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Butler School of Music
May 8, 2012
Review: Miro Quartet plays the Razumovsky Quartets
Although the Miró Quartet could probably play the lint in their pockets and make it sound interesting, using a stradivarius and Pablo Casals’ cello certainly hasn’t done them any harm.
And after all, Beethoven is no lint. The Miró is poised to record the Razumovsky Quartets (Op.59) in Austin at the end of this month as part of their continued dedication to Beethoven’s complete quartets. So with their hold on these three works quite in hand, they played them in full on Sunday.
For the occasion an anonymous donor has enabled the loan of an esteemed group of instruments from a Boston violin shop, and the Miró has also sought out the counsel of mentors — a process that’s sort of like Tiger Woods working with a swing coach.
Those who read pianist Jeremy Denk, in a recent “New Yorker,” painfully describing his recording experience, know that it’s a process that drips with second guesses and toys with a musician’s place in history. It’s one of the reasons a lot of artists sound better live or on the first take, when the pressure’s off.
And that’s the joy of the live concert experience: no second chances. Not that the Miró needed them, as they pounced on the first quartet. It was perhaps our best glimpse of the virtuosic side of William Fedkenheuer, who, judging by his animated movements, has found a new comfort level within the ensemble.
He and Daniel Ching seemed especially sympatico. They felt almost like a duo, as their violins were practically singing together. The first movement’s energy carried over to the second movement, which vibrated with a pent-up restraint.
The last two movements of the first quartet are part of what earned the Razumovsky Quartets their difficult reputation. With no break between them, they felt about five minutes too long, and 200 years later the many false endings felt stale — leaking out their energy.
But the two other quartets are much more thrifty and share a similar intensity. The “String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 59, No.2” gallops out of the gate, and keeps your attention with a diversity of sounds. The adagio cooled things down, and the Miró’s presto was blistering.
Leaving the concert, you’re curious how the process of recording might change the Miró ’s interpretation. These three quartets have been recorded frequently, and nothing here seemed radical, but played live, there was an exquisite energy that we expect from the Miró. Which is to say, we’ll be looking forward to the record.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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May 3, 2012
Review: UT Symphony Orchestra with Jillian Bloom
You get the sense, listening to Shostakovich’s first cello concerto, that Russia in the 1950s was not such a fun place to be, at least not for an artist relying on unfiltered self expression. It’s sobering to think that around the same time Leonard Bernstein was writing parts for” West Side Story,” Shostakovich completed this dark and difficult cello work.
But that’s oversimplifying of course. Just a few years later came Bernstein’s “Kaddish,” and its own moments of darkness.
The UT Symphony Orchestra under Gerhardt Zimmerman hosted cellist Jillian Bloom, who whipped through the concerto with precocious poise.
Bloom, who also plays with the Aiana String Quartet, the university’s graduate quartet in-residence, has true presence on stage. In a stylish dark dress that highlighted her dramatic shoulder tattoo, Bloom was confident from the start of the concerto’s ominous theme.
She also had some nice accompaniment from the horn and violas, and seemed quite at ease through fingerings that were seriously exacting.
This is what is a “hard” piece. Not just difficult to play, but difficult to follow. Most college-level orchestras probably wouldn’t attempt it. Except for a section of starry harmonics, which Bloom nailed, the concerto is on constant attack. It could score a thriller.
The symphony also played Beethoven’s eighth symphony and a piece by UT composition student Zach Stanton.
The eighth isn’t Beethoven’s most memorable symphony, but UTSO came out with a brisk pace and feel at the opening, which set the tone.
Stanton’s piece, “I and the Night Sky: Nocturne for Orchestra” was a delicate ten minutes under guest conductor Tim Laughlin. Some fine string solos shone, but the orchestra was a little shaky, with some exposed playing that was a little rough around the edges. Still, a good work from Stanton, who has a piece upcoming with the Austin Symphony.
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April 30, 2012
Review: The Butler Trio
Something about the rhythms of our weekends allows for a pleasurable lull on Sunday afternoons. So, landing gently into a Sunday matinee was the first concert from the Butler Trio, a spinoff of the Miró quartet, featuring Joshua Gindele on cello, Colette Valentine on piano and the Miró’s former second violinist Sandy Yamamoto.
The Miró players have always succeeded in bringing out something fresh in Schubert’s music — keeping it interesting in its old age. And the Butler Trio’s approach was no different for Schubert’s “Piano Trio in B flat major, Op.99.”
The expansive final movement was a knockout — with the finespun beauty that can be so intellectually (and emotionally) appealing on a lazy Sunday.
Yamamoto, who continues to teach at UT, has not lost a beat. And together, the trio seemed very comfortable with one another, communicating effortlessly into a clean and rich sound.
The second half was Dvorak’s “Piano Trio in F minor, Op.65,” and it was very difficult to suppress the urge to clap after its epic opening movement. Its short solos shone. None were shrill or overdramatic, just played with stunning tone and sensitivity, though the piano was muffled in the balance.
The third movement would have made a darkly beautiful ending. So it’s too bad the piece finishes with the only musically dull movement; a lot of effort given to work over the same uninspiring themes.
After the applause it seemed half the audience in the Jessen auditorium made its way backstage; friends, family and students there to congratulate the new trio.
There is a great deal on Austin’s classical music calendar most Friday and Saturday nights. If the Butler Trio were to make these Sunday matinee concerts a regular event, Austin would be enriched not only by the concerts’ perfect timing, but by the music of another ensemble of national quality.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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February 28, 2012
Review: Butler Opera Center's 'New York Stories'
Daron Hagen’s “New York Stories” makes for a tidy mid-season offering for the University of Texas’ Butler Opera Center.
Hagen — who was on hand for the opening performance Friday night at UT’s McCullough Theatre — penned three charming musical vignettes each of which offers a glimpse of modern life in the Big Apple. (The libretto is by Hagen and Barbara Grecki.)
In the first story, a single woman living alone with her cat has an unexpected romantic moment with a plumber. Then, a wealthy woman in a well-appointed apartment finds her rambunctious, and drunken, brother on her doorstep on Christmas Eve. And finally, sleep-deprived new parents — both of whom are composers — try to juggle writing music and raising baby.
Hagen’s score nicely balances sweet tonal melody with moments of modernist dissonance for the brief moments that are more fraught with drama.
Written for opera training programs, the 70-minute trilogy was performed with its original solo piano accompaniment featuring Butler School faculty member Richard Masters ensconced at a piano upstage.
Framing Masters and the piano were two large sets of scrims that played host to utterly engaging live video projections designed by Jeff Kurihara and Eric Gazzillo. Indeed the minimalist but arresting visual designs of this production outshone the enthusiastic if somewhat uneven vocal performances. Using photographic images and digital effects, we saw nighttime Manhattan streetscapes glowing, a fire flickering in an elegant fireplace and snow wafting down gently onto broad avenues.
The last of the delightful trio of vignettes, “Cradle Song,” proved the most engaging not the least of which was because baritone Tim Petty proved the vocal standout of the performance. Petty’s clear tone, well-articulated diction and subtle acting charmed. And Hagen’s clever jabs at the state of contemporary classical music as the weary composers struggled with their fussy newborn made for a little inside humor.
If the Butler Center’s production lacked some vocally mature singing , Hagen’s “New York Stories” nevertheless still charmed.
“New York Stories” continues at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Sunday. McCullough Theatre, UT campus. www.texasperformingarts.org/event/newyorkstories
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February 22, 2012
Review: Clutch UT New Music
CLUTCH (which allegedly stands for “Collective Labors of the UT Composition Hub”) is a sort of demonstration day for the University of Texas undergraduate and graduate composers. It’s a flash in the pan: music the audience doesn’t know, and music it probably won’t see again, but it’s the habeas corpus of a young composer’s world; turning notes on a computer screen into real music for a live audience.
It’s not a night of refined professional music. Some playing is a little rough, and so are some of the pieces. But if some aren’t to your taste (and this is ‘new’ music, after all) you’ll come away with a few that move you, and you’ll have a better idea about what kind of music is being written in your backyard.
On Monday night, Clutch was a nimbler program, just an hour, in a small lecture auditorium (three hour marathons were not uncommon last year).
The most dramatic was for the eight-piece UT Percussion Ensemble, a work by Lane Harder, who conducted. The work somehow corresponded to the science of falling “through” a black hole. It began with one beat, then expanded to the whole group, shifting the rhythm around, beating progressively louder, until all eight players surrounded a bass drum and pounded out the same beat like a tribal sweat lodge ceremony. It was aggressive but engaging.
Cassandra Shankman took a simple approach, a piece for Stephen Krishnan’s solo guitar, called “A Good Man.” It’s a sweet little piece that could easily slide into modern guitar repertoire, with dissonant sections broken by big ecstatic chords.
Generally speaking, the simpler pieces are the most successful. The musical ideas are easier to realize for a duo than an ensemble of six different instruments.
A case in point, Joel Love’s fierce viola-violin duet “Synchronicity in Purple Minor,” was inspired by a painting at the Blanton Museum of Art, and commissioned for its composers project. The players, Polina Nazaykinskaya and Ksenia Zhuleva stayed tightly linked, for a work that could’ve gone wrong at a number of points, but didn’t.
These are young composers, still feeling their way between mastering their skills and creating a piece of art. Which is also why Clutch is worth checking out.
On the web: http://www.utclutch.org/
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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January 23, 2012
Gerre Hancock, 1934-2012
Gerre Hancock, an acclaimed concert organist, choral director and professor at the University of Texas;s Butler School of Music, passed away on Jan. 21 due a cardiac arrest., school officials announced.
Hancock, who was born in Lubbock, Texas, was 77.
Hancock received his bachelor’s in music from UT and his master’sfrom Union Theological Seminary in New York and later studied at the Sorbonne.
Prior to returning to UT in 2004, Hancock held the position of organist and naster of nhoristers at St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue in New York for more than 30 years. His textbook,” Improvising: How to Master the Art,” is still studied by organists throughout the country..
“Gerre Hancock was a legend in his own time. We are so fortunate to have had him on the faculty in the Butler School of Music for nearly nine years,” said Glenn Chandler, director of the Butler School of Music. “After a 32-year career at St. Thomas Church where he and his wife Judith built what was arguably the finest Anglican church music program in the United States, he came back to his alma mater to pass on to the next generation of organists the knowledge and skills that he had so wonderfully mastered during his lifetime. We will sorely miss him.”
He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Judith Hancock, and their two daughters, Deborah Hancock and Lisa Hancock.
January 11, 2012
UT to get Menuhin violin competition
UT’s Butler School of Music will be hosting the first United States presentation of the noted Menuhin Competition for Young Violinists. university officials announced today.
The biennial competition will be in spring of 2014. The timing of the competition coincides with the Butler School of Music’s centennial.
Previous hosts for the event have included the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Royal Welsh College of Music in Cardiff and the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo.
Open to violinists under the age of 22, the 10-day competition and festival has musicians vie for cash prizes and concert opportunities. Past winners include Nikolaj Znaider, Julia Fischer and Ray Chen.
September 6, 2011
Review: Miro Quartet
If the reaction to his fiddle playing is any indication, William Fedkenheuer will have no trouble fitting in to Austin.
After opening their University of Texas concert season with Brahms and Haydn, the Miro Quartet turned to their newly appointed second violinist to lead an encore of the bluegrass standard “Orange Blossom Special.” Nice touch.
Fedkenheuer, as way of introduction, explained that he was once (and still is) a talented fiddler. Then he polished off a tidy version of the bluegrass standard, with the rest of the Miro keeping up quite nicely, complete with a few pitiful “train whistles.”
The crowd clapped along, and gave Fedkenheuer a sweet moment of inauguration. It must have been some relief to the rest of the ensemble as well, after nearly half a year of rotating tryouts in the second chair.
But the serious business of the night was Haydn, Philip Glass and Brahms.
Haydn’s “The Joke,” his “String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 33” was pleasant; brisk in the presto, but a little indelicate in the largo as if the quartet were not quite warmed up.
The Glass quartet, “No. 5” eats bow hairs, from the churning cello parts to the little cyclone-like violin riffs. And as audiences discovered when the Miro took it on earlier this summer, the quartet simply has a bead on how to play this work.
The Glass is emotionally exhausting, worth the price of admission on its own.
The Brahms “String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 51” was pleasantly bouncy, and features some sections of unusual dream-like diversions. The third movement fell a little flat, though, with overly subdued dynamics.
The length of the work felt stretched there, for a time, only to crash into the whiplash finale of the Allegro.
Fedkenheuer is an animated player and a charismatic speaker. He sought out eye contact from his colleagues, and brought a lovely tone to the Brahms.
One can never reliably gauge a single player in an ensemble except in case of disaster. But, reliable or not, one evening’s performance indicates that Fedkenheuer’s poise and lyricism are a fine addition to the Miro Quartet.
The Miro’s next concerts in Austin include Oct. 1 as part of the “Austin Pictures” show, Oct. 23-24 with Salon Concert and Nov. 17 at UT’s Butler School of Music. See www.miroquartet.com.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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July 26, 2011
Miro Quartet names new second violinist
William Fedkenheuer has been named second violinist for the Miró Quartet, a representative of the ensemble said today.
Fedkenheuer replaces Sandy Yamomoto, who retired from the quartet earlier this year in order to spend more time with her young children. The Miró is the quartet-in-residence at UT’s Butler School of Music.
Fedkenheuer comes to the Miró from the Fry Street Quartet where he has served as first violinist since 2006. Along with the other members of the Miró, Fedkenheuer will join the faculty of the Butler School.
“With the appointment of Will Fedkenheuer as our new second violinist, we finish our months-long search on a high note,” said the quartet’s first violinist Daniel Ching. “Aside from being an old friend that I now have the privilege of working with, he is an outstanding musician, a brilliant violinist and altogether a perfect fit for the Miró’s new chapter.”
Born in Canada, Fedkeneur made his solo violin debut with the Calgary Philharmonic in 1994, recieved a bachelor of music from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and continued his graduate studiesat Indiana University. From 2000 to 2006, he was a member of the Borromeo String Quartet and on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Most recently, Fedeneur was on the teaching faculty of the Caine College of the Arts at Utah State University.
The Miró’s next concert in Austin is Sept. 2 at UT’s Bates Recital Hall.
Photo credit: Donna Barry.
May 3, 2011
Wanted: Second violinist. Miró Quartet's Sandy Yamamoto to step aside
Sandy Yamamoto, second violinist of the Miró Quartet will be stepping aside from the ensemble in order to focus on her family.
Her final performance with the University of Texas Butler School of Music quartet-in-residence will be — perhaps appropriately — Mother’s Day, May 8 at 4 p.m. in Bates Recital Hall.
Yamamoto is the wife of Miró Quartet violinist Daniel Ching and the couple has two sons. She will continue to teach and perform regularly at UT where the quartet has been in residence since 2003. Yamamoto said in a release that she looks forward to “spending the rest of my ‘free’ time being a soccer mom and a supportive quartet wife to Daniel.”
The quartet will continue to tour while an international search is undertaken to locate a successor.
Founded in 1995 at the Oberlin Conservatory, the Miró Quartet came to UT in 2003 after a nation-wide search as the school’s first quartet-in-residence. All of the members hold faculty positions and actively teach. Among its kudos are first prizes at the Banff and Naumburg competitions, the Cleveland Quartet Award and the Avery Fisher Career Grant.
The May 8 concert includes Schuller’s Quintet for Horn and Strings, Mendelssohn’s Octect for Strings in E-flat Major, op. 20 by Felix Mendelssohn, and Dvorak’s Quartet for strings in A-flat Major. Special guests include french hornist Julie Landsman, violinist Tereza Stanislav and the Aeolus Quartet, the graduate student quartet-in-residence.
Photo courtesy Miró Quartet. www.miroquartet.com
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April 11, 2011
Daniel Catan, composer, 1949-2011
Daniel Catán, a leading Mexican composer known for his lyrical, romantic operas, died on Saturday in Austin.
No cause of death has been reported. Catáan, 62, was the composer-in-residence at the University of Texas’ Butler School of Music. He was found in his apartment on Saturday. A UT College of Fine Art spokesperson said no foul play was suspected.
In October, the Butler School of Music announced that it had commissioned the composer to write an opera in honor of Austin philanthropists Sarah and Ernest Butler. The opera, “Meet John Doe,” was to be based on the classic 1941 Frank Capra comic drama.
Born in 1949 in Mexico City, Catán was the first Mexican composer to have an opera produced in the United States when the San Diego Opera staged “Rappaccini’s Daughter” in 1994.
Based on its success, in 1996 the Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, and Seattle Opera commissioned “Florencia,” the first Spanish-language opera ever commissioned by major United States opera companies.
UT’s Butler Opera Center staged “Rappaccini’s Daughter” in Feburary.
A full obituary to follow.
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March 2, 2011
UT Bulter School of Music to launch music academy
The University of Texas’ Butler School of Music announced its plans to create a community music school.
The school — called the UT Academy of Music — would offer non-degree music instruction for children and adults. The school already hosts a strings program that provides instruction in violin, viola, cello and double bass to Austin-area children. The strings project has been in place for more than 60 years.
The new academy would host instruction in many instruments and as well offer music enrichment and appreciation courses. Many course would be taught by Butler School of Music graduate students.
Plans call for a new 60,000-square-foot building to house the academy to be built east of IH-35 near UT’s Disch-Falk Field and would include classrooms and a small concert hall.
No state funds will sought to build a new building or fund the academy, officials said. Support for the new building — currently estimated to be a $20 million project — will be sought from private and corporate donations. A music school spokesperson said that the goal is to have the money raised to begin building in within the next 12 months. The anticipated completion date for the building is fall 2013.
"La Hija de Rappaccini (Rappaccini's Daughter)" -- Opera, in chamber form, gets its debut
Opera’s are big affairs. And expensive. Singers, a legion of choristers, dozens of orchestra musicians, stage technicians — it can take a village’s-worth of people to produce an opera.
That’s why it’s particularly notable that the University of Texas’ Butler School of Music has, on behest of its namesake donors Sarah and Ernest Butler, began commissioning composers to write smaller versions of their operas, ones that can by performed by smaller chamber orchestras. A chamber version makes it much easier for small opera companies and financially-strapped academic opera programs to stage. And if it’s easier to perform, an opera can travel to a much wider audience.
Last season UT’s Butler Opera Center debuted the premiere of the chamber version of William Bolcom’s “A View from the Bridge,” a sweeping drama based on the Arthur Miller play.
This season, Daniel Catan’s “La Hija de Rappaccini (Rappaccini’s Daughter)” debuts in its new chamber version. The last performance is today.
Catan, who is currently the composer-in-residence at the Butler School, re-scored his dream-like fable for an ensemble of two pianos, two percussionists and a harpist. Conducted by Kelly Kuo in this production, the new chamber arrangement retains the mode of Catan’s lush and very chromatic harmonic style while breathing a new lightness into it.
Based on the play by Mexican writer Octavio Paz (who based his play on a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne), “La Hija de Rappaccini” features a libretto in Spanish by Juan Tovar. Spanish is not a language common in the opera tradition. “The idea of singing in Spanish is not just about singing in another language,” Catan told the American-Statesman Spanish-language weekly Ahora Si recently. “But (it’s) what takes us back to our Hispanic culture “
A foreboding tale that pits science against love in an exotic setting, “La Hija de Rappaccini” follows the young scholar Giovanni as he becomes bewitched by Beatriz who has been raised away from the world in the garden created by her mad-scientist father who grows poisonous yet beautiful flora and fauna. .
Soprano Claudia Chapa as Beatriz and tenor Soonchan Kwan as Giovanni sing persuasively. (The two share their roles with Cristina Caldas and Malcom Cooper, respectively.)
The starkly symbolic and completely white set by Richard Isackes presents a world devoid of all natural color. Even the plants are replaced by bouquets of sinuous fiber optic lights. The visuals of this production are chilling
In October, the Butler School announced that it had commissioned Catan to write a new opera based on the 1941 Frank Capra classic “Meet John Doe.” Capra’s movie tells the story of an aging baseball player who agrees to assume the fake role of a social crusader invented by a journalist. Catan’s opera, written in honor of the Butlers, will premiere at UT in 2012.
“La Hija de Rappaccini (Rappaccini’s Daughter)”
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Sunday
Where: McCullough Theatre, UT campus
Tickets: $10-$20
www.texaspeformingarts.org
Photos by Nathan Russell.
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February 23, 2011
Review: 'CLUTCH, New Music by UT Composers
Watching Clutch — a concert of new compositions from University of Texas Butler School of Music graduate students —on Monday night was like witnessing a conference for magicians, displaying their latest tricks.
The composers are expanding the available tools: bass clarinet, four saxophones, harp, pedals with electronic samples, buckshot on a bass drum.
Composer Steven Snowden is a rising star, and the drama that erupted from his latest percussion work isn’t about to slow his ascension.
Snowden enlisted Line Upon Line, Austin’s up and coming percussion trio, for his three-part work, “A Man With a Gun Lives Here.” The stage contained a chalkboard next to a giant bass drum, lit from below by a yellow floodlight.
As the trio surrounded the horizontal drum, Adam Bedell drew a “one-legged” triangle on the chalkboard. In the near-darkness an eerie mood came on. They traded rhythms, violently banging the drum skin and edge with sticks and the butt end of mallets, like some tribal campfire ceremony.
Or perhaps a fire kept by vagrants, as each movement’s chalkboard symbol carried a message from the system of “hobo signs.”
Snowden’s work recalled a more direct John Cage, while the call and response, to an extent, recalled STOMP. “Be Prepared to Defend Yourself,” the first movement, was aptly named. Rubber balls were dragged across the skin of the drum, reverberating like a warplane overhead.
The third movement introduced a paper bag.
The bag was passed around the drum until being dramatically stabbed with drum sticks, spilling buckshot over the drum. This gave the trio yet another avenue of sound, each bang now echoed with hundreds of jumping ball bearings, the sound of waves from each tilt of the drum.
Theatrics have repercussions though, as Snowden, at intermission, attempted, pitifully, to clear the stage of the metal balls using music stands.
There were plenty more highlights. Max Stoffregen’s “La Magie Noire” was a tidy violin duo with each player literally finish the other’s phrase through the entirety of the piece, alternating with delicate harmonics.
“Funk Off” by Andrew Davis was a clashing history of funk and contemporary art music, with four saxophones.
Like magic, there’s an ephemeral quality to new music. It’s here, then gone. But it’s a chance to go big with your best ideas, and if some of the dissonant, fragmented works don’t translate for the audience, the next new trick is coming up.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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