Posts Tagged ‘Concerts’
Interview: Composer Veronika Krausas on Misfits and Hooligans
This Saturday, Catalysis Projects and People Inside Electronics are collaborating to put on a show called Misfits and Hooligans at Beyond Baroque in Venice. I caught up via email with composer/the-brains-behind-it Veronika Krausas to talk about the show. While it’s nice to pretend I’m an objective journalist (I’m not), I’ve gotta say that the whole concept of this concert sounds completely awesome to me, and that I’m way excited about it, and think you should probably go. Thumbs up/high five, Veronika, I can’t wait.
The concert that your group Catalysis Projects is putting on with People Inside Electronics is called “Misfits and Hooligans,” and features music for all sorts of instruments that are often thought of as such. Aside from my being sad that melodica didn’t make the cut, this is really exciting. Where did the concept come from? And are you concerned about angering violists by including them on this?
AHHH … there are so many wonderful instruments that just didn’t make the cut … bagpipes, tuba, trombone, nose flute, banjo, and yes melodica. I think the violists are thrilled to be included. Probably everyone not included is wondering how they can get into the club! The question really should be – are you a misfit or a hooligan? But then it depends which country you hail from because in the lands that enjoy soccer (aka as non-American football), a hooligan might have a slightly less savory connotation than a hooligan in my less aggressive-less violent-more mischievous-Edward Gorey-esque usage of the term. Even so, I think I’m more of a misfit than a hooligan although I definitely appreciate musical hooliganism!
But, back to the concert! The composer Daniel Rothman started a new music series at Beyond Baroque and asked me to organize a concert. I enlisted my pals at Catalysis Projects, the visual artist, filmmaker, and writer Quintan Ana Wikswo, composers and performers Isaac Schankler and Aron Kallay (also of People Inside Electronics) to help with this extravaganza. It started out as a ‘so what pieces do you have’? type of thing and slowly emerged as a collection of ‘interesting’ instruments and it went gloriously downhill from there! On the program there are also some truly wonderful and crazy pieces for harpsichord by the French Baroque composer Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer, whose name alone is great! (We’ve all adopted Pancrace as our Misfit or Hooligan middle name!) Pancrace (as he is now known by his friends) was a contemporary of, and eclipsed quite a bit by, his pal Rameau! I heard Arthur Omura play Marche des Scythes and it was one of those ‘AH HA’ moments for me with the harpsichord. I drank the Royer Kool-aid and that was it. I’m now officially hooked on the harpsichord. It was such a wonderfully bizarre piece that it and 2 other of the pieces from Royer’s Première Livre de Pièces pour Clavecin are being performed on the concert. He unfortunately only has one book of harpsichord pieces.
Aron Kallay is playing a gorgeous piece for toy piano and electronics by Tom Flaherty. Isaac Schankler has this great duo for accordion and electronics called Chocolate Phase that he’s playing with Daniel Corral. I’ve asked them to wear lederhosen but that idea didn’t go over so well. He also has his wonderful viola piece Dear Mr. Edison.
My instruments are harmonica and double bass. Let’s make the harmonica the misfit and the double basses will be the hooligans! Jonas is a solo harmonica piece that the harmonica player Bill Barrett commissioned a few years ago and it’s finally having its premiere at this show along with a great text and film by Quintan Ana Wikswo called The Anguillidae Eater. The text is about the migration of eels to the Coronian Spit in Lithuania (which is one of my favorite places in the world) with a surreal twist. It goes perfectly with the harmonica music. The piece is named after my grandfather Jonas, who loved harmonica and smoked eel and was Lithuanian. He was probably more of a friendly hooligan that a misfit. I still have his harmonica in my studio.
The musical hooligans are represented in my double bass trio called Gardens of Stone. This piece was inspired by a poem by the Canadian writer André Alexis:
out of silence, to another silence
from sun and water, dry white salt.
time moves like that, crest to crest,
and our selves, yours and mine,
are what is left from sea …
You often compose for multimedia. What’s your approach to collaboration with other artists?
I’ve been so fortunate to have an amazing group of writers, film makers, artists, acrobats, and musicians around me that they’re always so inspiring. The process always happens so naturally – someone suggests an idea (or I have an image or sound in my mind) and that small kernel just grows (often like a weed) and just emerges. Somehow we’re always on the same sort of wave length when working on projects.
Art by Krausas's collaborator Reneé Reynolds
You’ve also done a good bit of work outside of music on your own. Did you study visual art, photography, or writing formally, or have you sort of picked it up over time?
I’ve only studied music but I am an accidental photographer, occasional book-maker, story writer, and filmmaker. The great thing about ideas is that often they take on a non-aural form, which sometimes gets translated into music and other times into another art form. I started to collect quite a few photographs of graffiti from all over the world and one year decided to put them into a book. Definitely an accidental photographer. Another friend (writer and artist Renée Reynolds) and I started with the idea of an errata in a magazine and slowly this developed into a project of a limited hand-made book that had very divergent ideas of our interpretations of what is an errata. The cover was floor tiles held together with duct tape – itself an errata of sorts.
You’re actually the first composer I’ve interviewed who is on a university faculty. I’ve heard some composition professors say that they only get to compose in summer because teaching and the work associated with it take so much time. What’s the balance like, for you? And are you pleased with it?
Tough during the year but it’s like anything – you make time, especially when you’re inspired or have a deadline. As those deadlines approach I’m sure my students notice the crazed look in my eyes…I teach at 8am so I’m not sure how much they notice at that hour!
Being that you’ve had works performed all over the place, how would you say LA compares or fits into the world scene for new music? Seems pretty strong to me, but I’ve never spent time in New York.
I never imagined myself living in LA and ended up here a little bit by accident. Since arriving I have LOVED it. The musical and creative environment is so vibrant that it’s really inspiring to live and work here. There so much music and art and dance and performance going on, it’s just a little spread out! And the weather is pretty darn great.
Anything on the horizon you can tell us about?
I’m off to Belgium in the fall – my chamber orchestra piece analemma is an official selection for the World Music Days.
Also, I’ve been asked to present my films at a series run by Gerry Fialka in the fall. Although not a film maker – just an accidental one – I have worked with several really spectacular film and video makers (Quintan Ana Wikswo and Nana Tchitchoua – who runs the Tula Tea Room at the Museum of Jurassic Technology). This event with feature some of the works I’ve done with them and my own ‘accidental’ foray into making a film. A few years ago someone ran an idea for a short film by me and I offered what I thought was a good (and slightly quirky) suggestion. They didn’t like the idea or even use it so I thought “it’s a great idea, I’m going to make it.” So I came up with 7 short and silly scenarios that became 7 intermezzi for film that I wrote and produced. It was shot by Marc Lempert and the music was by friends. A very fun project.
Thank you!
Get your tickets for this weekend’s show at brownpapertickets.com/event/235385. See you there!
Free Show Alert: Music of Anastassis Philippakopoulos tonight at the wulf
Man, we’ve had a ton of these this week! That’s a good thing though, especially for those of us who don’t want to drop $100 to hang out in a cemetery in Hollywood (can you tell I didn’t get Sigur Ros tickets?).
Tonight’s show comes courtesy of the wulf, which actually has a ton of events coming up, all of which are, and will always be, free. From their website:
04.20.2012 8:00 pm
Music of Anastassis Philippakopoulos
A selection of instrumental Songs and Five Piano Pieces by Anastassis Philippakopoulos. Performed by Mark So, William Powell, Kathy Pisaro and Christine Tavolacci. Also Michael Pisaro will play "24 petits préludes pour la guitare" by Antoine Beuger.
Details are at thewulf.org/events.html.
A bunch of calendar updates, and two interviews, and BIG news are all on the way, so keep an eye out.
Free Show Alert: Cal Arts Orchestra at Wild Beast tomorrow
If you can make it out to Valencia tomorrow night by 7:30, the Cal Arts Orchestra is premiering Andrew Tholl’s violin concerto, titled Asphyxiation, at The Wild Beast on their campus. Tholl himself is the violinist. The program also has works by Devin Maxwell, Roger Reynolds, Mike Fink, Michael Pisaro, and Anastassis Philippakopoulos. Should be a good time, to say the very least.
Catch Definiens performing Higdon’s Piano Trio, and a world premiere, tonight
Jenni Brandon wrote to me the other day to tell me about a sweet show coming up tonight (!) at the Ivy Substation in Culver City. I was hoping to do a short interview on it, but the world managed to get in the way during the last week or so. In any case, the press release, quoted below, has all the info. See you there?
Definiens, a Los Angeles based chamber music ensemble, will present a concert of chamber music featuring music from the 20th and 21st century on Tuesday, March 20th at 8pm at the Ivy Substation (9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City, 90232). This program will feature Pulitzer prize-winning composer Jennifer Higdon’s piano trio “Pale Yellow and Fiery Red”, French composer Albert Roussel’s work “Duo” for bassoon and double bass, and Definiens own Jennifer Stevenson’s “Distances” for oboe and piano. Definiens will also present the world premiere of Ian Munro’s work “UNstasis” for oboe, bassoon, violin and cello. Munro, a composer based in New York, is the winner of Definiens 2010 composition commission competition in the young composer category and wrote this piece specifically for Definiens.
Members of Definiens include Diana Morgan-flute, Ryan Zwahlen-oboe and English horn, Jennifer Stevenson-clarinets, Michael Kreiner- bassoon, Sakura Tsai-violin, Lars Hoefs-cello, Stephen Pfeifer-double bass and Jeanette Louise Yaryan-piano. This performance is made possible in part by the Culver City Performing Arts Grant Program with support from Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Tickets are $10 and may be purchased online or at the door with cash or credit card. Please call 310-897-4111 or visit www.definiens.org for more information.
Free Show Alert: David Lang at CLU today
Yesterday my mom called to ask if I’d heard of a guy named David Lang (hint: I have), because she had read in the paper that a) his dad lives in Thousand Oaks (where I grew up/she lives) and b) a bunch of ensembles at CLU are doing a bunch of his pieces today, at 2, for free.
There’s not much available about it online, but I’m getting in my car right now to go check it out.
Free Show Alert: Classical Revolution LA Founder’s Jam is tonight!
If you’re anywhere near Echo Park/Silverlake/Downtown/Highland Park/etc. over on that side of town, I highly recommend heading over to Tribal Cafe on Temple Street at 7 pm tonight. Classical Revolution LA will be running a free show there, and Charith Premawardhana, the founder of the original Classical Revolution series up in the bay area, will be there to jam with a bunch of special guests.
Complete details are on classicalrevolutionla.org. I’ve been trying to get an interview together with the guys running it here, but it’s been an insanely hectic week. As such, a post-concert follow-up kind of thing will be posted in the very near future.
Free Show Alert: Quartet for the End of Time (!!!!) in Long Beach on Sunday, February 5
I just received an invitation on Facebook to a neat looking event that’s part of the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra’s Sounds and Spaces series. As you may have guessed from the title, they play music in cool places.
For this one, musicians from the LBSO will be performing Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time at Belmont Heights United Methodist Church this Sunday at 4. There will also be a presentation on the space by architectural historian Timothy Kent Parker.
It’s a free show, but you do have to RSVP on their website at http://www.lbso.org/special-events/view/id/7/-/sounds-and-spaces. If you’ve never heard Quartet for the End of time performed live, all the way through, at least once, then you’re seriously missing out.
Conveniently, somehow, my family is all meeting up for lunch that day like two blocks from there, so if you see me at the show please do come say hello.
Concert you should go to: Piano Spheres next Tuesday
On Tuesday, January 31, at 8 pm, Kathleen Supové is playing an all LA premiere program with Piano Spheres down at Zipper Hall at Colburn. GO. Three of the five works have video with them. Supové is a monster player. The thing that excites me most about it, however, is getting to hear Carolyn Yarnell’s piece The Same Sky. I know absolutely nothing about Carolyn Yarnell, but Kyle Gann called the piece “one of the most fantastic keyboard works anyone’s written in the last 20 years,” and he’s absolutely right. Click here to read his blog entry about the piece, among other things. I’ve shown this recording to a lot of friends, and they all seem to be similarly blown away. Even the ones with no interest in classical music as such.
Here’s a recording:
And here’s the poster for the show:
Interview: Conductor Vimbayi Kaziboni on What’s Next? Ensemble
Continuing our trend of having an insanely packed new music November here in Los Angeles, What’s Next? Ensemble kick off their season next Wednesday, November 23, at Royal/T Cafe in Culver City. Amid preparations for the season, which features a mix of music by local heroes like Don Crockett and Ben Phelps and heavyweights like Andriessen and Takemitsu, Artistic Director Vimbayi Kaziboni managed time for an interview. We did this via email, and his most recent message opened with the phrase “Please kindly forgive my embarrassing tardiness.” With the season you’re working on and the music you’re preparing, please consider it well forgiven, sir.
Vimbayi Kaziboni (photo by Joseph Brunjes)
Please introduce us to What’s Next? Ensemble.
What’s Next? Ensemble is a group of dedicated musicians based in Los Angeles and devoted to championing the music of our time.
How did you get started?
I met my dear friend and colleague Jack Stulz who is a violist and serves as the group’s executive director in our freshman year as undergrads at USC in Morten Lauridsen’s freshman music theory class. It was at some point in that year that we discovered we shared a passion for “contemporary classical music”. We got hyper-animated at the utterance of Cage or Reich in a conversation. We fantasized about starting an ensemble (or ‘band’ as we called it then) and putting on epic new music concerts that music enthusiasts from all over town would make a pilgrimage to every time we had a performance. We were just dreamers then. Young and naive 18 year olds.
Our first concert didn’t happen until 2 years later in March of 2008. We rallied a few musician friends and put on an outdoor evening concert at a pool outside one of the dormitories at USC. The program was the simplest we have ever done: Steve Reich’s ‘Music for Pieces of Wood’ and Phillip Glass’ ‘String Quartet no. 3 (Mishima)’. Even up to this day I think that performance was perhaps the best concert we have ever had. So many people came, (mostly students), sitting in the moonlight, some lounging in the pool, some sitting on the grass and on loan chairs, and plenty more people standing on their apartment balconies above us. What a crowd! Our first concert, our first success. I’ve always wondered, however, if our success that evening wasn’t entirely from the free pizza that was being offered at the event. You know college kids – they’ll show up to any event were there is free food!
Anyway, after many more such guerilla performances on campus and around town in the summer of 2008 we eventually came up with what has become our highest profile signature series, and has propelled us into the world of serious and professional music presentations: the Los Angeles Composers Project (LACP). The LACP is a comprehensive retrospective of music by LA composers featuring the music of both veteran talent and up and coming talent, every summer. It’s usually a series of three concerts that take place within the span of two weeks. Last summer we were at the Royal-T gallery where we are calling home this year.
Royal/T could be considered an “alternative venue” when it comes to classical music. How do you think that affects your audience? Do you find a lot of people who haven’t heard this stuff before get exposed, or is it more like the traditional audience just migrates to the different venue?
It’s certainly both. The traditional audience has loyally and faithfully migrated with us. (Thankfully!) Since performing at the Royal-T last summer we have found that the demographic of our audience has definitely diversified. Now there are visual art lovers who on a different day might have come to see the art at the Royal-T gallery, customers who usually come and eat at the Royal-T café, and even jazz lovers who would have heard about us through the Jazz concert series at Royal-T. We are constantly meeting people who are brand new to us and also new to the music they have come to experience at our shows.
What’s your approach to programming concerts?
Well, if there is sound and we like it, we do it. There is no telling what we will do and we have no limits. However, within such a broad scope there are some fundamental principles that are easily detectable and ever-present in our programs. Performing the works of local composers who are established in our community is very important to us and possibly the most distinct element that has given WNE their voice in this city. Last season we performed the music of William Kraft, Morten Lauridsen, Lalo Schifrin and Don Davis among many others and on the upcoming concert on November 23rd we will be performing the West Coast premiere of a wonderful new work for viola and ensemble by Donald Crockett.
Alongside such seasoned veterans and giants it is very important to us to champion the works of our peers – young, up and coming composers. On the two concerts this fall we will be performing the works of numerous young, talented composers including Sean Friar, Wojtek Blecharz, Laura Kramer and Ben Phelps all of whom are wonderful and very talented up and coming composers and each of whom has a very distinct and independent compositional voice.
Music of the contemporary avant-garde from all over the world and beyond the Western paradigm also interests us very much. In our spring season series we are planning on performing music from the Phillipines, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Venezuela. This allows us to give our audiences a taste of what is happening elsewhere in the world and gives our local community a perspective on how we and our art correlate globally with the world at-large.
And finally, the core repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries’ avant-garde is of course a staple for groups dedicated to new music. It certainly is for us as well. So, be it music by young and seasoned talent, from near and far away, from today and from yesteryear – you will inevitably find all of these elements as a common thread in all of the programs that we perform.
What’s your take on the scene in LA?
I believe that the LA new music scene is certainly thriving. But we can certainly do plenty more. There is not enough of a cohesive community not only in music but in art in general. Granted, it is perhaps because of the large expanse of this city. In either case, we can definitely do more with what we have. There is not enough sustenance and championing of local talent and there is not enough support and collaboration among the individual groups in town. That’s one of the gaping holes that my band is trying to fill. Let’s embrace our peers and colleagues here in town and really display them to the world instead of jumping onto the band wagon and being mere champions of the art/music that is already trendy and popular everywhere else. We can do much more to support each other and to build a real cohesive community. I believe that such entities like your blog Nick are a good starting point. Thank you for that. We need more people like you to help build and unify the art/music community. [Hey thanks!] We are too isolated from each other and we alienate ourselves too much from local culture. We really need to integrate ourselves and really offer our artistic product as something that is very relevant and integral to our local culture and not a mere supplement to what’s going on at say the Disney Hall or the Music Center. I truly believe that there is hope.
And, following the theme of that question, what is your favorite:
1. Neighborhood
Highland Park-Eagle Rock area
2. Place to hear music
Anywhere. It especially depends on the music.
3. Restaurant
Thai Eagle Rox in Eagle Rock. I’m there every Monday for lunch with a friend.
4. Bar/hang out
When I have time I find myself at The York in Highland Park.
5. Store
I’ve been finding myself at the auto body/parts shop too frequently lately… I wouldn’t call it my favorite though.
6. Thing to do/see
Besides music?? Gosh. This rarely happens these days but I suppose it would be alone in thought at Point Dune Beach on a warm evening. The stars bright, the moon white, the glorious tide…
Finally, what’s something you’d like to be asked, and how would you answer it?
People are always asking me about the name of our ensemble and I am always obliged to answer. Besides the obvious allusion to the fact that we are a new music ensemble there is a more profound one to a work by Elliot Carter. Elliot Carter is now what? About 103 years old now? In his very long career spanning well over 80 years he has only managed to write one opera: a chamber opera entitled What Next? written in 1997, when he was already about 90 years old. In the scenario of the opera there has been a car accident of some kind, involving six victims, five adults and a child. They emerge from the wreck unhurt but utterly dazed. They are all unable to remember what happened, who they are, how they are related, where they were going when the accident occurred, or how they came to be in the same place at the same time. One character, a diva, vocalizes and treats the others as admiring fans; one, a would-be seer, dispenses cryptic aphorisms; one cracks absurd jokes; one, an astronomer, is fixated on the stars; and one, evidently a mother, tries to bring order to the situation. The kid, on the other hand, is preoccupied with a more pressing matter: his empty stomach.
This, I believe is the ultimate allegory to the state of music today. The mission of my colleagues and I in What’s Next? Ensemble is to attempt to answer these metaphorical questions as they pertain to art and music and our own lives. And if we fall short, at least shed light to these questions and ask a few of our own. And in the process satisfy our empty stomachs and those of our faithful patrons with wonderful music!
Check out What’s Next? Ensemble’s upcoming season at whatsnextensemble.com.
Vicki Ray plays an all premiere program with Piano Spheres on Tuesday
I love it when a flyer actually contains all of the information that you might want to know about a given concert. Who’s playing, what the program is, the location, the date and time, how much tickets are, and where to get them. That’s it! You’d be amazed at how many fail to include this seemingly necessary information. Having spent some time working in concert marketing, I’ve discovered that people aren’t going to call or go to your website. They will, however, loudly complain about being uninformed. Put all of the info on the flyer, in the email, the facebook event invitation…basically, make it so that the person reading it doesn’t have to do anything else to find out what’s going on.
Having completed that minor rant, I’d like to share a superb example I received this morning, and encourage you to check out this concert. Amazing players, cool programs, friendly people, all of that good stuff. I might go just to thank them for making my job easy by sending such a well-designed and informative flyer. And on that note, here’s ALL of the info for the show (click to make it bigger/higher resolution):
