Posts Tagged ‘Nicholas Deyoe’
Cellist Ashley Walters on Sweet, Sweet Anxiety
Cellist Ashley Walters. Photo by Todd H. Carlson.
Perhaps the title here is a hair misleading – as far as we know, Ashley Walters, cellist, does not have anxiety. We do know that she’s on of the most active cellists in the LA scene, specializing in microtonal music and repertoire featuring extended techniques and alternate tunings. Ashley, a member of the Formalist Quartet, has appeared as a soloist on concert series such as Green Umbrella, wasteLAnd music, San Diego New Music, Beyond Baroque, and many others. Tomorrow evening, she plays a solo set at Tuesdays at Monk Space, entitled A Sweet Anxiety.
T@MS’ Social Media and Outreach Director, Cristina Lord, interviewed Ashley ahead of the concert. The interview was sent out via email to their list, and I asked if we could reprint it here for our readers. Here are Cristina and Ashley:
The program contains a challenging list of works that explore the sonic possibilities of the cello. From your perspective, does the combination of these particular pieces affect their meanings as a whole?
The works on this program represent what I believe to be milestones of the recent cello repertoire. While there are parallels in this collection of pieces — four use microtonality, all use extended techniques, and all bear the imprint for the performer for whom it was written — the pieces, nevertheless, arrive at dramatically different expressive destinations as a result of their explorations in technique and timbre.
You’ve been praised for your performances of Liza Lim’s Invisibility, a dazzling, unpredictable work that is part of Lim’s ongoing investigation of Australian Aboriginal’s ‘aesthetics of presence.’ The piece has an overall shimmering quality, and uses two kinds of bows to offer different possibilities of friction that explore harmonic complexities within the instrument. What aesthetic qualities have you found most enrapturing about this piece, and how does the work speak to you?
Liza Lim has reimagined the personality and voice of the cello in an absolutely unique way. Although the modified “guiro” bow provides visual and timbral drama, it is the retuned strings that truly define the essence of this piece to me. Three of the four strings are tuned lower, darkening and obscuring the cello’s familiar, swan-like voice. The open and ringing perfect fifths of standard tuning are replaced with tense and unruly dissonances.
Also on the program is Berio’s Sequenza XIV, a work inspired by the Kandyan drum rhythms of Sri Lanka. As such, the piece utilizes the cello as a percussion instrument in addition to its traditional role as a string instrument. Given the diverse range of techniques required in this piece, what did you find most challenging or interesting?
As a kid, I grew up playing both cello and percussion and I think part of why I love this piece so much is because it allows me to play both! In many ways, Berio set the precedent for composer/performer collaboration making the unique characteristics and capabilities of each dedicatee a central theme in many of his Sequenzas. In the case of this final Sequenza, Berio incorporates these Kandayan drumming cycles, which were shown to him by the great Sri Lankan cellist, Rohan de Saram.
You’ve worked closely with multiple composers, including Nicholas Deyoe whose piece another anxiety will be opening the concert at Monk Space. What do you enjoy most about collaborating with composers? What was the process like for Another Anxiety?
Nicholas Deyoe has been a friend and collaborator for the past nine years, during which time I have premiered twelve of his works. Our first collaboration, developed in secret, was a piece performed as a surprise dedication to the great soprano, Stephanie Aston on her and Nicholas’ wedding day. The process of our collaboration continues to evolve, but risk-taking and honesty have been our anchors throughout. The inspiration for the opening of another anxiety, with its tiny microtonal intervals, came from Nicholas’ observation that I could easily divide a whole step into four notes in the lowest positions of the cello. To me, such collaboration, is the epitome of being a new music performer. I am so proud to be presenting the results of my collaboration with Nicholas Deyoe and Wadada Leo Smith as part of my program at Tuesdays @ Monk Space.
Tickets are available at asweetanxiety.brownpapertickets.com.
Review: wasteLAnd’s “Tout Orgeuil” at ArtShare LA
WasteLAnd continues to impress audiences with a program of new music, most of it from LA-based composers. Each performer has their respective claim to fame in LA and is closely associated with wasteLAnd, and each composer is a long-time favorite of wasteLAnd’s. New to the scene, however, is Allison Carter, a poet whose words found their way into Deyoe’s new piece. Her work made quite the stir among the audience members, and I have a feeling we will begin to hear her name more in the future.
Before I review the concert itself, I find something worth mentioning: the gender representation. It was an even split. In my day job, I currently have my students writing a paper on 19th century gender roles and women composers in the Romantic era, so this has been on my mind a lot. One hundred years ago, women could not vote in the United States, and it was nearly impossible to earn respect as a composer or performer. Nowadays, female representation in the music scene is gaining. It is not yet even, but progress is happening. WasteLAnd’s October concert featured six composers; three were women and two were men (Erik Ulman had two pieces, so the ratio of compositions is 3:3). There were seven performers (including Allison Carter reading aloud), and four were women. The best part was that I didn’t notice until afterwards. I have come to recognize that gender equality is already quite common in the LA new music scene. So much so that this is the first time I put it together. I looked back over some old programs I’ve reviewed, and every concert has women as composers, performers, directors or all three.
Ok. Feminist aside complete. Moving on, because there is so much good about this concert to discuss.
The night opened with Kaija Saariaho’s Folia, performed by Scott Worthington on double bass and electronics. Like many compositions from the end of the 20th century, this piece focuses on dynamics and timbre over pitch and harmony. Sometimes the bass whistles like an icy wind, other times it rumbles like an earthquake, putting palpable pressure on your ears. Scott saws out some kind of textural melody, phrases build and climax and fade – textural intensity carries the musical line. The electronic aspect augments and echoes the timbres. It overlays overtones, resulting in both a more ‘open’-sounding composition and greater complexity overall.
Next on the docket was the duet Tout Orgeuil… by Erik Ulman. Stephanie Aston and Elise Roy are always an amazing team, and their performance on this piece was no exception. It begins with a piccolo solo, and Roy gradually descended down the flute family to alto flute. Aston sang sleepily about pride smoking in the night. Given that the text is from a Stephan Mallarmé poem, my mind turned to Debussy. Ulman is no Impressionist, but I feel Debussy would have approved of the modern counterpoint and expressive extended techniques. The pitches bent down, down, down into sleep, and the flutes became larger and the words grew heavier. Erik captured the good sinking feeling, the kind you feel in a cozy armchair while drifting to sleep.
Third up was Matt Barbier on trombone and electronics performing puddles and crumbs by Katherine Young. For me, this piece created a very specific soundscape: I, the listener, am a koi in the pond on a rainy day and the daily miracle of food raining from heaven is happening. Three of the major elements that contribute to this soundscape are 1. Sharply sucking air through the trombone, 2. Sharp plosives into the mouthpiece that are amplified by the electronics, 3. Dynamic tempi. Matt’s deep breathing combined with the electronic influence reminded me of snorkeling, the plosive pops like rain on water’s surface when I swim underwater. These are instinctive memories, of course, and it may be a coincidence that they play so well together. Now you understand my watery theme. The push and pull of the tempo took me a while to incorporate into my soundscape idea. At first I thought it felt like seasickness, but I eventually concluded it was more like watching fish dart in a pond. They sprint only a few inches or feet, depending on the size of the fish, and then hesitate. The tempo seemed to do exactly that. And then it all became clear, that the soundscape was from the point of view of a koi in a pond in the rain during feeding time. I’m sure many will disagree, whether they had another idea or didn’t find it so blatantly programmatic at all; one of the wonders of music is how everyone experiences things differently. For what it’s worth, I did come up with a secondary interpretation that involves heavy breathing, plosive pops, and sprinting-and-stopping: Darth Vader playing basketball. So really it’s all relative. Regardless of the loftiness or pop art-iness of my personal experience, Barbier proved yet again that the trombone is more than just a brass instrument in a marching band. He played every color in the palette, and demonstrated rigorous control over his body and his instrument to perform such a demanding piece.
Fittingly the 100th piece wasteLAnd has programmed, Erik Ulman’s this until is a flute solo, and Elise Roy absolutely nailed it. I’ve said before that she has superhuman control of her instrument, and she proved it again with this piece. She made her flute sing, speak, howl, wail and whisper. Though a solo composition, I could sometimes here a ghost of counterpoint when she effected heavy harmonics. I honestly couldn’t say if that was Ulman’s intention or Roy’s execution, but every so often a particularly turgid note would quietly sound the octave or fourth below, creating a beautiful, haunting harmony. this until was the only solo acoustic musical composition of the night and it was right in the middle of the program; Elise managed to keep up the energy on her own, and carried us into the final pieces of the evening.
The program ends with a sort of binary piece. First, Allison Carter read her Poems from A Fixed, Formal Arrangement; Nicholas Deyoe used the text for his piece Finally, the cylindrical voids tapping along, a line from the poem. I can’t say I have ever attended another concert that had the poet read their work first before the musical product, and I wish this would become the norm everywhere. As a general rule, increased understanding leads to increased appreciation, so knowing the text ahead of time (and from the author herself, no less) helped Deyoe’s work succeed. The instrumentation sounded like speech slowed down by a factor of ten. The melodies felt like they wanted to resolve up to a tonic, but they kept bending downwards, defying expectations. One thing I love about Deyoe’s style is that it’s always interesting and it never fulfills your expectations. Once you think you have it figured out, he changes it again. This piece feels like your mind wandering and getting lost – when it’s 4am and you have to wake up in two hours but you’re caught up in the twilight zone that is four in the morning. Knowing composers, that is probably the mindset he was in while writing. Also, knowing composers, that is a hard composition to pull off. I commend Nicholas Deyoe for a well-constructed and evocative ensemble composition.
WasteLAnd concerts are on the first Friday of every month at ArtShare. Check out Weights and Measures on November 4.
Editor’s note: WasteLAnd is currently running their annual fundraiser. Take a minute to support them at https://squareup.com/store/wasteland/
The LA Phil’s Noon To Midnight was a triumph
Over the years I’ve spent running New Classic LA, I’ve heard time and time again the narrative that the torch of new music in Los Angeles is being passed down from our venerable old institutions like Monday Evening Concerts and the LA Phil’s Green Unbrella series to newer, more agile ensembles and series like wild Up and WasteLAnd. Old wisdom had it that the best way for a composer to get played in LA was to move to New York. I hope, with the massive triumph and all-inclusive nature of the LA Phil’s Noon to Midnight event on Saturday, these narratives can finally be put to rest. The torch isn’t being passed down, it’s being shared, and everyone is invited.
First, let’s talk scale. Disney Hall’s spaces were opened up to many of LA’s ensembles and series, and the 12 hour marathon, in which it was impossible to catch everything, featured the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, Piano Spheres, wild Up, gnarwhallaby, WasteLAnd, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Monday Evening Concerts, the USC Percussion Ensemble, The Industry, Jacaranda, Chris Kallmyer, Lucky Dragons, the LA Phil Bass Quintet, the LA Phil New Music Group, as well as a slew of food trucks and a small tasting area for a few beers from SolArc, a brewery that began life catering wild Up parties.
Programming was the spirit of inclusiveness itself, though with a somewhat surprising slant toward sounds and big works from the European, harder, avant-garde. Piano Spheres presented Messiaen’s complete, three-hour, Catalogue d’oiseaux in the garden’s Keck Amphitheatre, calling on pianists Vicky Ray, Susan Svrcek, Thomas Kotcheff, Aron Kallay, Steven Vanjauwaert, Nic Gerpe, Danny Holt, Mark Robson, Joanne Pearce Martin, Sarah Gibson, Richard Valitutto, and Nadia Shpachenko. The playing was top notch, as expected with a roster like that, and the sounds floating in from the garden and street actually served the piece well, putting Messiaen’s birds in a context where you might actually find a few of them.
gnarwhallaby in BP Hall. Photo Credit: Craig T. Mathew/Mathew Imaging,
Other euro-avant picks for the day included the USC Percussion Ensemble’s performance of Antheil’s Ballet Mécanique with a restoration of the original Léger film, and gnarwhallaby’s even-more-aggressive-than-usual delivery of Gorecki’s Muzyczja IV, a brief, crushing, aleatoric sort of trombone concerto that was the original impetus for the group’s formation. With the LA Phil’s penchant for Gorecki’s later, more accessible, work, hearing this punch in the face in Disney Hall was a serious treat, and a highlight of the day.
But let’s get to the new stuff. Wild Up has built a National Composers Intensive in partnership with the LA Phil, in which young composers get to write for the chamber orchestra on a fast deadline, with mentorship from established personalities in the field. Wild Up picked four works for their 1 pm show, from Tina Tallon, Thomas Kotcheff, Katherine Balch, and Ali Can Puskulcu. All showed off unique voices and impressive command of orchestration. Thomas Kotcheff’s gone/gone/gone beyond/gone beyond beyond was the highlight, a riotous, overtly physical, totally insane, “total excess in all things all the time” piece that only a band like wild Up could pull off. It was convincing, self indulgant, and I loved it. I was also unaware before hearing it that guitarist Chris Kallmyer could shred that hard.
Tina Tallon’s Sear, which delved into her life with tinnitus after rupturing an ear drum a couple years ago, was a wrenching and effective listen, and my favorite piece of hers yet. Bowed styrofoam and a power drill could have been gimmicky, as could the whole idea of basing a piece on high drones and sounds disappearing – but Tina handled them with aplomb. It’s a dangerous artistic line she chose to walk with Sear, and she nailed it.
WasteLAnd performance in BP Hall. Photo Credit: Craig T. Mathew/Mathew Imaging.
Turning back to the heavier avant-garde, WasteLAnd’s set in BP Hall had the premiere of Nicholas Deyoe’s Finally, the cylindrical voids tapping along, with text by Allison Carter sung by soprano Stephanie Aston. This seemed to show a slightly simpler and more direct side of Deyoe’s writing, as his vocal music sometimes does – but I say seemed to because the bleed of crowd noise into BP Hall became a real problem for the chamber music sets as the day went on. I am sure Ashley Walters’ performance of Liza Lim’s Invisiblity was utterly stunning, and Erik Ulman’s Tout Orgueil… seemed delicate and thought provoking – but we’ll have to go to WasteLAnd’s repeat of the performance this Friday at Art Share to be sure.
Not at all affected by the crowd noise was the LA Percussion Quartet’s performance in the same space later in the day. Daniel Bjarnason and Ellen Reid presented pieces in line with their dominant aesthetics. This is by no means a bad thing – Bjarnason’s Qui Tollis had a few ideas about varying ostinati and loops from his piano concerto Processions and was similarly thrilling, and Reid’s Fear / Release was covered in decorative flourishes reminiscent of her rooftop scene from Hopscotch, a highlight of that massive opera. Jeffrey Holmes’ Ur, on the other hand, was a break through premiere. With the ensemble surrounding the audience, each musician surrounded by similar set ups of gongs, toms, bass drums, flower pots, and cymbals, we listeners were bathed in swirling cascades of sound, as players echoed each others gestures a few beats apart. I’m not sure that the piece would work as well without the spatialization – but with it, it was magic. Thankfully LAPQ tends to record in surround sound, so the effect won’t be lost when they get around to Ur.
Matt Cook (LAPQ) performing Jeffrey Holmes’ Ur. Photo Credit: Craig T. Mathew/Mathew Imaging.
Surprisingly, the evening Green Umbrella concert, with its more traditional format, felt significantly less interesting than the rest of the day. The music was perfectly good – Kate Soper’s The Ultimate Poem Is Abstract was wonderful, as was the composer/singer’s assured and entertaining delivery of the text, and Ingram Marshall’s Flow was lovely as expected – but sitting in the hall, being quiet between movements somehow felt like a comedown from the high of running around from show to show, seeing friends from across the new music spectrum enjoying all sorts of different things.
Wild Up’s 10 pm set changed that. Conductor/composer Christopher Rountree’s Word. Language. Honey., a violin concerto commissioned for Jennifer Koh who tore into it with abandon, was unequivocally the best thing Rountree has written yet. Days later, as I type this, I still get chills thinking about the unison bass drum hits decaying into the distance, and the frantic shredding of strings at the opening giving way to more lyrical passages throughout, and the clever use of text (the piece began with misdirection, as the band started playing while Rountree was seemingly introducing the program), his words coming back in recorded form later. I’ve always liked his music, but Word. Language. Honey. takes his composing from “assured, effective, solid, I like it” to stunning, unique, and powerful. It’s a piece not to be missed.
Nimbus. Photo Credit: Craig T. Mathew/Mathew Imaging.
This review could easily continue for another thousand words. Andrew McIntosh’s Yelling Into The Wind was clever and effective, a sort of play on the whole concept of the virtuoso concerto, as pianist Richard Valitutto traded simple lines with individual soloists from the rest of the ensemble. The Industry’s installation, Nimbus, with music from Rand Steiger, clouds floating above the elevators, musicians and singers walking around (also reminiscent of the last scene of Hopscotch) was whimsical and fun and gave life to an unusually dead space in Disney Hall. Jacaranda’s performance of Steve Reich’s Eight Lines was solid – Donald Crockett’s conducting is impossibly clear, useful for minimalism – and the crickets in the literal spotlight of Chris Kallmyer’s Crickets sang their little cricket hearts out.
The support from a major institution like the LA Phil of all these smaller, grassroots organizations is a huge boon to the LA scene. The phil knows that they wouldn’t have an audience for new music without the work of all these other presenters, and despite the right-leaning shade of the phrase “a rising tide lifts all ships,” every new music group in town will benefit from days like these, whether they were on the program or not.
A day after the event, I saw an instagram post from Kallmyer, a photo of his crickets being released into the wild. They sang together in his little box. Maybe now they’ll go spread all over LA and keep singing, inspired by what they did when they were together. As for the zillion musicians and ensembles and composers that the LA Phil invited into their home on Saturday, I know they will. LA Phil, thanks for having us.
Review: WasteLAnd presents Richard Valitutto
The final wasteLAnd concert of 2015, Nocturnes and Lullabies, featured Richard Valitutto at the piano and was presented on Friday evening, December 11, 2015 at Los Angeles City College’s Clausen Hall in Hollywood. An enthusiastic crowd turned out on a chilly night to hear piano music by Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Bunita Marcus, Nicholas Deyoe, Timo Andres, Helmut Lachenmann, Salvatore Sciarrino, and Linda Caitlin Smith.
NCTRN (2014) by Nicholas Deyoe started things off, opening with a sharp rap followed by a sudden, crashing chord. The piece immediately turned quiet and a series of dense, atmospheric chords drifted up, creating a shimmering undercurrent of anxiety. This continued and soon a quiet rapping was heard, as realized by several prepared keys in the uppermost notes of the keyboard. The rapping became more insistent as the piece progressed, adding another level of tension that contrasted nicely with the dark chords coming from the lower registers. The persistent knocking became louder – like a ghost trapped in a closet – ceasing suddenly at the finish.
Notturno crudelo no. 1 (2000), by Salvatore Sciarrino was next with a march-like rhythm dominating, almost mechanical in its repetition and regularity. Complex passages consisting of rapid runs and skips intervened – less strident and at times even tentative – but the forceful marcato texture invariably returned. Valitutto managed all of this with high efficiency, effectively portraying the vivid contrast between the sections.
Three pieces were then played continuously: Wiegenmusik (1963) by Helmut Lachenmann, Lullaby (2000) by Bunita Marcus and Plainsound Lullaby (2014) by Wolfgang von Schweinitz. The Lachenmann piece felt restrained, full of quiet notes and short stretches of silence. Some sharp, rapid figures were heard in the upper registers at times, but the overall feel was remote, tentative and mysterious. Lullaby by Bunita Marcus had an altogether more settled sound and featured repeating phrases combined with conventional chords, producing a more introspective feel.
The von Schweinitz piece called for Valitutto to play from the keyboard while depressing the sustain pedal and reaching inside the piano to pluck several of the strings in the lower registers. This required an awkward posture, but the results were amazing. A series of bell-like tones – almost electronic in timbre – issued out from the piano in a pleasant sonority, complimenting a quiet melody of conventional notes. This combination was both unusual and engaging and Plainsound Lullaby received sustained applause from the audience at the conclusion.
After intermission Heavy Sleep (2013) by Timo Andres began with a singular series of deep, questioning chords that were answered similarly in the higher registers. As the piece continued it became, by turns, warm, reaffirming, settled and connected until it arrived at an expansively grand sound. At times, Heavy Sleep exhibited great power, like a piano concerto without an orchestra. The playing here was accurate and the changing dynamics were negotiated effectively.
The final two pieces of the concert, A Nocturne (1995) by Linda Caitlin Smith and Lullaby 2 by Nicholas Deyoe were performed continuously. A Nocturne started quietly and there were long stretches of silence between the phrases that let the notes ring out and slowly die away. Familiar chords followed, producing a questioning, introspective feel. The stillness and quiet of this work made for a good segue to the Deyoe piece, and this began with deep, solemn chords in the lowest registers of the keyboard. Answering chords followed with higher pitches and the low chord returned again with added mystery and power. The fine touch by Valitutto brought out the delicate contrast here.
The prepared keys again made an appearance in the form of a rhythmic knocking that held the attention of the listener. This knocking dominated as the piece progressed and the supporting chords built up a dreamy atmosphere that terminated in a series of roiling runs up and down the keyboard and a sharp thunder clap. At one point the keyboard cover was closed and a soft rapping sound was made upon it. A dreamy fragment of a romantic melody appeared, conjured up so quietly and mysteriously that it seemed to be coming out of the mist in the far distance. A sudden closing of the keyboard cover brought Lullaby 2 to a final, satisfactory finish.
Richard Valitutto brought his many talents to bear on the wide variety of contemporary pieces in Nocturnes and Lullabies, consistently delivering just the right blend of passion and artful technique.
Review: Matt Barbier: FACE|RESECTION
With a name like “FACE|RESECTION,” you know it’s going to mess with your head. The album title is a merging of the two track names, Facesplitter and Bowel Resection, performed by Matt Barbier and released on populist records. Both use extended techniques transform the trombone into much more than a mere instrument.
The first track, written by composer and guitarist Nicholas Deyoe for solo trombone, imitates machine noises. A lawnmower here, a band saw there, and an electric drill and sink disposal in between evoke a soundscape of quotidian noise as music. Rarely is there a sound produced by Nicholas which does not have some parallel which can be heard from your own kitchen. This catalogue of techniques moves the listener to appreciate these noises more as music than something to be ignored. In short, I would call this music by a human about inhuman subjects for humans.
Clint McCallum’s piece is another technically startling trombone solo called “bowel resection.” It emphasizes circular breathing and uses the sniffs to remind the listener of the human behind the mechanism, of the organic being in machine. Another set of extraordinary trombone techniques, this piece brings a new emotion with each listen, one of which is, as you may guess from the name, disgust. But, like spectacular gore in a horror film, you won’t want to turn away. To compare this track to gore seems both blasphemous and fitting. You’ll have to listen for yourself.
Review: WasteLAnd Summer Concert Series Finale
On Saturday evening, August 1, 2015, the final concert of the WasteLAnd summer series was given in Clausen Hall at Los Angeles City College in Hollywood. The music consisted of works for piano and voice, with Stephanie Aston, soprano and Leslie Ann Leytham, mezzo-soprano the featured singers. Richard Valitutto and Brendan Nguyen accompanied.
The first piece on the program was Got Lost (2007/2008) by Helmut Lachenmann and this began with whooshing and breathy sounds from Stephanie Aston while a series of low solitary notes issued from the piano, played by Richard Valitutto. This continued for a some minutes but gradually some humming was heard along with a few musical fragments of tunes. This escalated, and rapid runs on the piano keyboard collided with powerfully sustained pitches by Ms. Aston as the dynamic balance shifted back and forth between them. As the piece continued the voice parts became more musical and the piano took on a split personality with Richard Valitutto skilfully executing a number of extended techniques. The piano strings were variously strummed, plucked and stopped by hand as a note was played and this gave rise to a number of interesting effects in quick succession; it actually seemed as if there were two different instruments accompanying the vocals. Perhaps the most intriguing effect was when the piano was silent but with the sustain pedal held down. Ms. Anston gave out a short fortissimo passage that was caught by the piano strings and heard as a ghostly echo. Lachenmann’s unconventional techniques were on full display in this piece – all the more impressive as none involved electronics or amplification of any kind.
Got Lost is without any sort of beat and the performers were seen to be cuing each other as they worked their way through. Their timing and coordination were admirable given the unorthodox demands of the score. The various clicks and pops of the vocal sounds were like a frustrated foreign language, just on edge of intelligibility. The piano added to the alien, anxious feeling with sharp, stabbing notes and loud crashes at unexpected intervals. Got Lost astonishes the listener with its ever-changing series of complex sounds, textures and dynamics and the performance on this occasion was smoothly and skillfully realized.
5 McCallum Songs (2011) by Nicholas Deyoe followed, again featuring Stephanie Aston and Richard Valitutto. This piece consists of five sections, each a setting of the text from the series Love Poems, by poet Clint McCallum. The opening section begins with deep, solemn chords from the piano and the airy soprano voice above singing “I want you to look at me with throbbing eyes…” This sets the tone – plaintive, yet with a smoldering passion. High soprano notes arced gracefully above the piano accompaniment and with the words “I want to show you the cover, and snatch the book away” Richard Valitutto slammed shut the keyboard cover on the piano to end this section.
The second section seemed yet more sorrowful and the quiet vocals had a feeling of lonely sadness about them that hinted at distress. In section three the singing was stronger and more active with soft piano notes and chords underneath. The text “Your begging eyes free my soul, I’ll never let you go” was especially moving. Section four had a single line that was repeated: “to convince you” and this was beautifully sung by Ms. Aston in a small, soft voice. For the final section the piano was tacet and the emotion from the soprano voice singing “ and as I turned you grabbed me and kissed me” was very moving. 5 McCallum Songs filled the spacious hall with a quiet economy of sound yet completely imparted all of the sentiment embedded in the text.
The final piece in the concert was Canti della tenebra (2011) by Swiss-born composer Beat Furrer and this was the US premiere. The featured singer was Leslie Ann Leytham, mezzo-soprano and the pianist was Brendan Nguyen. Canti della tenebra, a setting of text by Dino Campania, was sung entirely in Italian and proceeded in a series of sections. The first began with a deep rumble in the lower registers of the piano that dominated the soft vocals and this established the feeling of faint tension that suffuses throughout the entire work. The voice line soared briefly above, but the piano became more agitated, with notes running rapidly up and down the keyboard. The voice retreated into low, quiet tones, as if subdued, and this added an understated color to the overall texture. Eventually, the piano dropped back a bit as if to give the vocalist some space for a final declarative statement to conclude the opening section.
There were moments that overcame the early bleakness. In a later section, the singing of Ms. Leytham took the lead with a lovely chromatic melody line with the piano in a supporting role. This produced a more introspective feeling, aided by some masterful singing in the lower registers. Still another section had a more uplifting feel as a line of single piano notes was followed by warm, sustained tones in the voice that made for some lovely harmony. The later sections restated the initial sense of anxiety with waves of active piano notes and a series of strong vocal passages filled with tension. Towards the close an extended piano solo moderated the disquiet and the singing became gentle and reassuring. Some very lovely singing and playing followed as the piano slowly faded away at the finish.
Canti della tenebra contains a wide range of emotions that must flow through the voice and piano. The singing of Leslie Ann Leytham – especially in the lower, darker registers – was admirably suited to this task and the playing of Brendan Nguyen provided the ideal accompaniment.
This final concert of the WasteLAnd summer series proved how powerful and evocative the simple combination of voice, piano and poetic text can be in the right artistic hands.
Concert tonight: Gnarwhallaby at Boston Court
Gnarwhallaby open their season tonight at Boston Court, with premieres from Colin Wambsgans and Nick Deyoe, and music by Martin Smolka, Edison Denisov, and Henryk Gorecki.
These guys rock. Here’s an example of why:
Tickets are at http://www.bostoncourt.com/events/221/gnarwhallaby, and you get $5 off with the code “MUSIC2014”.
Interview: WasteLAnd’s Nick Deyoe, Matt Barbier, Scott Worthington, Brian Griffeath-Loeb, and Elise Roy
WasteLAnd‘s second season at ArtShare starts this Friday, September 19 (tomorrow) at 8 PM, with percussionist Justin DeHart performing John Luther Adams’ The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies in its entirety. Their first season at the venue was a blast, and drew great crowds for dense and challenging music. We managed to track down the series’ co-directors for an interview about the series and what’s coming up.
What was the impetus to start this series?
Scott: I think we had all individually dreamed of having a series that played music we wished would get played more ’round these parts. Then we realized that multiple heads can be better than one. Our programming is sort of a mash up of all of our desires. For example. I mostly just recommend pieces that are long enough to be the whole concert.
Matt: A lot of the music I really love has a tendency to fall in the cracks between different series in town, so for me, an exciting part of wasteLAnd is getting to focus upon music that I really love that is just outside of the mission of a lot of the series and groups I play with. It’s exciting to get to listen to other performers interested in this type of music and hear what they want to play, but don’t get to, and help provide a space for them.
Nick: I’ve been talking about wanting to do this for years. I’ve never really wanted to run an ensemble, but have wanted to run either a series or a venue for quite a while. In fact, I would love it if, at some point down the road, it became possible for wasteLAnd to have its own space. I had discussed this off and on for some time with Scott, Brian, and Matt, but nothing ever got started until Scott finally found an opportunity through ArtShare that looked promising as a way to launch wasteLAnd.
Is there a central mission, theme, or idea you program your concerts around, or is each one a beast of its own?
Scott: We try to focus on local performers the most (their repertoire interests and, of course, performances), local composers second, and then music that doesn’t seem to show it’s face much around Los Angeles. From there we try to put together concerts that we want to go to.
Matt: Frequently a programming decision is made around the idea of “I really want to hear/perform this one piece, but it’s too much for me to throw together a concert.” With wasteLAnd that’s frequently become a central kernel for a concert. We have an idea for one or two pieces one of us really loves and that gives us a bend and ensemble to build around. Or at least that’s how I think…
Nick: Basically what Scott said… We love LA and want to show how special the things that happen here are while also presenting music by composers around the country/world who excite us. The five of us (Elise, Brian, Matt, Scott, myself) have pretty different aesthetic positions. For anything to be programmed, all five of us have to be on board with it, rather than a simple majority vote. This is something I feel strongly about because it helps to keep our overall output broad and requires that we all give serious consideration to all of the ideas that are brought to the table (or G-chat conference).
I’ve heard Barbier joke that the directors are Deyoe’s minions. How do you guys divide responsibilities?
Brian: This is a classic example of Barbier’s inability to grasp infinite recursion. As one of the directors himself, Deyoe clearly makes this so-called “joke” an ontological cow pie.
Matt: Well maybe I’m just Deyoe’s minion, or at least try to be.
Nick: the division of responsibilities is an ongoing project for us. For season one, everyone kind of did everything. For each set of tasks that came up, we’d email around with a list of “what needs to be done” and divvy up the responsibilities. This will always be some version of how we do it (especially during concert weeks), but we are also working on better defining our individual roles within the organization to make certain aspects more efficient.
What do we have to look forward to in the coming season?
Nick: LOTS to look forward to! We’re excited to finally be at the point of announcing things (coming out this afternoon along with our kickstarter). We’ve been thinking about the concerts (programs/personnel/logistics) since April. We have 25-30 local performers playing and are presenting something around 30 composers. Some highlights are The Formalist Quartet with Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick in October, Mark Menzies and Stephanie Aston with the wasteLAnd musicians performing Ferneyhough’s Terrain and Etud
Matt: What Nick wrote. This year is exciting because it’s a wonderful mix of pieces I’ve wanted to play for a long time (Terrain, Saxony, Hölszky’s WeltenEnden, EARTH) and that I’ve always dreamed of hearing like- particularly Ferneyhough’s Etudes Transcendantales. So for me it’s very exciting and I think this year’s programs will have that for a lot of people.
Is Elise Roy having any issues with being the only beardless member?
Brian: All conditions are impermanent. My beard, for instance, has grown substantially in the last few days. Elise was brought on for her deep existential wisdom; I doubt she’d fall prey to fears of beardlessness as a permanent state of being…
Nick: I think there’s still plenty of beard to go around. Having Elise as a part of the team has been great so far. She came in once most of the season was already planned, but will be instrumental in our planning for season 3 and has also offered a lot of very useful insight as we prepare to raise the funds for the current season.
Anything else you’d like to share?
Scott: Please be on the look out for our Kickstarter which will help prolong wasteLAnd’s life and wellbeing.
Matt: Well one can braid top-of-head hair into a beard with quite successful results.
Elise: If you find yourself at any of our concerts, please introduce yourself or say hi to us. For the five of us, one of the joys of hosting this series is seeing the new music community of Southern California come together!
Nicholas Deyoe: Erstickend
Ashley Walters and Derek Stein, cellos, and Ryan Nestor, percussion, performed Nicholas Deyoe’s piece Erstickend at WasteLAnd’s concert back in April at Art Share. It was such a cool piece and killer performance that I thought it deserved to be heard/seen on here.
WasteLAnd’s second season at Art Share starts next Friday, September 19, with Justin DeHart performing John Luther Adams’ The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies. Details are at wastelandmusic.org.
Interview: Andrew and Andrew of populist records
Last Monday populist records held the release party for Nicholas Deyoe’s album with throbbing eyes at Machine Project in Echo Park. It’s a significant event not only because we’ve got a sweet new album to listen to, but because it marks the new label’s first release. We managed to catch up with founders/owners/operators Andrew McIntosh and Andrew Tholl to discuss plans for the label and all of the stuff coming up that we get to be excited about.
First off, how was the release party? I’m sorry I had to miss it.
The release show was very successful. You can’t really go wrong with beer, cupcakes, live performance, and a bunch of people who are excited to hear some new music.
Ha, agreed. It seems like there’s been a serious groundswell of new classical and experimental music coming out of LA, and specifically Echo Park, in just the last couple of years. Is that the case, or is something that’s always been there just gaining more exposure lately?
Los Angeles and the West Coast in general have traditionally been places of great creativity and experimentalism. In the earlier part of the last century we had Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and John Cage. Other composers like Harry Partch, Lou Harrison, Harold Budd, and James Tenney chose to make this area their home as well. The West has an iconic history of being an enclave for free spirits and rogue thinkers, while on the East Coast there seems to be much more infrastructure and a more clearly defined concept for how music is made.
[See: this cell phone video of Nicholas Deyoe and Clint McCallum playing at the release party]
That being said, it is hard for us to speak for LA’s more recent history since we both have only been here for the last six years, but it seems that right now there is a whole community of exciting musicians who are choosing to make a place for themselves in this city. Many of us come from elsewhere, but a connective thread in the community that we’re referring to is that many of us came to LA for CalArts at some point. What we like about the community here is that it is not clearly defined and has many faces, but it seems to be made up of people who really believe in what they are doing, do it well, and are committed to presenting a wide range of music in a compelling and often slightly unusual manner.
One might think that by starting a label at this moment, you’d be perfectly poised to capture what’s been going on (and I’m sure you’ve heard more than enough references to what New Amsterdam is doing in Brooklyn). At the same time, with all of the developments over downloading, minuscule payments from streaming royalties, and so forth, this is a pretty rough time for labels, perhaps even more so than artists. Could you discuss your thoughts on going into this business side of the scene?
Well, I don’t think either of us ever really thought we should start a record label because it would be a great way to make money. We probably won’t…at least not for quite a while. But it still seemed worthwhile for us to start the label anyway. While it might seem like we’re suddenly jumping into the music business, both of us have been working as freelance musicians for years – which is very much a kind of business that you run for yourself; starting a label is just another aspect of that. As far as the comparisons to New Amsterdam go, we haven’t really heard many…we’re just starting out and I don’t think too many people are aware of us yet. But we are very aware of New Amsterdam and think the community they’ve created is pretty amazing. If we could do the same out here, we’d be pleased.
Nicholas Deyoe’s with throbbing eyes is one hell of an aesthetic statement for a label’s first release. Do you see yourself as representing the whole of this music that’s being made in and around LA, or do you have a sound in particular that you’re hoping to cover? Perhaps something akin to the more drastic side of modernism featured here?
Well we had to put something out first, but I don’t think that our first release should necessarily be taken as a statement towards what “kind” of music we intend to continue putting out. We put out Nick’s music because we like it and think it’s really good and deserves to be heard, which is probably the biggest criteria for anything we will put out in the future – we have to like it. But there’s a lot of different kinds of music that we like. While we both live Southern California and want to put out projects from our community and invest in the people around us, we don’t really have a goal of representing the entirety of the Los Angeles music scene…it’s just too big.
How hands on are you with production? I know that sounds like a silly question, but I’m curious…I know some label heads who are check in on their artists every day in the studio, while others, in a sense, foot the bill and wait for a recording to be delivered for them to take to the market. I know this first release had been previously recorded. Is that the plan?
Well, we had been talking about starting a label for at least the last year, maybe two, and we had already played on half of the works on with throbbing eyes, so we were already pretty involved before anything official happened. The album needed a home so it motivated us to actually get things going and start the label. While the album was Nick’s project, there was still a strong collaborative effort between ourselves and him throughout much of the production process. For now, I can’t really see us putting anything out where we don’t already have some sort of relationship with the composers or artists involved. Also, the way an album is put together – the space it’s recorded in, the musicians, the mixing, the track order, the album cover, etc. – is very important to us and is something we are very consciously crafting for each project.
What’s next for the label?
Our second release comes out on March 13 and will be a mostly solo album of music by minimalist composer Tom Johnson that Andrew McIntosh is recording and organizing. It also features local musicians Brian Walsh on clarinet, composer Douglas Wadle as a narrator, and is being recorded and mastered by Nicolas Tipp, who has very much been a part of the creative process for that project. It’s also interesting that both Tom Johnson and Nicholas Deyoe are originally from Colorado.
After that things are a little open, but we have several projects in the works. It is extremely likely that we will put out an album with wild Up (in collaboration with Chris Rountree and again, Nicolas Tipp). Also, we will at some point put out a duo CD of the two of us featuring composers who have come out of the CalArts community, a CD of Andrew Tholl’s experimental/improv ensemble touchy-feely, maybe a full length from the Formalist Quartet, and possibly some Morton Feldman. Oh, and in the indie label tradition, we’re toying with the idea of a single of the month club that would allow us to put out some shorter things that we think should be heard but don’t necessarily work on a whole album.
That would be amazing, please do that. Is there anything else you’d like to add?
We’re really thrilled at the response we’ve had to the label so far. It’s encouraging that so many people are interested in what we’re trying to do. We hope you’ll check out our first release, enjoy it, and continue to follow us as we try to build something great.
You can check out all that populist records has coming up at populistrecords.com, and order (or download) a copy of with throbbing eyes here.