NEW CONCERT RECORDING: SCRAPE

Posted on October 28, 2014 by maestrobeats

Scrape is an unconducted string ensemble (15 bowed strings, with harp and electric guitar) dedicated to performing the works of Jim Knapp and various guest composers. Second Inversion recorded their most recent performance on October 3 at the Good Shepherd Center, all works by Knapp and one premiere by Brendon Williams. Several of the selections can be found on their most recent CD release, Approaching Vyones, available here!

Enjoy this live performance and click over to our Live Concert archive for more!

LIVE CONCERT SPOTLIGHT: October 25, 28, 30

Posted on October 23, 2014 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Molloy

From percussion concertos to Kaki King, this week is packed with exciting contemporary music performances!

Tacoma Symphony Orchestra’s Season Opener Featuring Evelyn Glennie

This concert is now SOLD OUT, but worth highlighting nonetheless!

Evelyn Glennie is not your average percussionist. The triple-Grammy winning musician was the first person in musical history to create and maintain a career as a solo percussionist, all while being profoundly deaf.

This Saturday, she will perform the world premiere of Sean O’Boyle’s new percussion concerto, “Portraits of Immortal Love,” with the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra. The piece, which is inspired by the 100-year anniversary of World War I, features percussion instruments ranging from waterphones to hand bells to singing bowls and shell wind chimes. The percussive instruments are meant to illustrate the aching beauty and desperate hope of long-distance love in a time when written word was the only means of communication.

In keeping with the organic, colorful rhythmic quality of percussion instruments, the Symphony will also perform Ravel’s “Bolero,” Debussy’s “Nocturnes,” and Respighi’s “Pines of Rome.” The performance also doubles as the inaugural concert welcoming Tacoma Symphony Orchestra’s new Music Director, Sarah Ioannides.

The performance will take place at the Pantages Theatre in Tacoma this Saturday, Oct. 25 at 7:30 p.m.

Cornish’s Contemporary Piano Series Featuring Jonathan Powell

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Jonathan Powell is bringing some contemporary colors to the classical piano keyboard next Tuesday. As part of Cornish College of the Arts’ Contemporary Piano series, Powell will be performing a program rich in color with Romantic and lesser-known contemporary works by early 20^th century composers.

The program includes solo piano works composed by Nikolai Medtner, Alexander Scriabin, Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, and Karol Szymanowski. The pieces showcase Powell’s musical talents as an international touring soloist with a wide range of colorful repertoire and a specialty in late-Romantic music. In particular, Powell is often associated with Sorabji, a prolific piano composer who’s demanding piano compositions Powell has performed and premiered at several concerts internationally.

The Contemporary Piano performance will take place at Cornish’s PONCHO Hall next Tuesday, Oct. 28 at 8 p.m.

Kaki King and ETHEL String Quartet

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The inimitable, uncategorizable Kaki King is joining forces with ETHEL, an experimental New York based string quartet, to create an evening of truly imaginative, totally indescribable music.

King is a guitarist and composer with an impressively diverse musical career. Aside from releasing six incredibly distinct LP records over the course of 10 years, she has also toured extensively and contributed to a variety of film and TV soundtracks. Though she’s impossible to pin down, King is known for her percussive, often jazzy melodies and her use of multiple tunings on acoustic and lap steel guitars.

ETHEL shares a similar interest in pushing musical boundaries. Unlike your typical string quartets, ETHEL plays with amplification and regularly incorporates improvisation into their performances. The group frequently performs original works as well as works by contemporary composers.

Kaki King and ETHEL will perform at the Edmonds Center for the Arts next Thursday, Oct. 30 at 7:30 p.m.

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: The Brooklyn Rider Almanac

Posted on October 6, 2014 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Stapleton

Since the birth of Second Inversion, Brooklyn Rider‘s versatile recordings of new music for string quartet have been a significant presence on our airwaves. Eric, Nick, Johnny, and Colin also captured our hearts with a great Vine video musically depicting and celebrating “Second Inversion,” back in February 2014.

To celebrate ten years together as a quartet, they created The Brooklyn Rider Almanac. This is a collection of thirteen new compositions for string quartet mostly by composers rooted in jazz, rock, or folk music. It’s an incredible celebration of Brooklyn Rider’s musical connections in the last decade (the composers are self-proclaimed “musical crushes” and old friends) and for posterity, an expansion of the string quartet repertoire. Furthermore, the project is “about inspiration, about music being the tip of a bigger iceberg,” according to Colin Jacobsen.

Each composer indicates from which literary, musical, dance, or other artistic source the inspiration is drawn. You’ll hear music by Vijay Iyer inspired by James Brown (it grooves, hard, and requires the musicians to extend their rhythmic techniques with polyrhythmic stomping while playing); Christina Courtin inspired by Stravinsky (full of neo-classical Pulcinella-esque charm); Aoife O’Donovan inspired by William Faulkner (what I’d give to be in Mississippi, drinking a mint julep while listening to this…)

My personal favorite track on the record is Colin Jacobsen’s “Exit,” featuring the versatile vocalist Shara Worden. With a light texture of percussive hand claps, plucking pizzicati, and pointed vocal sounds, there’s an undertone of minimalism in this piece in a beautifully “less is more,” simplistic way. Colin Jacobsen cites three sources of inspiration of this piece. First is Shara Worden and her dichotomy of not giving any excess in what she sings, yet still diving head first and inhabiting the role of whatever she’s singing. Second is Kandinsky, who happens to be the lyricist of the song – “Exit” comes from a book poems and woodcut etchings called Sounds, written at a time when he was going toward abstract painting and trying to get away from the literal meaning of words. Thirdly, Jacobsen draws from David Byrnes’ How Music Works by finding just the groove that is necessary for the piece to happen and not putting anything else there.

In regard to each individual piece and the collection as a whole, it’s best for me to keep it simple and just say this music is GOOD. The type of “hand it to my friends who have little or no interest in classical music and say, ‘stop what you’re doing and LISTEN TO THIS NOW!'” good. It rethinks classical music AND the string quartet with a timeless quality, putting a stamp on the fact that music doesn’t need labels or categories or genres. Put these four (or five, in “Exit”) musicians together who can not only play music well, but express emotion and breathe life into the notes on a page, and the magic is there.

Get your own copy on Amazon or iTunes (it comes with 2 bonus tracks if you purchase on iTunes!) of the Brooklyn Rider Almanac and keep an eye on their tour schedule for a performance near you!

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Break of Reality’s “TEN”

Posted on September 22, 2014 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Stapleton

Break of Reality is a quartet composed of 3 cellists and a percussionist who perform music ranging from Tool to Radiohead to Bach to their own original compositions inspired by rock, classical, folk, and pop music.

There are a lot of attempts at this genre cross-pollinization these days, but BoR REALLY does it well. This music is genuine and it doesn’t try too hard. Percussionist Ivan Trevino says, “Rock is as much in our blood as classical music. Our music is organic; we’re not doing it as a gimmick to play rock music on the cello. We want our instruments to be respected both in the classical and rock worlds.” Success, I say!

“Ten,” their latest release (buy it here!), is the band’s proudest and most mature record to date. All of the songs are original compositions by cellist Patrick Laird and/or Ivan Trevino and their sound has transitioned from “heavy metal cello band” to a more mellow, classically influenced sound, which comes across very authentically. They also experimented with different microphones and recording techniques and invested in a lot of their own equipment with this album. The result is well-balanced, nuanced, yet totally grooves.

I had the pleasure of talking to Ivan and Patrick about a few of the tracks and learned the following tidbits:

“Star” was written for Patrick Laird’s wife, Marnie, who makes a guest piano appearance on the track.

“Helix” is one of their favorite tunes to perform, with a winding cello riff that travels through all different types of time signatures, leaving one wondering if it’s in 7 or 4. Can you figure it out?

“Six” is the only track on the album that Ivan Trevino wrote all on his own. It was a originally a mallet sextet composed for the Eastman Percussion ensemble. This arrangement is for three cellos, piano, 2 percussionists and features marimba, piano, glockenspiel, and drumset. It has a cinematic, mellow, indie rock flavor, “kind of like Bon Iver meets Steve Reich,” as Ivan puts it.

BoR independently releases all of their records. Trevino recognizes that as a cello band with no singer, their sound doesn’t appeal to a pop music demographic. Rather, they use their niche genre to be 100% in charge of the art. They can take complete control of record sales, keep all of the income from record sales, and have all of the say in the sound and recording process.

Oh, and the sweet cover artwork? It was done by Lauren Yandell, one of Ivan’s high school marching bandmates!

Keep an eye on BoR’s tour schedule and check them out live, if you get a chance. Percussionist Ivan Trevino says Break of Reality’s shows have the energy of rock concerts; the music is memorized which helps communication and interaction with the audience and there are elements of improv. The cellists have more articulate, aggressive, vertical types of bow strokes to get the “rock sound,” while playing with a drummer. However, they always try to bring the unexpected and keep their classical roots at heart and keep the audience guessing what’s going to come next – rock or Bach.

Cheers to you, Break of Reality, for a fantastic new album! We can’t wait to hear what’s next to come.

TownMusic LIVE BROADCAST! Tuesday, September 23 at 7:30pm!

Posted on September 16, 2014 by maestrobeats

It’s that exciting time of year when the new concert seasons are starting up. Second Inversion is pleased to give ongoing support to countless organizations in the Northwest by highlighting key performances on our Event Calendar, Facebook, and Twitter, but we also have the opportunity to record and even live broadcast select events!

Our first live broadcast of the 2014-15 season is the TownMusic at Town Hall season opener featuring Artistic Director and cellist Joshua Roman, violinist Susie Park, violist Jocelin Pan, and pianist Andrius Zlabys for Piano Quartets both old and new, by Timo Andres, Johannes Brahms, and Yevgeniy Sharlat on Tuesday, September 23 at 7:30pm.

Tune in for this performance LIVE on Second Inversion’s 24/7 stream! Join the Facebook event and invite your friends. Thanks to the Office of Arts & Culture for their support of this recording and broadcast.