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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2007 > November > 13
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Review: Audio Inversions
Audio Inversions rewarded the crowd that followed the new music presenters to Laguna Gloria Monday night — a change from the group’s usual downtown venue — by delivering a tight, pretty and polished program. Sure, the acoustics of the historic villa weren’t ideal. But the beguiling setting allowed the group to do what it does best: Present the work of living composers in an accessible, friendly manner to make an absolutely engaging evening.
Karmen Suter — AI’s artistic director — set the tone for the evening with Ian Clarke’s engaging, and slightly whacky, flute solo, ‘The Great Train Race.’ Sure, we knew a flute can mimic plenty of train noises, but who knew it took so much sheer virousity to do so.
P. Kellach Waddle’s ‘The Grave Concerns’ was a delightful series of vigorous vignettes for flute and bass (not your typical duet pairing of instruments), while ‘Rhapsodic Variations on a Theme of Wieniawski’ was Waddle’s smart answer to the problem of a lack of solo bass pieces: Write your own and show off the range of the instrument.
David T. Little’s ‘Descanso (waiting)’ proved the artistic standout of the evening. The New Jersey-based Little, who made the trip to Austin to introduce his piece, was inspired by the tradition of marking the sites where someone has died with a cross or other memorial. An emotional-filled sonic poem for a small ensemble, ‘Descanso’ reverberated with haunting layers. The playful ring of ordinary wind chimes floated in and out of melancholic yet slightly dissonant melodies that rose and fell, intensifying then pulling back. ‘Descanso (waiting)’ was the perfect musical portrait of the swirl of contradictory emotions that surge when anticipating the loss of a loved one.
Guest artists violinist Stephanie Teply and cellist Benjamin Westney impressed with Russian composers Sophia Gubaidulina’s haunting sonata, ‘Freue Dich.’ And the duo did a superb job with ‘There Shore Serenity’ by James D. Norman, one of AI’s two composers-in-residences. ‘There’ started out an inward-turning series of overlapping melodic arches that deftly built to more dramatic sweeps. (Norman wrote the piece specifically for Teply and Westney.)
Audio Inversion’s formula for a tight 90-minute program of new music is like the best kind of artistic buffet: Plenty of surprise, delight and variety with none of the unnecessary filling. And that treat-filled after-show reception the group presents to just because they want to thank their audience? That’s first class!
Missing Arthouse Texas Prize belt buckle?
Seems that Katrina Moorhead, winner of the 2007 Arthouse Texas Prize, lost the giant belt buckle that came with the $30,000 no-strings-attached award.
According to a listing on Craig’s List, Moorhead and her companion misplaced the large silver oval buckle somewhere on their post-party travails through downtown Austin after the Nov. 2 Arthouse gala BBQ and awards ceremony at Stubb’s.
Oops! Good thing Moorhead didn’t let the $30,000 check slip from her hands.
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