Concert reviews
GHOST GUN, VIOLA JOKES, & FOLGERS IN YOUR CUP – A Night of Clever Storytelling with Aperture Duo
In the quiet aftermath of Hurricane Hilary, an adventurous crowd gathered at the intimate Monk Space in Koreatown, fresh out of unexpected hibernation. In return, they were gifted several memorable stories in the form of spiritual guidance from Adrianne Pope & Linnea Powell, the two cornerstones of Aperture Duo.
On the menu were two brand new specials commissioned by the duo and workshopped with the composers in recent weeks, starting with Thomas Kotcheff’s delightful Obbligato String Music No. 1: Allegretto in G Minor. Much more than an appetizer, Thomas masterfully weaves together a series of discordant ideas from vastly different genres, taking the audience for a whirlwind of a journey. One could quickly discover tasteful moments of microtonal dissonance between the violin & viola, as well as between live sounds & pre-recorded samples. Through Aperture Duo’s confident approach to tackle everything from recreating classical standards to accompanying altered versions of the Folgers jingle (a musical stunt that has unsurprisingly generated over $40,000 for the coffee company), we can now begin to see the bigger picture that is the clever collage of eons of compositional techniques and motifs, melting together into a beautiful, hot mess. In a way, the true meaning of obbligato is reinforced by this mesmerizing work, contributing to the inextinguishable lineage of canonical literature while effectively challenging the notion of what is considered pure or fixed in the classical genre. It is through this strange paradox that Kotcheff was able to keep the audience deeply engaged in a dizzying fashion, as we felt the tension of all of his conflicting melodies spiraling into instability, only to find itself pieced together again.
The entrée of the night is most certainly their second commission, Jessie Marino’s incomparable Murder Ballads Volume I: Sister Sister. A departure from her usual works, these ballads showcase a stunning tapestry that revealed the unbreakable trust Pope & Powell hold for one another. Much of the night encouraged Aperture Duo to sing their soulful hearts out, but through these vulnerable, haunting ballads, the two performers were compelled to melt their voices & instruments into a powerful quartet of bagpipe & storytelling. A strong parallel to Kotcheff’s earlier work in the program, Marino continues to explore the concept of time through meaningful libretto meant to stand as timeless. In both the first and last ballad of this four-part song, O Death and Ghost Gun, Marino lit an angry flame under us with her unfiltered, fed-up emotions reflecting on the living state of profitable, senseless violence that is the American gun problem. In a country where we have experienced over 400 mass shootings this year with over four months left, at a terrifying pace greater than two mass shootings a day, the powerful composite of folk harmonies, vivid thoughts, painful overdrive, and screeching feedback left a stinging taste in the mouths of many. While O Death touched upon the national bitterness over the unfair immunity of police brutality, Ghost Gun properly detailed the grave threat of endless violence we face at every corner of our neighborhood, without fail or warning. The inner ballads, Edward and Twa Sisters, are no less powerful than the former, serving as a shocking reminder that while murder isn’t new, its dirty cousin, systemic violence, is a unique weaponized threat to modern society. In Edward, we find an old English elegy full of regret & sorrow, while the tale of Twa Sisters is based on an actual 17th century murder ballad of a girl drowned by her jealous sister. In Marino’s version, however, it isn’t the jealous sister who descends into murder, but rather, the bloody violence of Johnny, transforming into a hexed act that persists to haunt him until the very end. I believe this particular distinction falls in line with the rest of the ballads, emphasizing the radical normalization of systemic violence enacted by people in positions of privilege and power.
From Kotcheff & Marino, we are faithfully presented with the reality of the myriad of pertinent challenges we are facing in an unprecedented climate. From Pope & Powell, we learn that these very real challenges can be faced head on, with limitless imagination. And to the devout followers of Aperture Duo, I believe they are venturing into a new and inimitable realm of contemporary classical excellence.
Join Aperture Duo (Adrianne Pope, violin and Linnea Powell, viola) in an evening of boundary-pushing new music featuring world premieres by Berlin-based composer Jessie Marino and LA-based composer/pianist Thomas Kotcheff. Join LA’s own Aperture Duo as they explore the shiny, surreal, and sometimes scary depths of chamber music for violin and viola.
7:00pm. Tuesday Aug 22, 2023 at Monk Space (4414 W 2nd St, Los Angeles, CA 90004)
The Revolution Will Not be Televised: T@MS presents an evening of ‘canceled’ string orchestra pieces
It’s a little after 8pm at Monk Space, where the final and sold-out show of this year’s Tuesdays at Monk Space (T@MS) is about to take place. The orchestra heads from the back of the narrow hall to the blue-lit stage, single-file, through the center of the packed crowd, trying not to hit anyone with their instruments. Anthony Parnther greets an audience of “a lot of familiar faces” brimming with anticipation as he explains in a rich baritone that the pieces to be played on tonight’s concert were all ones he had previously agreed to conduct elsewhere, but for some reason or another (“politics or something else”) were canceled. The title for the evening’s concert is already starting to reveal its relevance.
Carlos Simon’s “Elegy: A Cry From the Grave” is the first piece on the program, and is dedicated to Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown; three names that ring out with a lot of impact since the events of the summer of 2020 and the BLM movement. Parnther introduces the piece with all the gravitas one would expect given the subject matter, but also lets the audience know that the piece is more “optimistic in tone” than one might expect. Indeed, between the lush, romantic melodies; exuberant outbursts from the cellos on top of violin tremolos, and dramatic swells that suddenly become silence, Elegy does seem to suggest a sort of peace as it lands on its final major chord after several quasi-Romantic harmonic shifts.
Perhaps one of the most delightful moments of the evening happened when Parnther introduced the second piece, Leilehua Lanzilotti’s “with eyes the color of time,” for which she was named a Finalist in the Pulitzer Prize competition last year. To Parnther’s surprise, Lanzilotti was present in the audience, which was even more special because this was apparently only the second group ever to perform the piece live. Lanzilotti explained that each movement of the piece is named after a work of art that used to be in the now-closed Contemporary Art Museum of Honolulu, where she would run around as child because their apartment was too small. As each movement played, a picture of the corresponding artwork was projected overhead. For this writer who has known Lanzilotti virtually for several years, and has adored this piece ever since finding the score-follower video, this really was the perfect way to experience the piece live for the first time. The viola’s sul pont. long tones and 4-3 suspensions that open the piece made the entire room suddenly feel enchanted, as if the entire audience was holding their breath. Over the next six movements, Parnther and the orchestra adeptly execute the wild variety of string colors
that is so emblematic of Lanzilotti’s music, from scratching sounds and pitches so faint the audience almost wondered if they were real, to full on sul pont bariolage by the violins that get disrupted by the cellos violently throwing their bows against the strings, and (spoiler alert!) the percussion and vocal hums that are sure to catch an audience at a string orchestra concert off-guard. After all, she’s somewhat of an authority on wild sounds. A long line of fans waits to greet Lanzilotti (including yours truly), many telling her how deeply the piece affected them as we break for intermission.
After intermission, Parnther’s own work (from which the evening’s title was taken) throws politics back in to focus. He explains “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” takes its name from the 1971 poem by Gil Scott-Heron, and both the poem and tonight’s namesake are addressing the state of affairs in the country at the time; namely, that we are currently watching a slide into fascism take place in the US. Amidst the recent smattering of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, both this work and the evening’s theme as a whole suddenly take on a painful poignance. Thankfully, Parnther offers us another moment of levity with effortless charisma before introducing Dwight Trible, the narrator joining the orchestra for this piece. As a mellow percussion beat takes hold, the strings enter with frantic glissandi, before Trible begins powerfully narrating over angular pizzicato and vocal “ch-“ sounds from the orchestra. Suddenly, the entire orchestra builds to a frenzy as Trible booms “will NOT be televised” repeatedly, before stopping on a dime, and then a final growl from Trible: “The revolution will be LIVE!”. The audience appears to agree as they uproariously applaud.
The final piece is an arrangement of Shostakovich’s “Chamber Symphony in C Minor” by Barshai. Unusual in that of the five movements, three are “Largo”, the Chamber Symphony, as Parnther explains, was written by Shostakovich for string quartet in 3 days while living in Dresden, Germany in 1960 and is dedicated to victims of fascism and war. He explains that this piece contains several allusions to previous works, and asks the first violinist (Alyssa Park) to play Shostakovich’s name motif for the audience “D-Eb-C-B” or “Dssch” in German. The name motive does indeed permeate most of the piece quite audibly, opening the first movement before Park’s haunting, highly chromatic violin solo over the rest of the orchestra suspended on one note. The second movement begins furiously with wild runs and repeated, screeching downbows that recall Hermann’s score for Psycho and is the first real head-banger of the evening. In the following movements, the orchestra moves seamlessly through off-kilter waltzes (2 nd mvmt), violently repeated chords in bursts of 3 (4 th mvmt), before Park begins the 5 th movement with
another solo answered by the low strings. The cellos eventually circle back to the name motive, which begins to disintegrate, and the ensemble seems to evaporate on its last D-Eb half-step. A tremendous accomplishment for Parnther, this entire roster of string players, and a triumphant season finale for T@MS, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised will also not be forgotten anytime soon by those who were lucky enough to witness it.
Conductor, Music Director, and Bassoonist Anthony Parnther curates an evening at T@MS for conducted string orchestra featuring music inspired by courage, strength, and resistance to oppression.
8:00pm. Tuesday Jun 26, 2023
On Maura Tuffy and singers’ “Path of Miracles” by Joby Talbot: “This is about as tight as a non-static choral group of this size could possibly be, performing a work of this size and complexity”
On May 26, 2023, Maura Tuffy led a choir of 17 singers in a full performance of Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills.
Joby Talbot’s musical output is eccentric; scores for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Sing adorn his resume, right next to a large number of music for dance, arrangements for pop stars Paul McCartney and Charlotte Gainsbourg, as well as purely ‘concert’ works such as Path of Miracles. Visiting his website, his landing page simply reads “Joby Talbot is a composer of music for concert, stage and screen,” the brevity of which seems to belie the depth at which he is involved with all three.
A single, low, unison note begins in the tenors and basses – who are the only singers seen on stage – its resonance shifting through changes in vowel shape. Another pitch coming from below, then rising through it, begins a pattern that will become clear in just a moment; Talbot is evoking a Shepard tone, an auditory illusion which seems to continually rise without ever ending. From the BBC’s Bang Goes the Theory, “it’s like a barber’s pole of sound.”
The sopranos and altos proclaim from the balcony behind the audience. The crotales, performed by Yuri Inoo, signal the higher voices to join the lower. They walk through the aisles, flanking left and right, until they find their marks. This (and all future) transitions are tightly choreographed; the ensemble occasionally loosens their rigid lines to flex into a slightly different configuration. Without cues, singers depart from the group to form solo quartets, and, at the very end, the singers flank left and right once again, beginning the piece as it started.
On the way, Path of Miracles visits Roncesvalles, Burgos, León and Santiago along the Camino de Santiago, an (in)famous pilgrimage route in the Roman Catholic tradition; some members of the choir and the audience, in a brief pre-concert talk, raised their hands when asked who had made the trek themselves. In some moments, parallel whole tone and octatonic scales evoke Debussy; in others, you can hear a “Dies Irae” melody snuck in.
I must praise Maura Tuffy’s conducting here; full disclosure, Maura and I met in the choral department at USC, and are friends. In a few words, choral conducting is difficult; you need to show clear beats and gestures while making sure singers don’t disengage their breath support, an issue which is usually not present conducting instrumentalists; choral conductors often don’t use batons, seemingly to prioritize the nuance of the hands at the expense of visibility and the “resolution” of beat that the pointed tip of a baton can provide. Compound that with the fact that Maura is often cueing singers she can’t see, behind her head (in the balcony, or flanking the sides of the sanctuary), and you can get an idea of the immensity of the achievement.
In speaking with the singers after the performance, I found that this group put together the nearly-70 minute work in just four rehearsals. This is about as tight as a non-static choral group of this size could possibly be, performing a work of this size and complexity. Maura’s work with the singers is monumental, and readers should look forward to when this group will perform this work next.
Maura Tuffy and Kiyono McDaniel met last year while working together for the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus. With Maura’s affinity for choral conducting, and Kiyono’s ambition for arts development, they have combined their skills to make this performance possible. From fundraising and marketing, to recruiting and rehearsing, Maura and Kiyono have self produced this performance to highlight the beauty that is Path of Miracles.
7:30pm. Friday May 26, 2023
A Sitar concerto, a premiere by Marc Lowenstein, and a surprisingly enjoyable early work by Bizet packs Royce Hall
The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra performed a program featuring a sitar concerto by Ravi Shankar (performed by Anoushka Shankar), a new Sound Investment commission from composer Marc Lowenstein, and a (seemingly) old staple from Georges Bizet.
Marc Lowenstein and I have interacted quite a few times – informally as ships in the night in the hallways at CalArts, where Marc is officially on faculty in the Experimental Pop department – then formally, with Marc as music director/conductor in The Industry’s Sweet Land. I was told of his talent as a tenor; composer Juan Pablo Contreras, who I knew through singing in the same tenor sections at USC, hearing of my admittance into CalArts’ MFA program, immediately told me to study voice with Marc, who had apparently had a “former life” as an operatic tenor with more than 25 roles under his belt. I’ve graded his students’ theory exams, with a joke-per-sentence rate so dense it was dizzying; the extra credit question had something to do with wallabies.
And yet, through all this, I had never heard any of his own music; he was so involved in employing his talents to help sharpen the aural skills of CalArtians and direct operas with The Industry, that I had somehow missed yet another hat on his rack. On your Facebook profile, you only really have enough space to put a short description or role at the institution for which you work. Marc’s Facebook profile says “Shortstop/Second Base at CalArts.”
“HaZ’màn HaZèh הזמן הזה” begins with the sound of a singing bowl and a bed of plucked strings underneath an oboe melody. The music is immediately dynamic; searing string lines give way to an explosive, thick bed of low frequency activity. In an introductory video posted online, Marc describes the piece as mystical, fusing samba, Buddhist mysticism, Jewish klezmer and Balkan music, the last two of which becomes most obvious as a squealing clarinet dances atop an insistent groove in 7. A cello solo, shimmering trills in piano, and finally the piece ends in a devastatingly simple two note refrain, sung out over a lush string chorale, unchanging from its identity despite the twisting harmony around it. The vocalist is hidden, singing from within the ensemble rather than as a soloist.
The work is enigmatic, a view into the influences and interests of an even more enigmatic musician; the cacophony of musics somehow blending together could have only come from someone as varied as Marc Lowenstein. The work deserves repeat listenings and I look forward to the life the piece will have beyond this concert; I can’t help but feel that Marc’s piece was buried in the curation of this concert; ‘Shankar plays Shankar,” makes it clear what the intended draw is, but Marc deserves equal billing.
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I get the feeling that people attended this concert for one of two reasons, and the Bizet wasn’t necessarily one of them. Certainly, it’s not quite the draw that a new work or a sitar concerto is for most people, and yet, though this work isn’t necessarily in the focus of this publication, I would be remiss to neglect mentioning how much I enjoyed listening to Bizet’s Symphony no. 1 in C.
The comparisons to Beethoven are easy to make – the piece was written in the span of about a month, shortly after Bizet turned 17, in 1855. At the time, Bizet was studying with Charles Gounod at the Paris Conservatoire, whose first two symphonies bear well-documented influences from Beethoven. Beethoven had already died by 1827, which would have granted ample time for his legacy to proliferate amongst his students and followers throughout Western Europe. Many of the early Romantic trademarks of Beethoven are there; a tendency to separate the strings from the winds and brass, assigning melodic or accompaniment roles to each half of the orchestra and only occasionally blending the two. The piece, a student work, was suppressed by Bizet to the point that he had never heard it performed in his lifetime; it is now one of his most frequently performed pieces, with some of its solos used as orchestral excerpts.
Music Director Jaime Martín conducts with an infectious, joyful exuberance. He invigorates, and when he’s not needed, he invites, then steps out. The connection between Martín and the orchestra is evident; cues are often given with the slightest opening of his fingers, a gesture that is perhaps an inch wide, yet marvelously clear in its intent. It’s not realistic to say this with any certainty, but his music-making hints at a warm demeanor, devoid of much ego.
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A platform, draped with a thick red and black rug, was brought forward and placed in the concerto soloist’s position. A sitar was placed on top, prompting many excited families to walk up to the Royce Hall stage; doubtless many young beaming faces with Maestra Shankar’s sitar were posted online and sent to family that night.
Ravi Shankar’s work is most well known to the world outside of the Indian subcontinent through his collaboration with George Harrison of the Beatles, and is credited with introducing much of the western world to North Indian classical (Hindustani) music. Part of his work in bringing his music to the West also involved writing three concerti for Sitar and orchestra, the third of which was performed tonight.
The trademarks of a North Indian classical recital were immediately recognizable; not only in the solo instrument and the scales (ragas), transcribed and rebuilt for the orchestral instruments, but also in the structure of the composition. The first movement began with a short virtuosic phrase, completed by an ending cadence, played three times and timed precisely to line up with the beginning, beat 1, of the next section. If you’re familiar with this musical tradition, then those descriptions should be familiar; this was likely a mukhra (a short, one cycle composition often at the beginning of a solo recital) marked at the end with a characteristic tihai (a “cadential” figure marked by its [usually] verbatim repetition, three times, which [usually] precisely hits sam, or beat 1 of the next rhythmic cycle). Then came what I would label a peshkar section (a type of theme-and-variation composition which has a kind of lilt, differentiating it from the similar qaida), then, after some developmental material, closed with a chakradar – a longer composition which is characterized by repeating the entire thing three times, not just the tihai.
In a work that bridges two musical traditions together, attention must be paid to how the two musics are blended, and especially in how these ideas are to be communicated. How much can we expect a patron of western orchestral concerts in London or Los Angeles to know of the Hindustani classical tradition? How much should a LACO string player know of the tintaal theka, a 16 beat rhythmic cycle which makes up at least half of their 3rd movement?
A well crafted piece and performer can communicate these ideas to an audience despite the differences in their assumed knowledge. A great one does so while entertaining its listeners. Shankar and Shankar, on Sunday night, wowed, by finding the aspects of a music that is common to both, if not all musical traditions. A solo is a solo in any language. Virtuosic fireworks communicate through all practices, and the collective musical output of LACO and Anoushka Shankar wowed, not in spite of, but thanks to the nexus of two musics coming together.
‘Shankar plays Shankar’
LACO’s 2022/23 season concludes with a celebration of global and local traditions! GRAMMY-nominated sitar virtuoso Anoushka Shankar performs her father Ravi Shankar’s Third Sitar Concerto. The concert also features a world premiere by LA-based composer Marc Lowenstein, the final Sound Investment premiere of the season, and a brief excursion to France with Bizet’s Symphony No. 1 in C major.
7:00pm. Sunday May 21, 2023
Shaker Loops and Pergolesi make for an interesting yet arresting combination, especially when sung by mold-breaking talent Samuel Mariño.
Camerata Pacifica wrapped up their 2023 season on May 16th, 2023 with a wonderful concert featuring the music of Adams, Bach and Pergolesi. The concert opened with John Adams’ Shaker Loops; I first heard Shaker Loops during the first year of my undergraduate studies and fell in love with it instantly. My career as a musician began as a percussionist, and Shaker Loops was my introduction to string ensemble music outside of a string quartet, and I hadn’t had the chance to hear it live until now. The septet of three violins, viola, two celli and double bass creates an enormous sound that is rhythmically driving from beginning to end. Immediately the technical and musical abilities of each performer were on display as they played sixteenth notes in rhythmic unison, edging ever so slightly towards a sound that could unravel at any moment – but never does. A gradual system brings us into the slower middle movements which display a beautiful array of harmonics; the faster notes return and we arrive at the final sections of the piece, once again revealing the impressive speed of the ensemble in its entirety. It was an incredible way to open a concert and while it is both the newest and the longest piece on the program it certainly succeeded in setting the stage of what was to come next.
The next two pieces, Cantata, “non sa che sia Dolores” by Johann Sebastian Bach and “Salve Regina in C Minor” by Giovanni Pergolesi used a larger ensemble of twelve musicians. I was eagerly awaiting the conductor’s entrance but was pleasantly surprised when it became clear the ensemble would perform without a conductor. The orchestra’s ability to communicate and listen freely without a conductor was clear right away. There was the sense that an overall stronger cohesion of time and interpretation was present because they didn’t have to use a conductor. Normally, a conductor is used to help guide the orchestra through their own interpretation but when a large ensemble doesn’t have a conductor they need to use their ears and communicate to one another. I believe this results in a more fluid and group oriented interpretation that rises above any individual. This group collective consciousness was on full display with these musicians.
Lastly, I would be remiss not to mention the extremely captivating performance of the soloist Samuel Mariño. Samuel commanded the audience’s respect and admiration the moment he walked on stage dressed in red pants and fingerless gloves with silver painted nails; the audience was both curious and immediately drawn in. As soon as the male soprano sang his first note, the audience was on the edge of their seats. Mariño had the audience screaming and standing by the end of the performance for an encore – a request he granted, with “Quella fiamma, che il petto m’accende” from Handel’s opera Arminio. The Handel allowed Mariño an extended cadenza in which he showed not only his impressive vocal range, speed, and projection, but also his ability to entertain; he had the audience laughing along when he wiped the sweat from his brow to prepare himself for an incredibly high note out of nowhere. He had them gasping in shock when he mimicked an oboe line (from oboist Nicholas Daniel) that was dauntingly fast and high for an oboe, let alone a vocalist. Samuel is certainly a figure in modern music to keep an eye on. This concert was part of his first tour in the United States and you will certainly want to keep note of his next appearance.
‘Camerata Pacifica’ at The Huntington
Camerata Pacific closes their ’22-’23 season with a performance of John Adams’ Shaker Loops , J.S. Bach’s Non sa che sia dolore, BWV 209 and Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Salve Regina in C Minor, with soprano soloist Samuel Mariño.
7:30pm. Tuesday May 16, 2023
Ghost Ensemble Makes Inflatable Friends
On Tuesday May 16th, the New York-based Ghost Ensemble presented a concert of chamber works at 2220 Arts and Archives as part of their California tour. The ensemble performed pieces by composers Miya Masaoka, Sky Macklay, and Ben Richter, featuring Sky Macklay on oboe and power strips, Ben Richter on accordion, Laura Cetilia on cello, Cassia Streb on viola, James Ilgenfritz on double bass, Kyle Motl on double bass, Chris Nappi on percussion, Margaret Lancaster on flute, Melissa Achten on harp, and conductor Carl Bettendorf. Each piece highlighted the gracious breadth of Ghost Ensemble’s expression: from tightly tuned harmonics, to jovial theater, to expansive sonic glaciers.
Four Moons of Pluto, by NYC-based composer and sound artist Miya Masaoka, opened the program. Originally conceived for solo double bass, Ilgenfritz and Motl presented a chamber version of the work, in which any number of players can perform the piece in unison. The precisely tuned harmonies of a single voice widened into an intertwined duo. There were moments in which the sound of two basses became indistinguishable and others when their rhythmic beating patterns transformed the two distinct voices into a pulsating hyper-instrument. Ilgenfritz and Motl beautifully realized Masaoka’s vision of a piece fascinated with blend, distance, and closeness.
The second piece, Harmonifriends, by performer-composer Sky Macklay, brought us back to earth with its joyful theatricality. The piece repurposed inflatable harmonica-adorned sound sculptures from Macklay’s installation, Harmonitrees, as instruments for concert performance. The physical act of inflating the sculptures, which Macklay controlled with simple power-strips, set into motion the piece’s musical material: dancing with and against the sculptures. Mid-way through the piece, harpist Melissa Achten and percussionist Chris Nappi abandoned their instruments to perform with the sculptures: sounding the harmonicas through precisely timed embraces coordinated with Richter’s accordion. Macklay and Ghost Ensemble managed to successfully animate plastic, electricity, metal, and air into cuddly loveable creatures.
The final piece, Ben Richter’s Rewild, gently led the listener through a dynamic sonic topography. The piece, written specifically for Ghost Ensemble’s instrumentation, perfectly paced its collage of frozen musical tundras. Quiet delicate soundscapes faded into each other, slowly moving from one musical vignette to another. This commitment to gradual change unified the structure of the 45-minute piece, as Ghost Ensemble inhabited every corner of Richter’s vast musical world. As an ode to the time-scales and space-scales of the natural world, Rewild was a resounding success in its ability to build a sanctuary for presence and reflection.
The concert was one of the most memorable and heartfelt that I have seen in a long time, and I look forward to seeing Ghost Ensemble again when they are next in Los Angeles.
‘Ghost Ensemble’ at 2220 Arts & Archives
Ghost presents the West Coast premieres of two new works for the ensemble alongside Miya Masaoka’s Four Moons of Pluto, a delicate, drone-based work built on sustained harmonics and microtonal tunings.
8pm. Tuesday May 16, 2023
Synchromy’s Urban Birds made for a musical scavenger hunt at Debs Park
This past Saturday afternoon found me hiding from the heat under a tree at the base of a small hill listening to cellist Jennifer Bewerse playing composer Brandon J. Rolle’s Call and Echo, inspired by the call of the Hermit Thrush. While Rolle’s piece didn’t incorporate the bird’s call directly, it imitated and built upon its structure of distinct phrases and interruptions, with alternating textures of arpeggios, high harmonics with quiet singing, and slowly developing more lyrical material in the cello’s low end. And this was only one composer/performer duo’s take on one bird from the flock of ten that Synchromy presented in their program Urban Birds.
The concert was spread throughout the Audubon Center at Debs Park, just south of the 110 in Montecito Heights, a hidden gem of trails just northeast of downtown LA. Performers perched along said trails, repeating their pieces at intervals so as not to overlap with their immediate neighbors, but to create a sensation of distant sounds to search out—not unlike the bird call hunting theme of the entire event. Guests were handed not programs, but “musical birding field guides,” and children who managed to find all ten birdsong-inspired performers were rewarded with stickers reminiscent of a junior ranger program at a national park.
Behind the aforementioned tree — shade was at a premium — trails wrapped up the hill to the left and right. On the first plateau, one came to a clearing with bassist Scott Worthington performing Jen Wang’s Monster, with sliding harmonics imitating the call of the Mourning Dove. Alongside him stood composer/performer Christopher Adler with a khaen, a southeast Asian mouth organ for which Vera Ivanova had written Mockingbird Hopscotch, a piece that grew from the uncertainty of a nervous bird learning a new song into a filled out tapestry of synth-like repetitions.
Across a bridge at the other side of the clearing stood an oboist Robert Walker, leaning hard into Diana Wade’s Pyschopomp. Inspired not by the song of the Common Raven, but of the raven’s status as a guide to the underworld, the piece’s fast and high ostinati alternating with aggressive multiphonic material made for a piece that should become a staple of the solo oboe repertoire. Behind the oboe, coming from somewhere below, one could pick out virtuosic runs on the high end of a flute (Dante De Silva’s Heat Thrasher performed by Rachel Beetz), and occasional growls through the underbrush above from Brian Walsh’s bass clarinet performing Pamela Madsen’s Owl’s Breath.
Suddenly the whole event clicked. Intentionally or otherwise, trying to take in the diverse approaches to birdsong inspiration in the height and space of the venue brought to mind the legendary clashing marching bands Charles Ives listened to in his youth, the vertical symphonies of Henry Brant, or, to state the obvious—an uncomposed version of Messiaen’s own Exotic Birds. I found myself looking for places between performers to hear interesting and perhaps unintended combinations of sounds and melodic lines, an outdoor polyphony of monophonic instruments.
The spread throughout the park was a welcome way to dip toes back into real concerts after months of isolation—it certainly felt better than diving back into a crowd, and bridged the individual experiences we’ve become used to with a communal live one with sensitivity. What more there is to say should be heard, and to this end, Synchromy has developed a website with videos of all of the pieces, spread around a map of the park (just click on the birds) at synchromy.org/urban-birds.
Welcome Back: LACO at Walt Disney Concert Hall
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra at Walt Disney Concert Hall
Saturday, June 26 at 7:00pm
On Saturday, June 26, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra invited vaccinated supporters to gather at Walt Disney Concert Hall for a celebratory performance—a musical victory lap of sorts for having emerged from the pandemic’s deafening silence. The scheduled program was of a familiar LACO construction: something old, something new, something showy.
The Old: Mendelssohn’s Symphony No.4, “Italian,” which closed the scheduled program, was performed with the incredible degree of precision and musical nuance we have come to expect from LACO. Music Director Jaime Martín has an incisive musical intuition for bringing unexpected details to the foreground of the music, which breathes new life into even the most well-known and loved works in the canon. Here was no exception, the intricate details of Mendelssohn’s rapidly-animated textures emerging in the spaces of longer melodic lines. As an accomplished performer himself, Martín brings a natural sense for stepping back and entrusting the musicians to do what they do best; the Mendelssohn, as a result, felt fresh and immediate, while always mantaining an unambiguous coherence.
Juan Pablo Contreras’s chamber arrangement of his orchestral work, Mariachitlán, roused the hall with an energetic juxtaposition of musical textures that drop the listener into the vibrant intersection of traditions, styles, and sounds of Guadalajara. An unmistakable tribute to mariachi overlaps with passages evoking the guitar, soloistic moments for the brass, strings, and harp, and a startling whistle which initiates a chant for which the piece is titled. There is a romanticism and a grit to Mariachitlán that both performers and audience responded to: Contreras’s writing feels fun and serious, fractured and coherent, modern and traditional.
The program’s opening work, Variaciones Concertantes was the showy one. Written by the great Argentinian composer, Alberto Ginastera, in the middle of the 20th century, the work is beautiful, effective, and haunting, revealing a strong influence by Aaron Copland not only in its orchestration, but also in the personal approach to incorporating folk material. Principal Cello Andrew Shulman and harpist Elizabeth Zosseder performed a stunning and intimate duet that opens the work, which unfolded into episodes of lively, shimmering episodes that showcased most of the ensemble’s principal musicians including notable solos by Erik Rynearson (Principal Viola), Ken Monday (Principal Bassoon), Sandy Hughes (Acting Principal Flute), Claire Brazeau (Principal Oboe) and David Grossman (Principal Bass), among others. Concertmaster Margaret Batjer’s virtuosic performance on Variaciones was truly extraordinary, with impeccable musicianship and phrasing that enraptured the audience throughout the concerto-like violin solo. Martín managed the considerable technical aspects of Ginastera’s writing while threading the variations with a sense of continuous, fluid development that anchored the choreography of solos moving through the ensemble.
After the scheduled program, Martín returned to an enthralled audience to thank those supporters who made this year—and this concert—possible. A touching, personal flute performance by Martín of Telemann’s Cunando, accompanied by Shulman on cello, was followed by an upbeat performance of Gerónimo Giménez’s Intermedio de la Boda de Luis Alonzo by the ensemble. But I was particularly struck by the sincerity and depth of gratitude evident in the hall, not only from the musicians towards their audience of supporters, but from the audience towards their musicians. These two pillars of our music community, LACO and Walt Disney Hall, remind us that making art is not just entertainment. After a year of prolonged isolation, the immeasurable loss of loved ones, and a persistent sense of uncertainty, making art reminds us what we do still have, what we do still share. Seeing that reminder worn on the faces both on and off stage assigned real weight to the words we have been waiting to hear:
Welcome Back.
LACO’s second live performance since the pandemic will be happening on Thursday, July 1 at The Huntington in San Marino. The program includes the original 1915 version of de Falla’s extraordinary sung ballet El amor brujo conducted by Music Director Jaime Martín and featuring
LA’s own celebrated mezzo soprano Suzanna Guzmán. Martín also leads Debussy’s iconic Prélude à “L’après-midi d’un faune” and the world premiere of KiMani Bridges’ The Flower. For more information go to www.laco.org
LA Phil at 100: A birthday concert remembers institution’s history.
Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s very first performance, Walt Disney Concert Hall hosted (among other events) a Centennial Birthday Celebration Concert this past week.
The concert was foremost a celebration of the philharmonic’s past, bringing together conductors emeriti Zubin Mehta and Esa-Pekka Salonen to join Gustavo Dudamel, with short promotional videos linking each maestro’s turn at the podium. A last-minute program change pushed Salonen to the opening of the concert, with an excellent performance of Lutosławski’s 4th Symphony–a piece commissioned by the Phil under Salonen’s direction and premiered with the orchestra under Lutosławki’s own baton in 1993. The 4th symphony is one of the LA Phil’s great contributions to the orchestral repertoire; the work understands how to make the orchestra resonate, while also exploring new territory both for the musicians and conductor. In that way, its success reminds me of the relationship that the LA Phil’s has built with Andrew Norman over the past few years.
Mehta followed Salonen, first with Wagner’s Overture from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and then with a somewhat unconvincing performance of Ravel’s La valse. Still, the audience of this particular event seemed more interested in Mehta’s mere presence than Ravel’s intricate layerings. Further, had these works opened the concert (and so preceded the Lutosławski) as planned, the flow would likely have been less awkward.
Current music director Gustavo Dudamel led the final set, starting with Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite, which had some excellent moments, including a stunning lullaby, and featured several of the ensemble’s talented soloists. Dudamel was then joined by Mehta and Salonen for the premiere of a new commission by Daníel Bjarnason: From Space I Saw Earth. The piece, which uses all three conductors by splitting the ensemble into groups, is interesting in concept, exploring timelines and the compression and stretching of material (the piece was inspired by space exploration and the moon landing). In practice, though, while the choreography between the three conductors was interesting to watch, I’m not convinced that the three fully bought into the piece. As a result, there were interesting smears of texture, but the performance never quite achieved the level of detail or balance needed to give the audience much-needed landmarks to grab onto.
That being said, for what it was–a celebration with some music–the event was quite successful. It would have been hard to look around at all the talent, history, investment, and direction of the LA Phil without a heartfelt recognition of their significance to local and national arts community. At the same time, I could not ignore a thought which has become familiar this season: while there is certainly value to remembering its history and making bold marquis statements with famous names, works, and soloists, ultimately it is innovation that serves as the life-blood of the LA Phil, and which makes it relevant and important today.
LA Phil at 100: Looking Backward & Looking Forward
Thursday evening is the LA Phil’s Centennial Birthday Concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Recovering from a whirlwind previous season that saw volumes of new works, artists and commissions, this birthday concert looks to distill the Philharmonic’s past, present, and future into a tidy package. By bringing together conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Zubin Mehta, and Dudamel, the program highlights Los Angeles history from Stravinsky to Lutosławski, culminating with a bold glance into the future in the premiere of a newly-commissioned work by Daníel Bjarnason.
Bjarnason’s From Space I Saw Earth comes highly-anticipated, and rightfully so: the Icelandic composer has produced outstanding work in his residence with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, as well as in his collaborations with the LA Phil itself. But this new work pushes even those bounds, with all three of the towering conductors of the evening performing simultaneously on the new piece—a logistical undertaking rare in its conception, and made even more rare by the caliber of musicians involved. The idea is bold and beautiful, local and global, nostalgic and forward-looking, in a way that lends a sense of “ah, there she is” to the LA Phil that we know and love.
I had the opportunity to speak briefly to Bjarnason about the commission for From Space I Saw Earth, which is inspired (as many of his works are) by science and space. He says the piece plays on perspectives, the same musical material being stretched and compressed into parallel timelines which intersect and diverge over the course of the piece–me makes the analogy of how fermatas bring the breath back together in chorales, before they depart again. This effect is an interest reflected in much of his music, so the idea for multiple conductors presented a way to achieve it quite organically, albeit magnified by the considerable amount of freedom Bjarnason offers each conductor in how they move through the material. With this whole complex routine contained to the stage, the natural choreography of the performance, Bjarnason says, reinforces and dramatizes the effect of these independent sections diverging and converging.
The new work’s role in the program as a whole is well thought out. The freedom and resulting cumulative effect pairs well with the ad libitum sections granted to the conductor in the Lutosławski’s symphony (commissioned and premiered by the Phil in 1993 under the composer’s baton), which alternates smeared orchestral textures with tightly-coordinated passages. And, compared to the narrative drive of Stravinsky’s Firebird, I anticipate that Bjarnason’s rich sense of space and knack for detailed, bubbling orchestrations may wrap up the night with an opulent sonic blanket. Before any notes are even played, this concert already promises to be a fitting celebration of 100 years, to the day, since this philharmonic sprang to life, and a statement that it plans to lead us into the next 100.