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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > March > 31 > Entry
Review: UT’s New Music Ensemble plays William Bolcom
The University of Texas’ celebration of William Bolcom this week, which culminated in an all-Bolcom concert Tuesday by UT’s New Music Ensemble, made one point clear: The much-lauded American composer knows that serious, intelligently-composed music can be beguiling, fun and unabashedly inclusive of its American origins.
Sly humor — and a little irreverence — kicked off the program at Bates Recital Hall. With the audience seated and looking at an empty stage, a burst of brass music surprised from behind. The Bel Cuore Saxophone Quartet, the student saxophone foursome, dashed off the short playful Scherzino from behind the last row of seats.
From there the evening coursed through a lively sampling of Bolcom’s chamber works — Whisper Moon, Scherzo Fantasy, Three Rags for String Quartet and Orphee Serenade — played with considerable spirit and energy by the student ensemble, particularly the Aeolus Quartet — UT’s graduate quartet in residence — who brought considerable élan to Three Rags.
Bolcom’s music is a bit like rapidly flicking through a slide show about an ever-changing American landscape that’s been rendered in single perfect frames: First a jazzy glittering city, then a quaint town with brass band playing in a gazebo, then a darkened forest full of dissonant shadowy sounds, then a sunny vibrant prairie expansive with possibility rich with open sounds. In between, musical quotes from centuries past — a blast of baroque, a sweep of romanticism — pop like a bright flash bulb.
Bolcom loves his Americana. But he also loves his moments of atonal harmonies and jittery, modern rhythms. His is an eclecticism expertly rendered.
The recipient of UT’s $25,000 Eddie Medora King Award for outstanding contributions in music composition, Bolcom was on hand Tuesday. (He’ll be officially presented with the award April 23 when a newly-orchestrated version of his opera “A View from the Bridge” opens at UT’s McCullough Theatre).
Still furiously busy writing music at age 71, Bolcom took the piano for what he called “Mini Cabs” a dozen, super-short cabaret songs. Working with leftover lyrics found amongst the papers of Bolcom’s longtime collaborator and librettist Arnold Weinstein who died in 2005, the composer fashioned wry little musical one-liners, sung charmingly by his wife, mezzo soprano Joan Morris. (The two have concertized together for nearly four decades.)
And what droll one-liners they were: “People change into what they are.” “Those who want to do it all the time do it less than those who don’t.” “I will never forgive you for my behavior.”
Quiet chuckling rolled through the audience. That’s right, intelligent compositions can be a darned good time.
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By Ben Kim
April 4, 2010 7:37 PM | Link to this
I was there, great description.