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SESSION pintscher: How LACO Produced the Best New Music Concert in Los Angeles

Matthias Pintscher, curator
PHOTO CREDIT: Timothy Norris

SESSION pintscher

LACO in collaboration with Four Larks

Feb 28th at Mack Sennett Studios, Silverlake

Usually, when I go see the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, I am prepared to be reminded why the traditional concert format works: Sit quietly, face forward, let the nuance of an excellent performance do the work. Their programs include some new pieces and commissions, sure, but the effectiveness of the experience typically resides in a solid understanding of curating time and attention through a rather traditional approach to programming. And there is nothing wrong with that—Los Angles is already saturated with series interested in re-shaping the concert experience, from the experimental and timbral WasteLAnd, to intimate Tuesdays at Monkspace, to genre-dissolving Equal Sound. Hell, the Los Angeles Philharmonic itself is producing some of the most interesting concert experiences of any orchestra in the country between Noon to Midnight, and Green Umbrella. So, a collaboration with the relentlessly creative Four Larks to be held in a studio in Silverlake with a program that would make even the most insufferable hipster blush beneath a mustache of craft beer? Not typically what you would associate with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

But then, there was nothing typical about LACO’s event Thursday night. I’ll be clear at the outset: This was the most effective musical event I have been to in Los Angeles. In truth, it is one of the most outstanding performances I have seen anywhere, to such an extent that had it taken place in Berlin I would have left disheartened by the seeming impossibility of replicating its impact here in Los Angeles. But it did happen here, at the Mack Sennett Studios in Silverlake, and every element of the performance, from the space itself, to the guides, visuals, and music, tapped into something quintessentially and organically Angelino.

Alex Frederick, percussion, performing Grisey’s Stèle
PC Timothy Norris

The direction and design of Four Larks immersed the audience in a detailed bohemian soiree. Floor mats and a perimeter of chairs focused inward towards the center of the room, with a gentle tropical soundscape and olden-hollywood “guides” whose choreographed interactions helped dissolve any sense of waiting. Instead, the pre-concert period generated a calm curiosity and receptiveness among the audience. Materializing out of the pregnant quietness, the percussive rumblings of Grisey’s Stèle shifted back and forth from opposing corners of the room, and just like that, without the fluster of last-minute coughs and unwrapping lozenges, the program began.

(L-R) Gloria Cheng, piano, and Andrew Shulman, cello, perform Matthias Pintscher’s Uriel
PC Timothy Norris
(L-R) Margaret Batjer (back of head visible), violin, Andrew Shulman, cello, and Erik Rynearson, viola, perform Matthias Pintscher’s Study II for Treatise on the Veil
PC Timothy Norris

Matthias Pintscher, who curated the evening, spoke briefly before the remainder of the program, suggesting that the through-line of the evening was a certain receptiveness of the works themselves to the audience. This was certainly true, each work in the program was set in the space like a detailed yet reflective surface, taking on the atmosphere of its specific staging, the personality of the performers, but also the mood and mindset of the listener. Pintscher’s own contributions to the evening were particularly stunning. His shimmering, delicate string trio, Study II for “Treatise on the Veil,” was performed below textural, geometric projections, and utilized extremes of technique and quietness that demanded an unremitting focus on the part of the performers. His Uriel, a touching and personal duo for cello and piano, was set against a wash of white walls and lights in another partitioned space with a more traditional block of seating.

Matthias Pintscher conducts Ravel’s Three Poemes de Stéphane Mallarmé, featuring Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano 
PC Timothy Norris

The Audience shifting their chairs 180 degrees, the rear partition became home to live video projections, unveiling text from Ravel’s Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé imprinted across the guides’ bodies as the music unfolded under the direction of Pintscher and mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung. Providing a sense of organic conclusion, audience returned once more to the opening space of the studio, this time the solo percussion for Xenakis’ Rebonds a set in the center of the room. As the most transparent in its development, Rebonds a was a fitting end to the evening’s general trajectory from the senses to the brain: from the more abstract atmospheres of Grisey and Berg, through the reflective intimacy of Pintscher, to Ravel’s evocative vocal settings, Xenakis’ work elicited the first true sense of anticipatory structure as the percussive elements stacked and hastened. Progressing in a linear way to increasingly virtuosic and bombastic gestures, it was the perfect final work and reflected that LACO’s knack for programming was at work in the background, once again.

Kenneth McGrath, percussion, concludes the SESSION program with Xenakis’ Rebonds a,
for solo percussion
PC Timothy Norris

There were far too many visual elements, outstanding musicians, and collaborators involved in making the evening so successful to mention each here. But in taking the lead on this event, LACO, Pintscher, and Four Larks should be congratulated for the incredible degree of artistry and cohesion they created in SESSION. This was an event I will not soon forget, and that will challenge even the most adventurous program of any series in Los Angeles this year.