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- At AMOA-Arthouse Laguna Gloria, small is the new big
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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > February > 08
Monday, February 8, 2010
Recent arts coverage
Tapping Bach, an edgy contemporary painting to make a new ballet | Project Forklift continues to explore dance by non-dancers: Video included
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Review: Golden Hornet Project: Symphony VI
If alt classical music presenters Golden Hornet Project accomplished nothing else Saturday night at two sold-out concerts at Austin Ventures Studio Theatre, the group made clear that their raison d’etre is relevant: Audiences are hungry for new composed music - or new classical music. And if you offer it in an accessible manner, they’ll be there to listen.
And listen eagerly and appreciatively the audience did as GHP co-artistic directors Graham Reynolds and Peter Stopschinski debuted their respective sixth symphonies, each written for string orchestra.
To add a little context to their alt classical genre-less starting point, Reynolds and Stopschinski added ‘Popcorn Superhet Receiver’ to finish the program, a two-movement symphonic work by Jonny Greenwood, BBC composer-in-residence and leadman of alt rock band Radiohead.
And the audience got it — the alt classical context, the sense of occasion of new music being debuted, the energetic yet unassuming vibe that both Austin composers project.
And the audience loved it: the energy in the room was palpable.
At times, though, that rawboned energy got the best of the orchestra, leaving spots in all three pieces in messy, if breathless, disarray. Conductor Ludek Drizhal did his best to corral the energy and maintain focus with each piece’s singular, and volatile, musicality.
Reynolds’ ‘The Difference Engine’ was triple concerto in five movements for violin (Leah Zeger), cello (Jonathan Dexter) and Reynolds on piano. Reynolds’ packed ‘Difference’ with his signature musical devices: plaintive melodies, charging rhythms, percussive splashes that were realized in Reynolds playing the piano strings with mallets and a few hyper-virtuosic solos (this time mostly for violin). Reynolds maintains something of a narrative thread through even his most varied works, a thread for the listener to make their way through even some of the most rapid-fire musical routes.
Stopschinski’s ‘Rough Night With Happy Ending’ traded on lots of harmonic and rhythmic complexities to terrific effect. Dark yet melodic colorations strode on top; a little rough scratching and other instrumental noise-making percolated throughout. Toying even further, Stopschinksi placed the violin section on both sides of the orchestra to simulate an echo. It was Surround Sound, the non-electronic version if you will. Though a mash-up of many things, ‘Rough Night’ made all its experiments rewarding.
Greenwood’s ‘Popcorn’ also aims to imitate electronic sound with unplugged instruments, riffing on the whooshing white noise that radio emits as a signal scoots up and down the dial. But at Friday’s first show, not all of the discrete glissandos and slow explorations of almost atonal clusters manifested as clearly as they could have which left Greenwood’s piece bereft of its clarity.
It’s a challenge of brand new compositions — the energy they demand. But it’s a challenge Austin musicians and audiences are clearly eager to take on.
Photo: Peter Stopschinski (foreground) with conductor Ludek Drizhal. Photo by Callie Richmond.
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Review: ‘John & Jen’
Penfold Theatre distinguished itself last year, surprising Austin theater-goers with ‘The Last Five Years,’ a one-act, two character musical. The production garnered Penfold, and Michael McKelvey, the show’s director, rave reviews and several nominations from the Austin Critics’ Table.
Now, McKelvey and Penfold bring us ‘John & Jen’ another modern chamber musical at the Hideout Theatre.
With music by Andrew Lippa and lyrics Tom Greenwald ‘John & Jen’ charts the story of two siblings growing up against the shifting American political landscape as the conservative 1950s gives way to the liberal, volatile 1960s.
Backed by a trio of piano, cello and percussion (in the tiny Hideout the musicians were shoehorned backstage revealed only partially through a gap in the stage set wall), Andrew Cannata and Sarah Gay had enormous tasks in shouldering the entire two-act sung-through musical. They also had to convincingly play their characters as children, teens and adults which they did with composure.
Jen leaves her younger brother along to survive in their stifling, repressive household when heads to college and the hippy lifestyle. John later heads to Vietnam. In Act Two, Jen is single mother struggling to raise a son, not uncoincendentally named for her brother.
If the plot of this two-actor three-character rapidly moving show is rather sentimental and predictable, McKelvey’s production nevertheless remains sharp and compelling.
Perhaps that’s because McKelvey know what makes the intimate chamber musical mode work to its best: a combination of energy and straightforwardness.
Simple staging and lighting enhanced but didn’t interfere with the rapidly changing moods of a story that veritably rockets through the years.
Cannata’s fairly relaxed tenor has good tone and when he hit the open phrases, he unleashed a Broadway-style boom - impressive, but almost overwhelming for this small-scaled show. Gay has the more emotionally complex and challenging role to sing which she mostly handled with grace.
Small is good when it comes to musicals, despite the typical penchant for the spectacle. And in the hands of a good director, small proves surprising and convincing.
‘John & Jen’
8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 5 p.m. Sundays, through Feb. 21
The Hideout Theatre, 617 Congress Ave.
$10-$20
www.penfoldtheatre.org
