minimalist jukebox, part I
this past saturday night i attended what was the first of the five concerts (that i’m going to) in the minimalist jukebox festival taking place here in los angeles. i had mixed feelings for the evening, mostly because the first night featured steve reich. its not that i don’t like his music, but that i like it a great deal. variations for winds, strings and keyboards, and three movements for orchestra were the first two minimalist pieces that was introduced to. having to wait almost 20 years to hear them live is pretty bittersweet and sums up my feelings about much of this festival.
since i’m not a critic i’m not going try and organize my thoughts into a complete narrative and instead share them as they come:
flipping through my program i found it curious that their fearless leader esa-pekka salonen declined to conduct anything in this festival. i know he needs to travel and guest conduct to promote himself, but is conducting beethoven’s 5th one more time that important?
update: its been pointed out to me that essa pekka was premiering a new opera by kaaja sarajaho in paris this week.
overall the performance was transcendent. the tempos of both the variations and three movements were a bit on the slow side for my taste, but the effect in the variations was very similar to watching the sun come up. reich is minimalist with a capital M, giving each section of the orchestra only one job to do. the strings and brass are the sustain, the woodwinds and keyboards are the ostinato machine.
the hall is still not very good match for any amplified music (reich seems to come off the worst), but the amplified keyboards in the first half were the most successful blend that i had heard.
the crowd was pretty light with many of the subscription seats empty and i really despise having to sit in the dark during concerts.
the amplification became most disconcerting during tehillim (although better than the premier performance of you are) the vocalists were amplified through the house and made the orchestra seem weak and feeble. its like listening to your headphones only with only the treble. after a while i got used to it, but the hand percussion(clapping and shakers) couldn’t compete. i would have changed all of the clapping to claves to get a better ictus and tighten up the ensemble on stage.
i think the best solution is to keep all amplification limited to amps or a small pa on the stage. then the sounds at least match and blend with the ensemble. this worked much better with the keyboard and amp grant gershon used to accompany meredith monk and the master chorale on sunday night.
synergy vocals gave a fine performance, especially once the soprano (amy haworth?) voice warmed up, but the opening and closing syncopation counterpoint sounded pretty muddy.
their outfits didn’t quite match the evening, when they came out in spangled tops the first thing i thought was swingle singers. once i read their bio, i understood that is were their founder is from.
the final result? i was under whelmed, but i cannot really fault the performers. if this music hadn’t been a part of my dna i would have probably been thrilled. the memory is usually better than the moment.
sunday night was an infinitely better. it started off with grant gershon’s customary introduction to the evenings music. his descriptions are clear and simple to the point that even my mother would be interested in attending the concert. the mood was more upbeat than saturday, the crowd almost full and the house lights were on just enough to read the program.
both part’s works the beatitudes and by the waters of bablyon we sat and wept accent all the best elements of disney hall. even though i’m basically agnostic, the organ and chorus of the beatitudes probably point to some kind of intelligent design.
i didn’t know what to expect of the meredith monk pieces that followed. i hadn’t seen her perform live before (although i had the chance) and most opinions were that she was a minor minimalist, probably a few rungs below reich, glass and riley. i had listened to some of her music in school and more recently from ubuweb , but you have to see it live to get it.
it was the most human musical performance i have attended, but let me digress a little.
overall i enjoy disney hall for its architecture and great acoustics for “classical” music performances. it is a cathedral of and for music that most of the time overwhelms the performers who cannot quite rise above the building they are performing in. sometimes it even has that tomblike quality of what it must have felt like being buried alive with the pharaoh in the pyramids. “hey this sucks being buried alive, but the architecture is grand”
so with all that being said, meredith’s monks music was the first performance to surpass the architecture (that i have seen). she adapted her movement and music to fit the master chorale vocalists and it came off very well. i usually hate any movement with vocals. peter sellars staging and movement in john adams el nino was not the worst, but was very similar to the choreography you can see with any high school colorguard/flag team in competition. monk’s movement brought out inherent repetitions and patterns and destroyed the high art concept of ensemble. there wasn’t an orchestra or chorus on the stage, only people expressing themselves through movement and voice. i just kick myself for not seeing her live earlier. mea culpa!
after the incredible first half, i knew the second half was the compromise of the evening. i’m sure not many people would consider michael torke a minimalist in any sense, only that his music is rhythmic and toe-tapping. my wife started singing along to magnificent seven during his copeland-esque introduction to the book of proverbs. in terms of orchestration, a maximalist would be a better description (but not a totalist in the definition of kyle gann). my main gripes with torke’s work was the orchestrational blinders he must use while composing. did he want to write an orchestra piece or a sax quartet with string accompaniment? the filigree transitions either are very poorly written or show a lack of interest in the actual performance of the work. it looked like the audience was confused also, there were probably 10-15 walkouts during the piece and yet it received the largest applause and standing ovation with two curtain calls.
although my wife was pretty upset after the second half (this is the first concert she ever left burning mad, mostly because of the second half music was not anywhere as good at what preceded it), i’m not sure why anybody would walkout during the torke, especially after the sitting through the part or monk? maybe they are the same people who leave the dodger games after the 7th inning to beat traffic?
next: tonight i’m off to see my guitarist dave kurutz perform the glenn branca
purcell's bitch
anyway, what do you think of the title. i overheard somebody talking a little shit about me the other day. mumbled something that my music was bad purcell. i took it as a compliment. now i want to write something to make it official.
its my friday and i already got a good start on my weekend by skipping my train this morning to get a few hours of writing before i drove into work at the last minute. its funny but i know its”writing time” where i’m a little pissed off about it. my good friend ryan kelly used to say it best. “my day job is getting in the way of my personal life”
that all being said, losing yourself in teaching classes is a good thing. i’m really happy with teaching this semester. i think i’ve made some good adjustments and there is much less stress than fall. next week my music ed students will be finishing up teaching 4 weeks of 4th grade music. you probably wouldn’t think it, but 4th grade is the ultimate music teaching experience. they are at the perfect place to be introduced to music performance (remember the recorder?). they also are a lot more honest and open (concrete stage of development) to good and bad teaching sequences and strategies. they will really let you know if they don’t think you are doing a good job. its a really great experience (and somewhat painful) for the pre-credential teachers. i’m really proud how the kept their heads up and took their first steps at teaching. it wasn’t always pretty, but now they have a sense of what the future is so now they can start focusing what the first years of teaching will really be like.
the women’s music festival last week was very interesting. it was fun to see ethel perform some great music and swap some stories in the world’s worst hotel bar afterwards. marc swed evidently liked it, although i’m not sure if he ever has aesthetically criticized much. its great that he is such a supporter and good writer about new music, but sometimes i wonder if we are at the same concert. my luck i’ll be the first one to really feel his wrath. oh well, what do they say… any press is good press. btw… it was mentioned in swed’s review that our vocal department doesn’t want meredith monk to give a clinic. wtf??? kinda too late, i think they can already hear her on tv.
i also just found another good one here
(click on the watch button after the flash introduction)
nyc winter break 06
i’m back and finally settling down from my nyc vacation. this year the wife finally traveled with me and we crammed a whole lot into the trip. she is in grad school for the next 3 years and i know we might not get any extended vacation for quite a while.
the first few weeks of the new year is a pretty light time for music, but i was lucky to catch corey dargel’s performance of his new piece “removable parts” at the here performance space. as my friend sean says “he really has his coffee cup”
i was interested to see him perform live. the irony that flowed freely during the performance works much better in his lyrics than the banter between songs. i really admire his ability to create a sonic pallete for each song. his strength comes from a real unique and subtle instrumental settings of his lyrics.
added note-
i just realized the main difference between corey’s songs and those of overly “celebrated” arrangements of jon brion and wilco is that corey understands he doesn’t need to throw the kitchen sink in with the soup. the “studio” bands that obsess on the fetish commodity of adding arcane and strange muscial sounds to create an musical interest are only trading on musical pastiche. i.e. the arrangements end up making no sense in live performance. at first glance corey’s songs seem to live in this world of artifice, but actually are the real deal and are their own world.
other musical performances were mostly uninspiring sets at the lower east side clubs. standing around in my winter coat with an eight dollar beer really sucks. i didn’t find the diamond in the rough like the last trip, but i’ll still drag my ass out in search of the band that can string more than two good songs together.
the rest of the trip was divided by days making the tour of the local museums (the whitney is still my favorite) , dance and theatre. after a few puzzling nights this fall trying to understand los angeles wunderkind ken roht’s theatre hijinks, i decided to try out some of ny’s finest “experimental theater” without getting into too much detail i came away with similar observations but no real understanding of these “avant-guard/elitist” spectacles.
- all of the performances i attended had moments where many people were laughing at nothing in particular. was it nervous laughter?
- if richard foreman is making a statement against the “avant-guard/elitist” perspective by using its theatrical language, how isn’t this another “avant-guard/elitist” statement? it all seems to be commentary about artistic battles that were fought 20 years ago and have no meaning anymore. i think everybody who cared picked up their toys and have gone home.
- i have seen a lot of “shadow acting” where one character mimes behind the person currently speaking to accent various phrases in monologue. it is kind of a strange counterpoint, but i have to seen it often enough to say… enough now, it really doesn’t add anything and is obviously cliche on both coasts.
- dressing up in leather and chains to be edgy and hip isn’t working anymore.
- can i say again how scary it is to see 35 people laugh at nothing in particular?
i guess i know what it feels like to be a music neophyte going to a “modern music” concert. all of these productions were well reviewed and higly recommend (except corey who gave me the heads up on richard foreman). i think i’m pretty “with-it” and felt like i forgot my secret decoder ring for each performance. if anyone would care to explain what i’m missing or offer alternative productions i should see, i would be happy to try them out (in los angeles), but after this debacle i haven’t a clue where to start next.
i did take my wife to broadway with only mixed results. she had a real desire to see wicked (which after buying tickets online and applying for a new american express card to save $100 still cost me more than a few days of salary), and we both kinda enjoyed it but not at the prices we paid. it was one of those shows where for the character motivations to work out you had to forget everything that happened two scenes earlier. its probably best for teenage girls.
avenue q the best of any show i have seen in quite a while. best puppet sex ever!!! (although my violinist sam fisher prefers the uncut dvd versions in team america-world police) broadway may get pretty sappy, but its still intesting to see the new tricks in set design, choreography and costumes before they get watered down on their respective national tours. no matter if it is musical theatre or opera its not easy moving people around while singing and there are staging/design/choreography tricks to be learned from any show. i also really like how small the theatres are. tickets are expensive, but there really are not any bad seats.
removable parts
just got back from corey dargel’s show “removeable parts”.
it was a great show!
i was really happy to see that his music works just as well performed live.
more tomorrow…(later this morning)
Ensemble's Mix Is A Classic Alternative: Josef Woodard/LAtimes (2005)
Los Angeles Times, January 21st, 2005
(Copyright (c) 2005 Los Angeles Times)
“After his concert at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, Paul Bailey spoke to the audience about his ongoing adventure, the Paul Bailey Ensemble — an “alternative classical garage band.”
Fair enough: The cheeky description points to the group’s self- reliant, can-do spirit and its intention to mix high and low culture, art and pop. Fittingly, the setting was the casual Sierra Room, where the audience sat at tables as if in a new-music cabaret.
A balanced grouping of strings, woodwinds, guitar, bass, keyboard, vibraphone and sometimes vocalists, the ensemble consists of classically trained and impressively focused players who create an appealing, collective sound. Bailey, a trombonist, educator and composer, formed the group in 2002 as a do-it-yourself forum outside the usual and limited channels of classical music presentation.
Stylistically, the ensemble is very much locked into the Minimalist groove. The Cerritos concert was well-stocked with repetitive lines, easygoing tonalities, and undulating cascades of eighth notes, reminding us of the comforting, even old-fashioned, charm of the Minimalist style.
In the concert’s first half, instrumental pieces from Bailey’s suite “Summerland” and guitarist Sean R. Ferguson’s “Chopping Tool” offered their rhythmically chugging energies, more about ensemble machinery than melodic or thematic development. These fed directly from the inspirational trough of such classic Minimalist recordings as Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians” and Philip Glass’ “Glassworks.” The inclusion of electric guitar ( Ferguson ) and bass (Matt Menaged) nudge the sound more toward a rock aesthetic, thanks to our associative connection with those tools.
This program’s main attraction came after intermission, with the world premiere of Bailey’s ambitious “Retrace Our Steps,” ostensibly written for mezzo-soprano Nicole Baker. She sang key parts in the four-movement work, with text that included cryptic poetics by Gertrude Stein and socio-philosophical tracts by Guy Debord and Jenny Bitner. But Baker ultimately became a team player and folded into the democratic mesh of the ensemble’s conjuring of nine instrumentalists and four additional vocalists.
One unsettling aspect of an otherwise engaging concert was the canned texture of sound processed through microphones, allowing acoustic instruments to compete with electronic ones. Then again, that is a hallmark of Minimalism, which borrows from pop’s sound palette and equipment list on the path to a new classical paradigm. In short, the Paul Bailey Ensemble is out of the garage and on the way up.”
critic fight!
nevermind
music by micahel welsh and scooter pietsch
its kinda like i found out i have older cousins i have never met.
i was catching up on email and found out two of the more successful reality tv and film composers are putting on a concert at colburn school/zipper hall today. vic called yestereday afternoon and said he was playing and i should check it out. it turns out that michael and scooter studied with lloyd rodgers at csuf about 10 years earlier.
its probably too late for most of you to attend but here is the info:
you can find out more on scooter pietsch’s music at his website and blog
CONCERT OF NEW MUSIC FOR MULTIPLE SOLOISTS AND STRING ORCHESTRA
by MICHAEL WELSH and SCOOTER PIETSCH
Sunday, May 29, 2005 – 2:00PM – Zipper Concert Hall
MICHAEL SWEENEY bassoon, DAVID JOHNSON vibraphone and percussion
ANGELI DUO: JULIE GIGANTE and SARA PARKINS violins
MULHOLLAND STRING QUARTET
RALPH MORRISON violin, RICHARD ALTENBACH violin,
SIMON OSWELL viola, ANDREW SHULMAN cello
BRENT McMUNN conductor
Noted Los Angeles television and film composers SCOOTER PIETSCH and
MICHAEL WELSH have teamed up for a concert of their art music. They
are dedicated to getting new music played and heard in Los Angeles.
Michael and Scooter have been friends since their college days at
California State University, Fullerton, where they both studied with
composer LLOYD RODGERS. The following week, the artists go into the
studio to record the pieces for CD release.
Aficionados will immediately recognize the artists as this area’s top
players from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Chamber
Orchestra, the USC Thornton School of Music, CalArts, and the motion
picture and television studios. MICHAEL SWEENEY is principal
bassoonist of the Toronto Symphony.
Tickets: $20 at the box office. Reception following.
channel surfing with mikel rouse
i just got back from watching mikel rouse’s music for minorities at uclalive. ian krouse’s new opera was just next door and we walked into it by accident. we were about to take our seats, but when i saw an orchestra in the pit i knew it was the wrong place. i also remembered the [...]
ethel@sci-arc, 02-26-05
ethel had great concert yesterday at sci-arc. i haven’t been to this concert series before and was impressed by its organization (although somebody needs to tell the volunteer ushers to dial it down) big crowd, almost sold out with at least 350 people. ethel-ralph farris (viola) dorothy lawson (cello) todd reynolds (violin) mary rowell (violin), [...]
steve reich-you are (variations)-la master chorale performance
disclaimer 1. this should be obvious, i am not a professional music critic. my opinions are just that. think of this as a technical review. 2. you should also know that i had vocal and instrumental friends that performed tonight. 3. i was at the dress rehearsal and sat in the front of the hall. [...]
steve reich-you are (variations) dress rehearsal
just got back from the la master chorale dress rehearsal of the new steve reich piece you are (variations). It is a great new work in the style of desert music and eight lines. I probably will review the sunday performance, but my initial impressions are strong. here are some of the highlights. the ensemble [...]
wash, rinse, repeat
although there is so much work surrounding concerts can be overwhelming (rehearsals, press releases, setups, sound checks….) i find myself reflecting on what is all of this about and last week leading up to our concert in long beach it hit me. it’s all very simple. write good music play great put people in the [...]
