Along with all of that, April is also of course tax season, and every self-employed Musician knows just how long that can take. So between all of these things, plus other random tasks, I did not get as much done on my upcoming cello concerto as I’d like. Luckily, this month is dedicated to producing notes on paper!

One thing that I’ve always been curious about: where do ideas come from? I know much has been written on the subject, both in the form of studies and also from the notes and journals of creative types. Among my composer friends, the variety of work habits is astonishing. Some are night owls and do the bulk of their creative work after the sun goes down. Others do it first thing in the morning. And this is not always where the genesis of an idea occurs! I’ve been encouraged to carry a notebook around with me everywhere, and this has been immensely helpful, as many times ideas will strike at the most inopportune moment. Often, for me this happens on airplanes, or on the elliptical machine (I hate that thing. My excuse: knee injury). Sometimes, it’s a response to something I hear in a concert, or on the radio. Usually, I’ll hear a composer do something structurally, or turn a phrase or color on its head in an interesting way, and wonder to myself: “would I do that? Or would I do the opposite? Or something in between?”

Which brings me to an exercise I want to share with all of you musicians out there. Perhaps you’ve tried this in the past, but it’s something I don’t think it hurts to revisit. As you’re practicing whatever piece it is you’re playing, take one of the more obviously interesting (okay, that’s subjective, but that’s kind of the point so just go with your gut) passages and play through it a few times. As you do, try to pinpoint what the underlying idea is, what led the composer to the notes they chose. Is there an increase in tension? Is there a moment where something breaks away? Anything will do for these purposes. Then, forget for a moment that the piece was written by someone else. Take the idea, and begin with the same note the composer does, but modify the phrase as if you are composing it yourself. Try different notes and rhythms, dynamics and accents, colors, everything. What would it sound like if YOU had written the notes to achieve the emotional/structural impact the composer did?

This can take a while, especially if you’ve not improvised before. Be patient. Explore, and don’t judge what you’re doing. Just observe! Notice how many options you come up with, and what makes them different from what the composer did. Perhaps some of them may even be equally effective in their own way! In the end, you’ll see a little bit of what distinguishes this composer’s voice from your own, and others. Bonus points: change the phrase to create the same effect in the voice of other composers. Even more bonus points: see if you can keep as much the same as possible, but achieve the opposite emotional impact.

So what’s the point? Interpretation. Interpretation depends on our relationship to a composer, and our understanding of their voice. It helps to have insight into what having a voice means in the first place, and that comes very strongly through improvisation, composition, and other means of creative exploration. This is something I’ve been playing with a lot. There’s much more to try, and to share, but for now I’ll leave you with that bit of nerdy fun and open up the score to my own piece, which is calling out for attention from the top of my keyboard. Had a few good ideas during my workout today, now it’s time to see whether they pan out.

Music On Rotation

Bela Bartok: Divertimento for Strings (buy)
Peteris Vasks: Vox Amoris (buy)
Amon Tobin: Foley Room (buy)

ALBUM REVIEW: Bang on a Can All-Stars’ “Field Recordings”

Posted on May 18, 2015 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Molloy

You’ve probably heard countless buskers playing bucket drums and other found objects on city streets—but you’ve never heard anyone bang on a can like this before.

The Bang on a Can All-Stars are a six-member amplified ensemble known for exploring the furthest reaches of the classical music world, with an affinity for imagination, experimentation, multimedia music performances, and all things avant-garde.

The one of a kind ensemble is comprised of cellist Ashley Bathgate, bassist Robert Black, pianist Vicky Chow, percussionist David Cossin, guitarist Mark Stewart, and clarinetist Ken Thomson, and their wide-ranging repertoire spans from the minimalist musings of Philip Glass and Steve Reich to the computer music compositions of Paul Lansky and Tristan Perich.

But the All-Stars’ latest project combines an even more colorful palette of creative influences. Toeing the line between music and sound art, “Field Recordings” is a new multimedia project which combines music, film, found sound, and obscure audio-visual archives to create a dialogue between past and present art traditions.

(Purchase links and more information from Cantaloupe Music)

“It’s a kind of ghost story,” composer David Lang said of the album. “We asked composers from different parts of the music world to find a recording of something that already exists—a voice, a sound, a faded scrap of melody—and then write a new piece around it.”

Lang is one of the co-founders of Bang on a Can, along with Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon. The three appear as featured composers on the new 12-track album, along with Florent Ghys, Christian Marclay, Tyondai Braxton, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Todd Reynolds, Steve Reich, Bryce Dessner, Mira Calix, and Anna Clyne.

The album begins with a performance of Julia Wolfe’s “Reeling,” a lively piece based around a sound clip of a French Canadian vocalist. He sings in a twirling, sing-song style with no lyrics, his melody taking on the role of a fiddle or banjo soloing in a folk reel. Little by little Wolfe adds more instruments to the mix, creating an increasingly chaotic and computerized sound, like a record being rewound and replayed over and over, speaking to the album’s overarching theme of manipulating recorded sound.

The next piece on the album is nothing short of an absolute treasure. Florent Ghys’s “An Open Cage” uses as its basis excerpts from John Cage’s “Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse),” a poetic five-hour diary recorded by Cage himself a year before his death. In Ghys’s piece, a solo pizzicato bass line dances within the rhythms of Cage’s calm and serene narration, painting his deadpan delivery with a funky groove and a distinctly contemporary color. The lively bass line creates an undeniably catchy duet with Cage’s witty and obscure observations, and the piece grows in musical force, gradually adding more instruments until finally a small chorus of voices appears, echoing Cage’s words.

Christian Marclay’s “Fade to Slide” is equally experimental. The multimedia piece is a dramatic exploration into the rich sounds and distinctive timbres of the world around us, featuring everything from water splashing to record playing, bike riding to gong ringing, glass breaking to soup eating, perfume spraying to bagpiping. Yes, even bagpiping.

Marclay specializes in creating sonic collages from found footage, as evidenced by the imaginative—and at times humorous—combinations of recorded sounds in both the audio and video versions of the piece. (The video version is included in “Field Recordings” on a DVD along with five other multimedia pieces.)

The All-Stars also pay tribute to one of the biggest names in contemporary classical: Steve Reich. The album features the ensemble’s own arrangement of “The Cave of Machpelah,” an excerpt from Reich’s multimedia opera, “The Cave.” The slow-moving and ambient piece features an interesting mixture of musical timbres, with wispy, high-pitched cello strings skidding above a deep, droning bass, muffled recorded sound, and a bowed xylophone.

The album ends with a performance of Anna Clyne’s “A Wonderful Day,” the first in a series of short electroacoustic works combining recordings of Chicago street musicians with live instrumental ensembles. This particular piece features the raw, slow voice of an elderly man singing a sweet and poignant tune, surrounded by the muted sounds of the city and the All-Stars’ gentle accompaniment.

Each piece on the album uses recorded sound in a different and distinct way, but they all have one thing in common: they combine music of the past with music of the present, thereby crafting a new vision for music of the future. And in doing so, “Field Recordings” opens up a colorful new can of worms in contemporary classical music.

LIVE CONCERT SPOTLIGHT: May 14-16

Posted on May 13, 2015 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Molloy

This week’s striking music calendar has Stravinsky, “Saci,” “Suck City,” and more!

Inverted Space Presents Stockhausen’s “Stimmung”

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The word stimmung is German for “tuning”—but it applies to much more than just pitch. While it may be used to describe the tuning of instruments or voices, it can also be used to describe the tuning of a group of people, or the inward tuning of one’s soul.

“Stimmung” is also the title of German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen’s 70-minute sonic meditation for six amplified voices. This week, vocalists from the Inverted Space Ensemble will perform “Stimmung” as part of their “Long Piece Fest” (the name is pretty self-explanatory).

The piece was among the first major Western works to use vocal overtones as a key element of composition—in fact, the entire piece is based on the overtones of a low B-flat. The work was inspired by Stockhausen’s visit to the Mayan ruins in Mexico, and it features a recounting of ancient gods along with some of his own poetry.

The performance is this Thursday, May 14 at 7:30 p.m. at the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford.

Universal Language Project Presents “The Soldier’s Tale” and “Saci”

Russian composer Igor Stravinsky is best known for his three major ballets: “The Firebird,” “Petrushka,” and “The Rite of Spring”—but his smaller-scale theatrical works are just as striking. This weekend, the Universal Language Project is presenting Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale,” an hour-long dramatic work based on a Russian folk tale.

The music is scored for very unique instrumentation: a septet of violin, double bass, clarinet, bassoon, cornet, trombone, and percussion. The story is told by four characters: the soldier, the devil, the narrator, and the princess (who is portrayed by a silent dancer). The libretto recounts the tale of a soldier who trades his fiddle to the devil for wealth, only to realize that his greed has led him to unimaginable loss.

The program will also feature a performance of Brazilian composer and pianist Jovino Santos Neto’s “Saci,” a theatrical work scored for seven musicians, narrator, and dance. The work tells the story of Saci, a mythological (and often mischievous) character of Brazilian folklore who is a combination of different cultural strains, including Native Brazilian tribes, African slaves, and Portuguese colonizers.

Performances are this Friday, May 15 and Saturday, May 16 at 8 p.m. at Velocity Dance Center on Capitol Hill.

Concert Imaginaire Presents “Another Day in Suck City”

What do Edgar Allan Poe, orangutans, and cyber-ant goddesses have in common? They’re all part of Concert Imaginaire’s upcoming music performance, “Another Day in Suck City.”

Don’t let the name fool you—“Another Day in Suck City” is anything but your typical music performance. Concert Imaginaire will be performing musical settings of poetry by Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe, a dance for an orangutan, the premiere of “Just a Kiss Away” (a 5-minute opera about love and war), and so much more.

Concert Imaginaire is comprised of music director and guitarist David Hahn, violinist Ruthie Dornfeld, keyboardist Jay Kenney, and percussionist Becca Baggenstoss. This performance will also feature guest vocalists Katie Weld, Sid Law, and Gabriel Tachell, along with video accompaniment created by Leo Mayberry.

The performance is this Saturday, May 16 at 8 p.m. at the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford.

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Juan Pablo Contreras’ “Silencio en Juarez”

Posted on May 11, 2015 by maestrobeats

Here at Second Inversion, we love it when composers approach us with their music. When Juan Pablo Contreras dropped a line about his latest album, “Silencio en Juarez,” I thought it would be great to have HIM tell you all a bit about the music (available on Amazon and iTunes).

Q. You say that this CD exemplifies your quest to establish a new synthesis of classical contemporary music and Mexican popular and folk music. Musically speaking, how would you describe this synthesis?

A. I like to think of it as a musical fusion that allows for these two different sonic worlds to coexist in a unified musical language. As a composer, I find that it’s necessary to embrace all of the musical influences that shape my identity. I’m interested in telling stories about present-day issues that people can relate to. My works draw inspiration from Mexican corridos, sones, and banda music that you can listen to by turning on the radio in Mexico. Folk music embodies the essence of a nation. By alluding to it while using a contemporary music canvas, my music feels alive and relevant in our society.

Q. You get to play the role of composer-performer, doubling as vocalist on “La mas Remota Prehistoria.” Do you enjoy singing your own works?

A.“La más Remota Prehistoria” is a song cycle for tenor and chamber orchestra that was originally commissioned by the North/South Consonance Chamber Orchestra in New York. Max Lifchitz, the orchestra’s artistic director, knew that I am also a tenor and asked me if I could sing for the premiere performance. It was a very enjoyable experience, and when the time came to record the work, it felt natural to perform it myself.

Q. Which Mexican composers inspire you the most? Who should we be playing on Second Inversion that we might not know about?

A. I really like the music of Enrico Chapela and Javier Álvarez. Chapela has written works for the LA Philharmonic and the Seattle Symphony. I highly recommend his heavy metal/jazz influenced electric cello concerto “Magnetar.” On the other hand, Javier Álvarez is like the Mexican John Adams. His music is richly orchestrated and very energetic.

Q. The harp is such a cool instrument. What was most fun about writing a harp concerto?

A. It was certainly an interesting challenge to write a Harp Concerto. I had previously written a set of harp preludes for Kristi Shade, who performs the Concerto on the album, which won an Honorable Mention at the 2014 Dutch Harp Composition Contest. This experience facilitated the writing of “Ángel Mestizo,” my Harp Concerto. I was privileged to work closely with Kristi during the writing process. This allowed me to discover idiomatic solutions to complex and “flashy” passages. Shortly after we recorded the Concerto, it won the 2014 Arturo Márquez Composition Contest in Mexico.

Q. The Claremont Avenue Chamber Orchestra sounds like a very unique ensemble. Tell us about how this idea became a reality?

A. I founded the Claremont Avenue Chamber Orchestra in 2012 with the purpose of creating a dynamic ensemble of musicians to perform my music in prestigious venues in New York City. After several performances, we decided to embark on this wonderful recording project. I created a successful Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for the album, and I’m very excited to finally share it with the rest of the world.

CONCERT SPOTLIGHT: May 7-11

Posted on May 6, 2015 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Molloy

Add some color to your May with a jaunt down “Abbey Road,” a trip to a microtonal music instrumentarium, and many more multihued music events!

Machinations Musical, Divers & Sundry

Music and machine unite this week at a diverse and sundry performance featuring the electroacoustic works of students and graduates from the University of Washington.

“Machinations Musical, Divers & Sundry” will feature original works by composers who are currently studying (or have previously studied) at UW’s School of Music or Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS). The wide-ranging program has everything from 19-tone equal temperament electric guitars to violin-horn duos to computer-realized surround sound to kinetic sculpture—all performed by the composers themselves.

The performance is this Thursday, May 7 at 8 p.m. at the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford.

Seattle Composers’ Salon

Jazz up your Friday night with a trip to the Seattle Composers’ Salon, featuring a selection of Seattle’s smoothest, snazziest jazz cats.

The bi-monthly Salon presents new music in a casual setting, offering composers, performers, and audience members a space to experiment and discuss contemporary works. This evening’s performance features composer, jazz pianist, and accordionist Michael Owcharuk, jazz drummer Matthew James Briggs, and composers Jessi Harvey and Ian McKnight.

The performance is this Friday, May 8 at 8 p.m. at the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford.

Prism: Pärt and MacMillan

“I could compare my music to white light which contains all colors,” said Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. “Only a prism can divide the colors and make them appear; this prism could be the spirit of the listener.”

In honor of Pärt’s 80^th birthday, Seattle Pro Musica is performing a concert full of the influential composer’s colorful choral works. Known for his sacred and classical music, Pärt is inspired by elements of minimalism as well as his own mystical experiences with chant music.

The concert will also feature the melodic, modern works of James MacMillan, the multihued harmonies of Brian Edward Galante, and a world premiere of a new commission by John Muehleisen.

Performances are this Friday, May 8 and Saturday, May 9 at 8 p.m. at St. James Cathedral in Seattle.

Seattle Rock Orchestra Performs the Beatles’ “Let It Be” & “Abbey Road”

This weekend, Seattle Rock Orchestra is taking fans down a “Long and Winding Road” through the Beatles’ discography. The performance is the fourth entry in their chronological exploration of the band’s catalogue of classics, arriving at their final studio recordings: “Let it Be” and “Abbey Road.”

“Come Together” for this beautiful evening of beloved Beatles tunes which will take you “Across the Universe,” to an “Octopus’s Garden,” all the way along “Abbey Road’s” famous 16-minute medley, and through countless other rock ‘n’ roll classics. The performance will feature guest vocalists Zach Davidson (of Vendetta Red), Tamara Power-Drutis, Matt and Mike Gervais (of Mikey & Matty), and Miranda Zickler (of Wild Rabbit).

Performances are this Saturday, May 9 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, May 10 at 2 p.m. at the Moore Theatre.

Music of Today: Harry Partch Instruments Presentation

Harry Partch was a composer, music theorist, and instrument maker interested in much more than just your typical 12 intervals to the octave. He was one of the first 20^th century composers in the West to work with microtonal scales, building his own custom-made instruments in different tunings in order to perform his compositions.

And now, you can see (and hear) these instruments in all their microtonal magnificence at the University of Washington. Next week Charles Corey, director of the Harry Partch Institute at UW, will be giving a public demonstration of instruments from the collection. The Harry Partch Instrumentarium is currently in residence at the UW School of Music.

The presentation is this Monday, May 11 at 7:30 p.m. at UW’s Meany Hall.