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Music
January 31, 2012
Austin Lyric Opera, music school formally split
The previously announced split between Austin Lyric Opera and its Armstrong Community Music School will be official Feb. 1, opera officials announced today.
In June, ALO announced that it would jettison its music school as a cost-saving measure amid news that the opera was nearly $2 million in debt. At the same time, the opera announced that it would selling its purpose-built facility on Barton Springs Road. ALO sold its building in December for $5.45 million.
“This change allows the Austin Lyric Opera and the Armstrong Community School of Music to focus on their core missions and to expand their services to the community,” said Ernest Auerbach, ALO board president, in an official statement.
Founding school director Margaret Perry will remain as the school’s leader.
Martha Rochelle, who chaired ALO’s task force that worked on a strategic plan for the future of the school, will serve as Armstrong Community Music School’s chair.
The Armstrong chool opened to much celebration in 2000 along with the new building, much of which was devoted to school activities.
Both the opera and the school will maintain their programs and operations at the Barton Springs Road facility through April after which each will establish separate facilities.
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January 30, 2012
Review: Austin Lyric Opera's Lucia di Lammermoor
Who knew a death scene could be so much fun?
In the Austin Lyric Opera production of “Lucia di Lammermoor” now at the Long Center the most famous scene is a wild and woolly epic run-up to death, a quarter hour that it takes Lucia to paint us the full picture of how completely she’s lost her mind.
Donizetti’s opera, aside from this “mad scene” and the famous sextet at the center of the production, is actually a pretty slim affair. There’s not much of a story in it. Think of a more concise ‘Romeo and Juliet’ set in Scotland, and sung, uh, in Italian. Girl loves bad boy, but girl’s forced to marry a schlub for political stability — problems ensue. There’s betrayal, vengeance, but most importantly, madness.
The sextet (a big chorus piece, highlighting the work’s six principal voices) was smartly paced by conductor Richard Buckley, and had the voices braiding energetically through the hall.
Even so, the production depends on the mad scene, and Russian soprano Lyubov Petrova was a fantastic madwoman, teetering dangerously around the stage, undone by her actions and the circumstances.
Petrova sang delicate waves of sadness, then soaring notes of manic joy, a performance that brought home the crowd’s scandal of seeing raw, unhinged emotion in 17th century Scotland.
Once Lucia comes down the staircase in a bloody nightgown, she’s fully transformed. She hallucinates a scene with her former lover in a giddy soprano, then waves a sword at the terrified crowd, until she’s shocked into the realization that she’s just killed her unwanted husband.
Why is this tragic scene so much fun? For one, we know it’s coming. For two, Petrova’s multifaceted mania cycles through so many contrasting emotions that remains still unpredictable. The audience just sits back and enjoys the performance.
On opening night the principal voices came out of the gate a little cold and overall they remained slightly uneven in quality, though Texas-born tenor Chad Shelton was a deserved fan favorite.
The sets are effective, especially in the large chorus scenes, which had a nice depth, suiting the strong work of the chorus itself. Dim lighting predominates, but added to the eerie mood, and accentuated the rich color palate of the period costumes.
Lucia di Lammermoor continues at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 3 and 3 p.m. Feb 5 at the Long Center. 19-$135.www.austinlyricopera.org
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Photo by Mark Matson for Austin Lyric Opera.
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January 23, 2012
Review: Golden Hornet Project's 'Fugitive Visions'
Golden Hornet Project basically told Sergei Prokofiev, “Thanks for the melodies,” and then brought a New Orleans style jazz stomp right on top of the Russian composer’s head.
Ten years ago, almost to the day, since they first played it, Graham Reynolds and Peter Stopschinski’s composing project took on Prokofiev’s “Visions Fugitives,” at Spiderhouse’s 29th Street Ballroom.
In 1917, young Prokofiev published twenty short piano experiments, a stunning collection that tinker with dissonant harmonies, ungainly melodies and silence. Like a chef’s tasting menu, “Visions” is a smorgasbord of spooky, circus-like and pretty tunes that are over almost as soon as you’ve had a bite.
The evening started with University of Texas jazz professor Jeff Hellmer, playing through the original work in its entirety. Some are reminiscent of Erik Satie, others are so thoroughly modern they could’ve been placed on Reynolds’ soundtrack to the film “A Scanner Darkly” without anyone batting an eye.
It was over in 20 minutes or so, a truly economical work. And then, after intermission, The Golden Hornet Project’s took the stage, with trombone, vibes, sax, double bass, synth and drum kit. “You’re going to love hearing the original, and then you’re going to love hearing how we completely destroy them,” Stopschinski said at the beginning of the night. And it was so.
Using the 20 visions as their base, the band charged through arrangements by Reynolds and Stopschinski.
Some remained pretty close to the original, and they could be surprisingly delicate and quiet, no small measure of restraint with a band this energetic.
Like Prokofiev’s, a few arrangements were more fully formed than others, like (what I’m fairly sure was) “No. 10,” which appeared on an early Golden Arm Trio album. It’s a meandering, banal little circus piece that, half way through, erupted with a hurricane of horns attacking at full volume until Reynolds raised his hand up, and brought it crashing down to a finale. The crowd went absolutely bonkers.
When the two composers squeeze with Hellmer at the piano to play a compressed version of the last few “Visions,” it’s like a Bugs Bunny skit. Stopschinski crumples up and throws each finished music sheet, while Reynolds stampedes up the keyboard, forcing the other two pianists hands to lift at the last second to make way.
That showmanship is the most obvious thing separating Reynolds and Stopschinski from the new (classical) music. The funny and relaxed banter, percussion duels and improvisational breaks are second nature to these guys.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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Review: Conspirare's 'Whitacre & Lewis'
In January, when most of the city’s arts programs are waking up from a mid-winter’s nap, Conspirare is chomping at the bit, with fierce programs that take over entire weekends.
Last year, Craig Hella Johnson and company were racing out of the gate with a supremely ambitious mini festival of Renaissance and Baroque music, hours upon hours of material.This year the pace slowed only slightly. The choir’s weekend was booked with four concerts of Joby Talbot’s “Path of Miracles,” but they also managed to sneak in a single concert of U.S. premieres of work by American composers Eric Whitacre and Peter Scott Lewis.
Conspirare seem to have an affinity for Whitacre’s ecclesiastical music. Pensive, solemn, and generally very beautiful, Whitacre has a deserved following among choiristers. His music is at its best when tinged with a layer of darkness, as in “Five Hebrew Love Songs,” which pits the women’s bright, cheery tune against the men’s somber Greek-chorus.
Conspirare’s premiere performance of Whitacre’s “Alleluia” was a clear highlight. A spectral sustained note at the start folded into warm chords that were reluctant to resolve. Quite stunning.
The premiere of “Occuli Omnium,” a grace written for Sidney Sussex College at the University of Cambridge, was of a similar mind, though somehow not quite as sublime.
If Whitacre’s work is heavenly, Peter Scott Lewis’ is more Freudian and self-conscious.
His work “The Changing Light,” was based on the words of the esteemed Beat poet, San Francisco publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
The poetry came from Ferlinghetti’s more recent, more naturalistic work, evoking the sunlight of San Francisco, the moon and birds in the underbrush.
But, to borrow one of the poet’s own lines, the music accompaniment felt “anchorless upon the ocean.” No real melody, little in the way of discernible structure or polyphony, Lewis’ work was like a palate cleanser that lasted a whole meal. Fans of the written word among the audience might have preferred the choir mount a poetry reading.
In any case, the afternoon ended with Whitacre’s “Sleep,” a stiff but welcome contrast that sent us away in a lingering meditative state.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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January 17, 2012
Austin Lyric Opera announces 2012-2013 season
Leoncavallo’s ‘Pagliacci,’ Mozart’s ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ and Gounod’s ‘Faust’ will constitute Austin Lyric Opera’s 2012-2013 season, the organization announced.
Richard Buckley, ALO artistic director and principal conductor, will lead all three productions.
And also starting next season, ALO performances will be scheduled on Thursday nights (7:30 p.m.), Saturday nights (7:30 p.m.) followed by a 3 p.m. Sunday matinee. This season ALO reduced the number of performances from four to three in order to cut costs.
‘Pagliacci’ is designed by Roberto Laganà; the production of ‘Figaro’ was originated by the Opera Company of Philadelphia and ‘Faust’ is a coproduction of Arizona Opera, Lyric Opera Baltimore and Opera Lyra Ottawa.
ALO recently sold its building on Barton Springs Road in an effort to pay off nearly $2 million in debt.
ALO presents ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ next with three performances Jan. 28, Feb. 3 and 5 at the Long Center.
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November 21, 2011
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra with Anton Nel
The air in the Long Center was extremely dry and cool Friday night, the probable cause of a lot of coughing. But the air also lent the house Steinway piano an icy clarity at the hands of soloist Anton Nel.
Nel, a beloved and longtime Austin resident (and professor at UT) appeared quite sharp in full tux and tails, to play a blistering Liszt piano concerto (No. 2) and the “Symphonic Variations” by Cesar Franck, as well as a encore by Schumann.
This year marks Franz Liszt’s bicentennial, and his second piano concerto is still lush and difficult, with sections that sound like the pianist is fleeing on a bridge above snapping piranhas.
Mellower sections featured beaming horns and a lovely duet with cellist Douglas Harvey. And when the Liszt stormed to its finale you sensed Nel might have gone even faster (and with no loss of precision), but he was reined in to a more reasonable pace by the orchestra. This piece was certainly the evening’s climax.
Conductor Peter Bay and the symphony did quite well on their own. The “Variaciones Concertantes” by Argentina’s Alberto Ginastera has 12 micro-movements with solos working their way through the orchestra. It highlighted some strengths and weaknesses in the various sections, with were some especially fine cello and french horn solos.
Bay’s work stood out in the final movements as he conducted like a ball of energy addressing a flurry of entries and dynamics with a flourish.
The “Symphonic Metamorphosis of themes by Weber” by American composer Paul Hindemith ended the night — a jarring contrast to Nel’s sentimental (and beautiful) encore, the Liszt arrangement of Schumann’s “Widmung.” Despite its bombastic opening, it’s a fine piece with some very pretty flute work on the main theme.
Nel is a dramatic player, more for a monstrous technical precision than for an emotional or lyrical style, but his tone shines at both ends of the keyboard. In the Franck, with its delicate tinkling trills, Nel charged through, delicately declaring each individual note. At times it was too quiet, perhaps, and was blanketed by the orchestra. But in any case, his stunning runs and turns across the piano were more than dramatic enough.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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November 7, 2011
Review: Austin Lyric Opera's 'The Magic Flute'
Forget the shadow of financial difficulty that’s been cast over Austin Lyric Opera in the past year or so.
Or at least put that shadow aside for the three hours of ALO’s sunny, delightful turn with “The Magic Flute” which opened Saturday at the Long Center in a production by Milwaukee’s Florentine Opera This “Flute” trades deftly on lightness, maximizing and modernizing the comic content of Mozart’s masterpiece without sacrificing any of the essentials.
Against a spare yet fluid all-white set of platforms, ramps and moving panels that captured projections and lighting designs, an energetic and solidly good cast delivered an animated, fresh-feeling production of the opera that ALO began with 25 years ago.
With his spot-on comic timing and physical antics, David Adam Moore is the show stealer as Papageno, and his strong rich baritone nicely balance the shenanigans. Likewise, tenor Doug Jones comically amps up his turn as Monostatos while also never forsaking his very good vocal performance.
The lovely, clear-voiced lyric soprano Hanan Alattar gives her Pamina just enough of moxie to modernize the classic sweetheart role. And as Tamino, tenor Arthur Espiritu garnered a bravo Juliet Petrus does well as the Queen of the Night, competently delivering the challenging and famous Der Hölle Rache aria. James Moellenhoff makes a commanding Sarastro with his full round tones.
If the set by Noele Stollmack actd as a simple white canvas, Christianne Myers’ inspired, whimsical costumes — with sartorial quotes from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” among other contemporary references — more than supply the visual gratification.
Conductor Richard Buckley expertly took a “less is more” approach to Mozart’s beautiful score Stage director James Marvel gives the cast plenty of waggish gestures and movements with just the right hints of camp to make for a terrifically performed fantasy.
A sparkling, joyful performance from start to finish, this “Magic Flute” has plenty of aplomb.
“The Magic Flute” continues 7:30 p.m. Friday and 3 p.m. Sunday at the Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Dr. Tickets: $19-$135. www.austinlyricopera.org.
Image: David Adam Moore as Papageno and Jamie-Rose Guarrine and Papagena. Photo by Mark Matson for Austin Lyric Opera.
October 24, 2011
Review: Ensemble VIII
James Morrow’s Ensemble VIII is probably the most specialized arts ensemble in Austin — aside from the Bach Cantata Project, another of Morrow’s groups.
Last Friday’s concert at St. Louis Catholic Church on Burnet Road was their first of the season (last season consisted of a single preview concert of sorts). Yet they’ve already found a following in the cross-section of lovers of choirs and lovers of sacred music.
Eight singers, including Morrow himself, sing pieces from the Renaissance and Baroque eras, building on a strong base for early music here in Austin.
It’s a niche that’s much smaller than most groups would agree to. Unlike the Texas Early Music Project (TEMP), which dedicates itself to both instrumental and choral music of a similar period, Ensemble VIII sings with neither lutes or flutes, though that may change.
Not that they’ll run out of a capella music anytime soon. As TEMP has long known, and Conspirare showed at its weekend festival of Renaissance and Baroque music last January, it’s like a theatre group restricting itself to plays from the Greeks through Shakespeare — there is a ton of beautiful work, almost none of it well known.
On Friday, it was the music of Renaissance Spain, with Victoria (1548-1611) and Morales (1500-1553).
Morales’ work was the evening’s find, with dense, swirling voices that circle each other. To modern ears it recalls Bach, and following the harmony and melody patterns as they trade from one singer to the next, is a brain workout.
This is the kind of music that appears in murder mysteries at the climactic death scene.
The singing was crisp, resonant and cohesive. The ensemble were like a small orchestra of voices.
Especially stunning was the work written expressly for all eight voices. It goes full-tilt, each unique part flows gorgeously in and out of the whole.
The first half was lively and moving, with short, often brilliant works. In the second half, we heard Victoria’s requiem, “Officium Defunctorum,” a slower moving event.
The more sombre Victoria is a cause for meditation. It’s a long and beautiful work that probably asked a little too much of the audience for a Friday night concert.
And again, one must ask whether it remains necessary to force the audience to crane their necks with seats perpendicular to the singers. If it is some issue of historical accuracy, let us hope for a renaissance of comfortable seating.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
October 17, 2011
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra
Art depends on its context. Music, sculpture, architecture — it’s all influenced by what surrounds it. So if you’re mixing one art form with another, there is a lot to consider, but above all, the question is: Do they combine to make a better experience?
Not enough of these questions were posed before this weekend’s performance of Holst’s “The Planets,” by the Austin Symphony Orchestra and conductor Peter Bay at the Long Center.
It was billed as a multimedia experience, but in fact it was a “Hatch Productions” video from 1996, a dated and underwhelming film, the style you might find in a high school library.
The ASO had success with a similar concept last year, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s, “Beyond the Score” documentary production about Dvorak’s writing of his “New World” symphony.
Where that succeeded — live actors, Ken Burnsian photography — the Holst production failed in every measure.
A former astronaut, Colonel Benjamin Alvin Drew Jr., was narrating, but it could have been anyone, reciting facts about the planets and moons. Why not employ his considerable personal experience? The man has flown 10 million miles in space.
And this was in service of low-definition video that moved too quickly, drawing attention away from the music.
Why do this to “The Planets,” one of the great popular orchestral works? Grade school children are captured by its straightforward theme: music about the unique “characters” of our solar system.
If there is a piece that needs no introduction or elaboration to catch the imagination of listeners, this is it. Listeners’ imaginations have already been caught.
One expected more up to date space imagery, like the breathtaking shot of the Horseshoe Nebula on the show’s poster. Surely audiences are not so literal as to require images of only the specific planets.
A single shot of each planet, or at the most, a few images, with very slow, subtle edits, would have improved on the video.
Instead, the churning, jagged animations of a planet’s surface removed all sense of discovery, and showed listeners what to envision.
All this was a shame because the orchestra played a beautiful “Nocturnes” by Debussy, with fine solos, alongside heavenly work by Conspirare’s Symphonic Women’s Chorus, no video required.
And musically, “The Planets” had moments of brilliance. Douglas Harvey’s sublime cello solo in “Venus,” moments of strength from the brass and horns (aside from an occasional squawk), and wonderful textures from the organ and harps.
Let’s hope the ASO weights its next choice of visuals much more carefully.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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September 27, 2011
Review: Anne Akiko Meyers and Bion Tsang with Austin Chamber Music
The Austin Chamber Music Center’s 2011-12 season opened with a typically challenging and diverse concert at the First Unitarian Church Saturday night. Not only did it feature music that veers slightly off the beaten path, but it enlisted two of our city’s finest to play it, Anne Akiko Meyers and Bion Tsang.
Those who have seen Meyers on a larger stage will attest to her uncommon intensity. She was born to play big halls and auditoriums.
Meyers’ facial expressions communicate concentration, determination and, occasionally, satisfaction. At times her tone pierced the air of the church with an overwhelming delivery of sound.
In Ravel’s “Sonata for Violin and Piano” each movement is strictly unlike its predecessor. It’s got some fierce counterpoint, and called on Meyers to play her Stradivarius, according to Ravel, “like a banjo.”
A few in the audience shuddered at that thought, but Meyers really plucked the string with force before whirling through the nimble third movement.
Like the other works of the evening, it showcased the cross-pollination of French and Asian culture that occurred after Ravel and Debussy attended the World’s Fair in Paris.
Tsang and ACMC director Michelle Schumann opened the evening with Debussy’s “Sonata for Cello and Piano.”
Tsang gave silence plenty of space in the first movement, and though some tones felt a little thin the indelible tune carried nicely and his pizzicato was sensitive and lush.
“Black Earth” by Fazil Say achieves a neat middle eastern effect by manipulating the piano strings. Schumann paced the work beautifully.
The “Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor” by Anton Arensky caused a moment of drama when one of the piano pages was discovered missing. It brought things to a brief halt, and a smile or a laugh by the trio might have relaxed the tension, but by the third movement it was ancient history.
For all this outstanding playing, the atmosphere of the First Unitarian Church can be hard to love.
Mostly, it’s the lack of stage lighting. There is something in the human species that prefers sitting in darkness; perhaps an atavistic memory of campfire stories.
Darkness removes distraction, focuses our eyes stage-ward, and helps us locate that special feeling of absorption. It delineates a line that separates our ordinary lives from the stage, and even for music this good, that separation matters.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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September 26, 2011
Review: Conspirare
Samuel Barber referred to himself as a “living dead composer,” explained Margaret Perry in her pre-concert lecture this weekend before the Conspirare concert. It’s a humble-brag: Barber felt confident he would be remembered, but his name never seemed to be on the tongue of America’s music lovers, even though the “Adagio” which cemented his legacy appeared in film after film.
So it was a pleasure to hear Conspirare’s voices open their 19th season with an all-Barber concert under the direction of Craig Hella Johnson.
The two halves of the concert pulled us much deeper into Barber’s repertoire, and revealed very different styles in Barber’s choral work.
These were fairly short works that had rhythmic intrigue, sometimes elusive harmonies against lyrics that were by turns abstract and poetic.
“God’s Grandeur” began with bold, goose-bumping chords, and outstanding tone from the tenor and bass voices. The hall sounded noticeably crisp and reverberant.
“Let Down the Bars, O Death,” was especially pretty, if dark; haunting in subject, key and its brevity.
The male and female voices refuse to intersect in “To be Sung on the Water,” a gorgeous work that implies a sorrowful distance between the two voices.
When the first notes of the “Adagio” came rolling slowly through the hall the choir was both chilling and uplifting.
Conspirare fans will impatiently await its recording.
Composer Robert Kyr, in attendance at the performance, did us the service of rearranging Barber’s “The Lovers” for a chamber orchestra.
It’s a long work, set to the poetry of Pablo Neruda.
There are some erotic lines, but most are quite chaste, and the music looks more to the sublime side of love: a vulnerability and sense of loss.
Some lyrics are quite ungainly in both translation and their placement in the line, turning soloist David Farwig into the role of a spoken-word poet, as he hustled to stay ahead of the music.
It’s a difficult work without easy melodies, the kind that rewards multiple listens.
Conspirare’s latest CD, “Sing Freedom!” came from last year’s opening concert, and that pattern will repeat with a recording of Barber.
All indications are that it should be a stunner.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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September 12, 2011
Review: Joshua Bell and the Austin Symphony Orchestra
In just the last eight months the Austin Symphony Orchestra has hosted as many premiere violinists as an aficionado could hope to see in a lifetime: Itzhak Perlman, Anne Akiko Meyers and this past weekend, Joshua Bell for the orchestra’s season opener at the Long Center.
It was no surprise to his fans that Bell embodies a particularly rich sweetness in his tone. And seeing it live was a reminder that some artists simply translate better on stage than on an album (and many of Bell’s albums are already outstanding).
Just as importantly, conductor Peter Bay and the symphony sounded newly invigorated for Strauss’ “Death and Transfiguration,” which opened the evening. The strings sounded especially unified, with pinpoint dynamics, alongside fine solos from flute, viola and violin.
Bell began with the Tchaikovsky “Meditation,” arranged by Glazunov, and in his trademark loose black shirt, Bell played this mournful theme with crystal clear tone, a tone that was strikingly elastic, delicately working the fingerboard.
Not to be outdone, there was also some fine clarinet counterpoint to accompany Bell’s ghostly high vibrato.
After intermission, Bell revived Glazunov’s violin concerto, debuting in Austin a work he described in conversation last month as an “old war-horse” of his idol Jascha Heifetz, perhaps the most revered player of the last century.
And it is pleasingly old fashioned, but more importantly, it’s a sprawling showstopper brimming with difficult double stops, left-handed pizzicato, charging melodies and ephemeral bird-like sounds. Apart from its difficulties, and a gloriously off-kilter cadenza, it emits a nostalgia for the black and whites of old Hollywood.
One might argue that Bell’s monster concerto should have closed out the evening.
Certainly there are a plethora of considerations that decide concert order, but there is something in our human nature that revels in the anticipation, like a vintage Bordeaux stored in the cellar for special occasions.
In any case, after well-deserved and copious applause for Bell, the symphony ended with Rimsky-Korsakov’s nicely textured “Russian Easter Overture,” with good work from the strings and brass, including a fine trombone solo, though the brass ramped up the volume a little too soon, drowning out the strings before the triumphant finale, at least as heard in the mezzanine.
It was a standout evening for the orchestra and Peter Bay, and, from Joshua Bell, another coup for classical music patrons.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts writer.
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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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Tonight: Classical Cactus broadcast on KMFA
Missed the most recent Classical Cactus concert, the super-popular gigs hosted by Austin Classical Guitar Society at the legendary Cactus Cafe?
No worries. Tune in to KMFA 89.5 FM tonight at 7 and list to the broadcast of August concert that featured guitarists Jonathan Dotson and Thales Smith.
In a unique agreement, KUT 90.5 FM, Austin’s NPR affiliate and managing organization of the Cactus Cafe, is now recording the classical guitar concerts and KMFA, a listener-supported classical music station, will broadcast them. This season’s entire Classical Cactus will be recorded and broadcast.
The next live Classical Cactus concert is Thursday. Steve Kostelnik plays at 9 p.m., David Conger opens with a set at 8 p.m. Cover charge is just $5. www.austinclassicalguitar.org
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August 18, 2011
Austin composer Peter Stopschinski premieres choral work
Texas Choral Consort is set to premiere a new piece by Austin composer Peter Stopschinski who recently won the Austin Critics’ Table Award for Outstanding Original Composition. Stopschinski used the “Lacrymosa” movement from the Mozart Requiem as inspiration for his new choral work.
Also on the program for Saturday’s concert, Texas Choral Consort takes on two powerhouse works of the choral canon — Mozart’s Requiem and Fauré’s Requiem. Saturday’s “Out of the Silence” for orchestra and piano by William Grant Still is also on the program.
“Requiem Works By Fauré, Mozart, Still and Stopschinski”
8 p.m. Saturday
Northwest Hills United Methodist Church, 7050 Village Center Dr.
$20 ($15 seniors and student). Tickets available at the door.
www.txconsort.org
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July 27, 2011
Big weekend for new music
Forget the summer doldrums. There’s a few musical boundary-pushers in town who have been busy. And this weekend, they’ll rock it out.
“A Transparent Gate”
Before they head into the studio to record, Austin New Music Co-op will premiere Michael Pisaro’s and Greg Stuart’s new work for solo percussionist and eight channels of recorded audio that employs a set of small portable speakers spread across the performance area. 8 p.m. Thursday. Domy Books, 913 E. Cesar Chavez St. Free. www.newmusic.coop
“Percussion VII”
Percussion — it’s the new violin and current favorite popular solo instrument. Austin alt-indie composers Graham Reynolds and Peter Stopschinski have written new music for an array of percussion sounds. And indie classical percussion virtuosos Tom Burritt, Chuck Fischer and Owen Weaver (who uses recycled objects and electronic sounds) will pound it out. 8 p.m. Saturday. The ND at 501 Studios, 501 N. Interstate 35. $10. goldenhornet.org.
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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.
July 17, 2011
Review: Bandini-Chiacchiaretta Duo
In their first concert in the United States, the Bandini-Chiacchiaretta Duo unleashed a virtuosic yet utterly charming torrent of tango music.
The charismatic Italian duo (Giampaolo Bandini on guitar, Cesare Chiacchiaretta on bandoneón) played two sold-out shows Saturday at the Mexican American Cultural Center. The concerts were a co-presentation of the Austin Chamber Music Center and the Austin Classical Guitar Center.
Bandini-Chiacchiaretta expertly captured tango’s complex and contradictory tones and moods — from the velvet melancholic melodies to the nervous and jittery rhythms to the sultry and sensuous songs.
It’s said in tango lore that bandoneonistas must dance with their instrument. And dance Chiacchiaretta did, drawing an extraordinarily varied range of color and emotion from the sonically complicated instrument with plenty of individual flair. Likewise, Bandini brought a bracing finesse to the multifaceted sonorities of the South American music that has shares both European and African roots.
Though the music of nuevo tango originator Ástor Piazzolla framed the concert, the duo interspersed their program with a sampling of compositions old and new.
Fernando Carlos Tavolaro’s “Milonga No. 5.” was heartbreakingly beautiful in classic nuevo tango style while Máximo Diego Pujol’s decidedly modern “Nubes de Buenos Aires” showed the urbane style that many post-Piazzolla tango composers have developed.
And as if to prove their contemporary mastery, the duo brought considerable panache to their highly original version of “El Choclo,” one of tango’s most popular of the classic tango tunes.
Still, the pair’s heartfelt and intelligent interpretations of some of Piazzolla’s best-known compositions — “Zita,” “Oblivion,” and “Libertango,” among others — proved the most thrilling and made for a rousing United States debut for the Bandini-Chiacchiaretta Duo.
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July 11, 2011
Review: Miro Quartet opens Austin Chamber Music Festival
It’s time to look at the Miro Quartet in a new light. The departure of Sandy Yamamoto as second violinist is a natural point of transition for the ensemble, but as they opened the Austin Chamber Music Festival on Friday night at the Bates Recital Hall, the Miro seemed transformed — sort of basking in the glow of music that resonated deep in their bones.
Cellist Joshua Gindele hardly gave his score a glance all night, preferring instead to meet eyes with the rest of the ensemble, urging them on with his shoulders or a tilt of his head.
First violin Daniel Ching was basically on fire. High vibratos were heartbreaking, and delicate harmonics were like glass.
Composer Kevin Puts’ “Credo” was commissioned for the Miro in 2007, when they sought a work that would emphasize something positive about America during that difficult era.
Puts’ music brings a violin shop to life, paints a picture of America’s buildings and bridges, and recalls the beliefs and hopes that formed the backbone of this nation.
Its opening chord was achingly beautiful. As the quartet inhabited a luthier’s shop, it was exactly the sound you’d imagine from roomful of violins, could they speak.
Next was Michael Torke’s “Mojave,” with Tom Burritt on marimba. It didn’t seem to swing as it had earlier this year, but this homage to the desert was still entrancing.
In an evening of superlative performances, Philip Glass’ “String Quartet No. 5” was the masterstroke.
The 1991 work defies Glass’ reputation as a repetitive, and as minimalist, for that matter. With its ever present pulse, it groups little thoughts on top of hypnotically pretty passages, then releases, with heart-stopping chords, pulled out in great unified strokes by the Miro.
Ching, again, played several gorgeous solos. But the Miro as a whole had a determined charisma in their movements, pushing each other forward.
This was the Miro at the top of their form. Tereza Stanislav filled in nicely at second violin, as the Miro continues to search for its new member.
In the meantime, the ensemble revels in this carefree confidence that is breathing new life into their work, and inducing ever more chills in concertgoers.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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July 5, 2011
ACMC's Third Annual Pride Concert
A welcome addition to Austin Chamber Music Festival’s line-up of free concerts, the Annual Pride Concert is back for its third year.
Featuring chamber music by gay and lesbian composers, this year’s iteration of the concert is at 7:30 p.m. July 14 at St. James Episcopal Church, 1941 Webberville Road.
Admission is free.
On the program are selected works by Maurice Ravel, Judith Weir, Jennifer Higdon and Francis Poulenc.
The outstanding musicians will be giving this evening’s performance including members of Waterloo Sound Conspiracy (a recently formed Austin-based woodwind quintet) oboist Rebecca Haskins, flautist Seetha Shivaswamy and bassoonist Julia Windle. Strings will include violinist Elise Winters, violist Aurelien Petillot and cellist Barbara George. Two pianists, Jim James and Russell Reed, will share the stage along with mezzo-soprano Liz Cass.
The Austin Chamber Music Festival begins Friday with a concert by the Miro Quartet and percussionist Thomas Burritt.
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June 13, 2011
Review: Conspirare's 'Missa Latina'
It was beautiful from its first moments. Soprano Heidi Grant Murphy’s voice spilled out fragile notes of inevitable sadness. Murphy was at the forefront of a stage packed with musicians Sunday night at the Long Center: A battalion of strings, wind, brass, percussion was just the first wave, with 150 voices looming behind them.
“Missa Latina,” a full Latin Mass by Puerto Rican-American composer Roberto Sierra, produced a huge and diverse sound. The choir under Craig Hella Johnson, seamlessly combined Conspirare and the Victoria Bach Festival chorus.
When the Latin rhythm first enters, near the end of the Introitus, it shifts the solemnity, as if we’ve just turned from a church alter to glance out a window into the streets of San Juan. The music remains ponderous and weighted, but in a way that’s peculiar to Latin America.
As it turns out, “Missa Latina” follows the traditional churchgoing variety quite closely. It’s a solemn, spiritual work and, as Sierra recently explained, the Latin rhythms - shakers, arcing trumpet riffs - do not lighten the religious content, but create personal “moments of introspection.”
And it’s not as if Murphy is about to leap out and sing a number from “West Side Story.” Several movements end with a devastating bass drum, as if the gates of Hell just closed behind you.
And in a way, they have. The Credo is a whirlpool of doubt that follows unbridled joy: the orchestra breaking into full-out San Juan ballroom style Gloria, with its infectious “Hosannas” making heads sway in the choir.
Then the Credo, almost painfully drawn out, emanating doubt from all its pores as the sopranos gently, slowly sing like angels.
Johnson expertly managed his army of vocalists and musicians, and moved vibrantly on the podium. An early tempo in the shakers was out of sync with the baton, but was soon overcome. And crisp, moving work by brass and oboe filled the hall.
Baritone Daniel Teadt, gamely filling in for Nathanial Webster, was unfortunately outmatched aside the angelic Murphy. Where Murphy’s voice projected with ease, Teadt’s felt tight. It had trouble resonating, especially in the lower register.
“Missa Latina” is a journey, and not an easy one for the listeners. But, Dios mio, it is rewarding.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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May 16, 2011
Review: Ensemble VIII's 'Renaissance Splendour'
With just eight singers, including artistic director James Morrow — singing bass and conducting from within — Ensemble VIII slid into a niche few knew existed.
It was a little surprising to learn that Austin would launch another choral ensemble with national pedigree, but the group’s first concert eloquently made clear its reasons for being.
On Friday at the beautiful and bright chapel of St. Louis Catholic Church, the voices filled the airy rafters with clear harmony and a pleasing reverberation. With the men looking quite smart all in black, the group formed half a circle near the atrium and cycled through a Ockeghem’s “Salve Regina,” with a tight pocket of harmony.
It was impossible to tell that these voices had scarcely a week of rehearsals to blend.
The rolling cadences of Ockeghem showcased the clarity of these singers. The tone was very even, and the sound felt well balanced as the parts intermingled, though in a later piece a counter tenor felt too dominant in the mix.
Ensemble VIII’s inaugural concert featured the music of Ockeghem, Josquin and Englishman John Sheppard. This is sacred music, but it is also very stylish, very complex music. At times the blend of voices felt sublime; gorgeously in tune and expressive.
For “Stabat Mater” by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Ensemble VIII split in half, facing off down the center of the hall, fifteen feet apart. This was a dramatic staging that expanded the stereo effect of the doubled voices.
Unfortunately, most chairs in the chapel were awkwardly positioned for the night’s concert, perpendicular to the chorus. To see the ensemble, you had to twist about 45 degrees, something even yoga instructors would not advise.
The Ensemble distinguishes itself with a capella arrangements that create a focused, minimalist concert. Unlike the Texas Early Music Project it has no period instruments, and unlike Conspirare, Ensemble VIII does not play in the realm of thunderous chorales, or venture past the Baroque era.
Pulling in Renaissance specialist-singers from across the United States, Morrow hopes the smaller group will become a nimble touring ensemble. Its fall season includes dates in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
May 5, 2011
New Music Co-op takes on "The Great Learning"
Though it is arguably a seminal piece of avant garde music, Cornelius Cardew’s 1971 “The Great Learning” is rarely performed.
Understandably.
The epic, immersive piece calls for a large chorus, a pipe organ, strings, winds, percussion and more, all meant to be performed by a collection of both trained and untrained musicians. Based on translations of Ezra Pound’s translations of Confucius, “The Great Learning” is divided into what Cardew described as seven “paragraphs.”
Now, the ever-ambitious New Music Co-op has assembled more than 60 musicians to tackle the whistling chorus, the rolling waves of percussion, a thunder of contrabasses and the other musical oddities needed for a full performance of Cardew’s masterpiece of counter-culture avant-garde.
“Apart from its musical merits, another draw was because it is so rarely performed,” said Travis Weller, New Music Co-op artistic director. “There are some things about the piece though that makes it a good fit for the co-op and for Austin: It requires a large number of versatile musicians who are willing to put in some time to get into the world of the piece and think outside the conventional norms of performance.
Paragraphs 1 through 4 will be performed Friday starting at 7 p.m.; Paragraphs 5 through 7 at 6 p.m. Saturday.
Central Presbyterian Church, 200 E. Eighth St.
Tix: $17 for one night; $25 for both nights
newmusic.coop
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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 30, 2011
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra with Itzhak Perlman
On a night of pomp and circumstance, the 100th anniversary gala of the Austin Symphony Orchestra was rippling with energy.
A scintillating performance by (still) the world’s most eminent violinist, Itzhak Perlman, capped off one hundred years of music with a moment that will be remembered as one of the symphony’s best.
There was a palpable energy in the room — the buzz that comes from a concert hall packed full to the rafters.
Conductor Peter Bay and the symphony began with two works that appeared on the inaugural program in 1911. A subdued Mozart “Symphony No. 28” began after the national anthem and a preview of the 2012 season (with yet more big names).
Luigini’s “Ballet Egyptien” had a gorgeously deep, full sound. Strong bass beats and a sweet oboe solo painted a plethora of colors.
When Perlman navigated toward his chair at center stage after intermission, it was to fierce applause.
Bay carried Perlman’s violin on stage, while Perlman held the baton. Bay, holding onto the violin to let the applause last, received a playful scowl from Perlman, which got the crowd laughing.
Perlman, though, in a flowing black shirt, came to play. Max Bruch’s “Violin Concerto No. 1” just seems to suit Perlman, flaunting every one of his strengths (there are no weaknesses, if you were wondering).
Perlman defied already high expectations.
Tone. Honey-vibrato. Piercingly beautiful high notes, blazing through prickly runs. All the while, Perlman is expressive and relaxed. He looks like you’d imagine the Greek Poet Homer, sitting to recite “The Iliad.”
In this already beautiful work, Perlman seemed to pull out even more moments of sweetness. His bow (with such a high bow-hold!) slices like a cleaver through warm butter.
His performance drew the most natural standing ovation of the season, deservedly so.
If the Mozart and Luigini found the symphony reluctant to milk the soap-opera dynamics those pieces seem to demand in this hall, Respighi’s “Pines of Rome” took on the Bruch’s spark.
The trumpets sang out, and the piece had a perfect, quick gallop. The dynamics here felt alive, helped by pulsing woodwinds, a stunning clarinet solo, and a pleasantly triumphant finale.
The cupcakes, champagne and lore around this centennial gala gave this celebration a singular vivacity, yet it’s music like this that will last another hundred years.
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April 21, 2011
Review: ASO's Young Composer concert
On Wednesday night, the Austin Symphony Orchestra and Peter Bay made space on the podium to test out work from the youngest composers in Texas. This was a first in the state, we’re told, for a symphony to debut works written by Texans 18 and under. Out of 25 submissions, the ASO played 12 short pieces.
Disregarding the skills required to write for an entire orchestra, an accomplishment in itself, just listening as the musical vision of these young men came to life with the power of the full orchestra, was impressive.
All of the works had enough interplay between the sections of the orchestra to keep you intrigued. Sometimes the results were unusual — like using the string principals for extended solos — and sometimes the composers forgot to enroll the orchestra at its full capacity, leaving some dead patches. But a few of the them had an advanced understanding of how to put the whole group of players in service of their vision.
One of those was Wyatt Hahn, whose clever “Giovane Ballerina’s Suite,” was a symphony in seven minutes, with three tiny, hugely effective movements. Hahn, amazingly, a freshman at Cedar Park High School added color to a succinct waltz, with chimes. Then wood blocks and snare enforced the theme as it emerged, and faded, with the evening’s best use of dynamics.
Some pieces resembled video game soundtracks, or film scores a la Danny Elfman, and some could back up a PBS documentary, tonight. Quite a starting point for kids who still take P.E.
It was a treat to see so many young faces in the crowd, cheering after each piece. And this could become a “thing.”
Like the University Interscholastic League’s championships, this competition could improve and affect band and string programs in high schools across Texas by giving kids, composing on a computer in their bedrooms, something to aspire to.
As it was, the composers were all male, mostly white and from some of the most elite public schools in the state, something that says more about schools than about the competition itself.
Let’s hope that next year we see the entire face of Texas, including some young women.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
April 14, 2011
Review: Austin Lyric Opera's 'Flight'
Charming and thoroughly modern, Jonathan Dove’s opera “Flight” made a grace landing last weekend at the Long Center in its Austin Lyric Opera production.
And it was easy to grasp why Dove’s opera is a veritable hit on the contemporary opera landscape. (It’s been performed nearly 100 times.) With and appealing score, “Flight” tells the strange but engaging story of a group of travelers stuck in an airport for a night, an experience made all the more surreal by the presence of an undocumented refugee trapped in a kind of stateless suspension.
Dove’s atmospheric music — which must convey everything from a plane landing to the birth of a baby — smartly entwines a panoply of styles from a pleasantly pure brand of minimalism to stylish contemporary tonalities. And conductor Richard Buckley deftly handled it.
April de Angelis’s cleverly rhymed libretto is part modern poem, part snappily timed comedy patter.
But the real treat came from the solid singing throughout the chorus-less cast. Indeed some of the best musical moments were the ensemble singing.
As the the refugee, Nicholas Zammit’s sparking countertenot added and otherworldliness to the already ethereal role. And as the stiff and cool Controller who stays above (literally) the fray of the travelers’ farcical goings-on, soprano Nili Riemer elicited gasps of admiration from the audience Saturday when she effortlessly leapt to a high F in her first solo.
A comedic but thoughtful operatic portrait of life’s transitions, this “Flight” soars.
“Flight” contineus 7:30 p.m. Friday, 3 p.m. Sunday at the Long Center. www.austinlyricopera.org.
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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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April 4, 2011
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra with Nexus
Toronto’s Nexus percussion ensemble brought some mysticism to the Austin Symphony’s performance on Friday night. With two sets of chimes hanging from the upper balcony, Nexus seemed to expand the size of the concert hall to perform Toru Takemitsu’s “From Me Flows What You Call Time,” a meditative work that originally celebrated the 100th anniversary of Carnegie Hall.
Those chimes were strung up to multicolored ribbons that draped over the audience, to two posts on the stage. The ribbons alter the setting, but the sheer arsenal of bells, gongs, woodblocks and drums made the stage look like some medieval Asian marketplace.
The five percussionists enveloped the orchestra, with a set of steel drums dead center. The piece takes a cosmic approach to honor a century of music and performance; it could be the soundtrack of the beginning of the world — often silent, with patterns of chimes, creeks and vibrations that engender awe. If a symphony is an epic poem, this is Takemitsu’s 35 minute haiku.
The orchestra, under conductor Peter Bay, was largely in the background, with eerie, delicate colors. The use of steel drums as a strange centerpiece was striking, but the most stunning moments came from the clanging of a gigantic nippled gong, whose long wavelength oscillated in thick waves.
The pulling of the ribbons to activate the balcony chimes recalled a call to worship, a sign of the music’s power as it reached through the audience and the entire hall.
It was a sonic feast.
The second half marked a shift in moods, with Ravel’s “Menuet Antique” and his orchestration of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.”
The “Menuet,” a sprightly little work, found Bay and company in a wonderful, brisk tempo. But this was just a little, energetic appetizer.
The main course was Mussorgsky’s symphony standard, as the composer walks us through a literal exhibition — one that moved the composer to give its paintings a soundtrack.
The ASO tackled the work with gusto, with excellent string work, and notably sharp percussion. Saxophone and trumpet solos flowed easily, as did some color from the winds, but the work’s strenuous demands were apparent on a few occasions, as the wind and brass both had trouble articulating some faster, exposed runs, and one solo suffered from tuning challenges.
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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.
February 24, 2011
Review: Miro Quartet with Colin Currie
Mixing percussion with a string quartet is a tantalizing bit of weirdness, shaking up the usual routine.
Scottish percussionist Colin Currie is a dynamic marimba player, with laser accuracy, and for him the music of Michael Torke, Dave Maric and Steve Martland is familiar — indeed, he was chosen by the composers to premiere many of these works.
But Tuesday at UT’s Bates Recital Hall, Austin’s Miro Quartet was not to be outdone, handling new — monstrous and tough — pieces with poise and elegance.
The first stand-out was “Mojave,” Michael Torke’s sound poem for the drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Its winding string parts were beautifully evocative of that sparse landscape.
There was so much for the ear to feast on. Currie’s marimba work was mesmerizing, with cathartic chords. The cello was too quiet in the mix, but the Miro grooved comfortably with Torke’s syncopations.
“Starry Night,” by Steve Martland was the American premiere of this gorgeously lush work.
It opens with charging strings but the marimba’s entrance gives you chills. The piece runs non-stop — a lot of counting work for the Miro — infused with African folk tunes. It was a rewarding finale.
Noah Bendix-Balgley filled in nicely for the Miro at second violin, and although the reams of new music had them focused more than usual on their parts, the Miro brought their characteristic expressiveness to bear.
But Currie and the Miro also separated for a few tunes. Currie for Dave Maric’s spare and spooky “Sense and Innoncence,” and the Miro for Samuel Barber’s iconic “Adagio” and Shubert’s “Quartettsatz.”
Currie melds well with Maric’s moody electronic sampling, and it was a crisp, thoughtful work. But things felt a little awry when Currie played Steve Reich’s “Nagoya Marimbas” alongside a pre-recorded tape.
The piece is for two players, so the problem for the soloist is plain: how to coordinate with a second player in each city? But paying to watch one of the world’s best percussionists accompany a tape is absurd.
The live interaction between two intertwining parts is the performance. If this show is to tour around the country, which, by all other indications, it should, the Reich should be reworked or dropped.
With all the transcendent music in this program, it more than overcomes this tiny annoyance, and should it make its way around the country, the Miro and Colin Currie will turn more than a few heads.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Read an interview with Colin Currie and Miro Quartet cellist John Gindele about this concert here.
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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February 21, 2011
Review: Anne Akiko Meyers with the Austin Symphony Orchestra
The Austin Symphony’s season has been laced with soloists, but no other performance approached the technical and emotional caliber of violinist Anne Akiko Meyers Friday night at the Long Center.
From the opening notes of Prokofiev’s “Violin Concerto No.1 in D Major” Meyers’ tone pierced the hall like a laser beam. Her initial slide on the violin’s fingerboard was literally astonishing. It more closely resembled an electric guitar than the Molitor, her $3.6 million Stradivarius.
The Molitor sounds fierce: rich in the lower register, but liquid smooth up higher, so it stands to reason that the rest of her performance would be electrified. But the truth is that Meyers possesses a tone so pure that it emerges just a few times in a generation.
Meyers’ iridescent blue and black dress mimicked her playing: shifting instantaneously from Prokofiev’s delicate muted passages, to wildly demanding pizzicato and roughness near the instrument’s bridge.
Perhaps it’s simply the adversarial nature of the piece, but the symphony felt tentative at time, as it jostled with Meyers for the rhythmic center. Then again, it was a little hard to argue with Meyers’ audibly stomping foot, as it seemed (truthfully or not) to urge the symphony forward.
Stravinsky’s “Petrushka,” though, was the surprise of the evening. Originally scored for the ballet by the same name, the work is a reminder that Stravinsky is music’s James Joyce. Some melodies flow like honey, only to have the rug suddenly pulled out from under them with a low rumble or a circus theme.
But the symphony had this work under its thumb. Maestro Peter Bay, with perfect pacing, set the tone. The orchestra took a piece that feels a little grating on recordings, and made it gorgeous; soft and sweet, but also eliciting chills with abrasive chords when the time came.
The Haydn that began the evening (“Symphony 93 in D Major”) was light and breezy, like a pleasant aperitif. It’s not Beethoven, but the work may have benefited from a quicker pace and more dynamic contrast.
Certainly its finest concert of the season, the ASO hit the sweet spot of a thought provoking Stravinsky interpretation alongside a fiery soloist whose power and grace dominated the stage as only the most gifted artists can.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Photo by Ricardo B. Brazziell/American-Statesman.
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February 14, 2011
Review: Emanuel Ax, piano
During his quick lifetime, the composer Franz Schubert sought a legacy of his own.
Composing music in Vienna under the shadow of Beethoven must have felt like writing plays in London next to Shakespeare. As Michael Tusa said in his pre-concert lecture, Schubert dedicated a sonata to Beethoven, but scholars aren’t sure Schubert and his mentor ever met.
After Schubert died at 31 it took decades for the dust to settle, for his most original music to be widely published and appreciated.
Celebrated pianist Emanuel Ax’s all-Schubert concert nicely demonstrated the arc of Schubert’s career, at Bates Recital Hall Thursday night.
Schubert attempted to sell complex sonata-like pieces by renaming them “impromptus,” short works en vogue at the time.
Ax began with “Impromptus Op. 142,” four works that are thought to belong together, and showcase Schubert’s struggle between complexity and popularity. They are alternately lyrical, with hummable tunes, and brilliantly complex, with long arpeggiated runs and surprising key changes.
Ax was a strong presence, infinitely composed while stretching through all corners of the piano.
The proper sonatas came next, with “Sonata No. 13 in A Major,” which Ax began with perfect pace. But the work falters slightly midway through, feeling a little short on drama.
If the impromptus and first sonata were more gymnastic than memorable, the “Sonata in B Flat Major” makes you wish Schubert had lived a few more decades.
Replete with sudden, dramatic pauses and a handful of tunes that wind a bittersweet feeling through the work, this work is a masterpiece.
In the digital era, hearing two hours of a single composer works against our instincts. We crave variety, and ultimately programs like this are more academic than emotive. But Ax is a silently brilliant tactician who made them look easy. He played the entire concert from memory, and only once did his eyes flicker in surprise at having missed a note.
The packed house at Bates was obviously smitten and ready for an encore, when Ax, like a Zen professor, quieted the crowd and thanked them for being an outstanding audience, putting the night to an end. Ever the master.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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January 31, 2011
Review: Austin Lyric Opera's "The Italian Girl in Algiers"
Rossini’s comic opera, “The Italian Girl in Algiers,” was a breezy start to the new year for the Austin Lyric Opera Saturday night at the Long Center.
The funny, lighthearted work is energized by strong leads, clever staging and a nimble score.
The orchestra, under the vibrant direction of Richard Buckley, sets the mood with a brisk, melodic opening. Then, the trouble: a biplane streaks across the stage.
Applause erupts as the set “opens,” revealing a Moorish palace court, with patterned floor and archways.
Elvira (Cara Johnston) enters, complaining that her husband, Mustafa, has fallen out of love.
Mustafa, the “bey,” (a governor, of sorts), makes it known that he’s had his fill with his wife. He’s over her preening and her extravagant demands on his time. That, and he hears stories about the women of Italy.
So, Mustafa declares his plan: He’ll ship Elvira off to Italy with his Italian slave, Lindoro (Javier Abreu), and he’ll send his men to fetch him a Lamborghini upgrade.
As luck would have it, the very woman arrives, having crashed her (stylish) plane in desert, with her new man, Taddeo (Peter Strummer).
But Isabella (Sandra Piques Eddy) is more horsepower than Mustafa expected, and she plots an escape with her fiance, Lindoro.
The leads are brilliant. Pecchioli’s Mustafa dances and moves like Michael Jackson in “Thriller.” His face is elastic, and from pompous to effeminate, he’s hilarious.
Eddy embodies Isabella perfectly, as a cross between Amelia Earhart and Sophia Loren.
The voices of both were resonant and fluid, transmitting a bouquet of emotions, from comedy to despair.
Abreu is fun to watch as the straight man, Lindoro, but his voice seemed a little thin as it crept to the lower register.
All secondary parts were outstanding, most notably Strummer as “uncle” Taddeo, a classic comedy “big man.” Strummer’s perfect timing was matched by an ample voice, which made his little shrieks and movements even funnier.
The score is just as much fun, even when the orchestra outpaced the singers in some brisk verbal passages.
The orchestra’s dynamics were especially tight, and a horn solo early in the first half was especially sonorous and beautiful. The whole work felt fresh.
“The Italian Girl in Algiers” continues 7:30 p.m. Feb. 2 and Feb. 4, 3 p.m. Feb. 6 at the Long Center. www.austinlyricopera.org
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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January 28, 2011
Review: Bang on A Can All-Stars with Glenn Kotche
Bang On a Can have been banging on pianos, drum kits and strings since they formed in 1987 to fill in the gap between avant garde classical and experimental pop.
Their All-Star descendants played a compelling show at UT’s Bass Concert Hall on Wednesday, with special guest, percussionist Glenn Kotche.
Kotche is the drummer for beloved alt-American band Wilco, but he’s also released three solo record. This concert gave evidence that he writes absorbing, original music outside the rock sphere.
Uniting with percussionist Ian Ding, Kotche starred in the second half, with a dazzling expansion of Steven Reich’s “Clapping.”
Reich’s piece was a spare work for four hands — an academic response to African rhythms. Kotche’s variations are for four hands and four feet, challenging the ears to anchor onto an individual rhythm before it morphs to another.
Ding and Kotche then swap drum kits for the floor, covered in resonant metal plates, and pick up a new rhythm. You almost pine for Reich’s simple handclaps.
The next two works were equally engaging, and a generous transition from the first half, which pushed the boundaries of how long an audience can withstand a single musical motif.
The All-Stars began with the first movement of Brian Eno’s seminal ambient work “Music for Airports.” It’s astounding that such a modern piece was written in 1978.
The problem with a long ambient work is that its purpose is to be stimulating background music. It served that purpose phenomenally well, but after the initial theme began to loop for the fourth or fifth time, with only microscopic adjustments, it became apparent that the piece just doesn’t work on stage. It lacks a visual stimulus, of say, travelers and aircraft landings.
A similar issue occurred with a frenetic, devil’s-workshop interpretation of Workers Union by Louis Andriessen. The piece allows the musicians to choose their own notes, but not rhythms or dynamics.
Pieces like this are why Bang On a Can exist, and it was thrilling to watch them play it, at first.
But after ten minutes it was like listening to a thousand third graders eat lunch — in synchronized, polyphonic rhythm.
Thank goodness for Michael Gordon’s beautiful and brilliant “For Madeline.” An elegy to his mother, it’s melancholic, with little dark melodies, glissandos angling up and down against the background of pulsing marimba.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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January 25, 2011
Bang On a Can -- and lots more fresh, new music
It Bang On a Can was an avant-garde group at that the very edge of cutting-edge of new contemporary classical music.
They’re still on the edge. But the founders — composers Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe — have passed the baton on to a new generation of innovators who are continuing to tackle the freshest composed music.
For its winter tour, the Bang on a Can All-Stars — a six-person ensemble of cello, bass, percussion, piano, guitar and clarinet — are joined by Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche. Though Kotche may be more widely-known as a member of the Grammy-nominated rock band, his forays as a boundary-crossing composer have focused on the creative realm between rhythm and space, dissonance and consonance.
Wednesday the part-rock band, part amplified chamber ensemble will play piece by new music masters — including Brian Eno’s “Music for Airports” and Steve Reich’s “Music for Pieces of Wood” — and also a pair of new compositions by Kotche.
The Bang On a Can All-Star show kicks off a weekend of other new music gigs.
On Saturday, the New York-based five-member Ensemble Pamplemousse brings its ethereal and sound-bending style to town when it plays its newest concert piece “Absurd Limitations.”
And cross-genre Austin composer Graham Reynolds celebrates the release of two new CDs — one an homage to Duke Ellington, the other a remixed riff on his concerto “The Difference Engine” for 35-piece string orchestra.
Bang On a Can All-Stars with Glenn Kotchke
When: 8 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Bass Concert Hall, UT campus
Tickets: $24-$36
Information: 477-6060. www.texasperformingarts.org
Ensemble Pamplemousse
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Where: Mexican American Cultural Center, 600 River St.
Tickets: $15
Information: www.amoda.org
The Difference Engine,’ with Mother Falcon
When: 9 p.m. Friday (all ages show)
Where: United States Art Authority, 2908 Fruth St.
Cost: $10
‘Duke! Three Portraits of Ellington,’ with Butcher Bear and Ruby Jane
When: 10 p.m. Saturday
Where: Continental Club, 1315 S. Congress Ave.
Cost: $10
Information: www.grahamreynolds.com
Image: Glenn Kotche. Photo by Michael Wilson.
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January 24, 2011
Review: Conspirare & Robert Kyr
The church was dark. Tall wooden platforms holding rows of candles were being carefully lit, when a single, angelic voice reverberated from outside the hall.
A small chorus of voices joined in, slowly coming closer and louder, until they entered St. Martin’s Lutheran Church, where all the candles were now lit, casting an alluring glow from the altar. The voices swirled around the pews and the singers of Conspirare stepped in to begin a concert of work by Renaissance master Josquin des Prez.
Friday night’s concert — the first in a series of four for the Grammy-nominated Austin choir ‘Renaissance and Response’ festival featuring new compositions by composer Robert Kyr — was directed by Conspirare artistic director Craig Hella Johnson with effortless ease.
(Kyr’s challenge, a commission from Conspirare, was to compose a 21st-century responses to music of Josquin, Orlandus Lassus, Tomas Luis de Victoria and J.S. Bach.)
De Profundis began, appropriately, from the depths, with bass David Farwig and tenor Tracy Jacob Shirk’s stark duo. They established the beautiful straight-tone that would echo throughout the evening: the entire choir eschewing vibrato, which illuminated flawless tone, pitch and harmony.
The concert was a display of the flat-out power of these voices, without adornment. Only the string parts felt occasionally flat.
Josquin’s music was a revelation. Its sparse beauty contrasts with the bubbling of voices that whirl about each other. “Gaude Virgo Mater Christi” split into gusts of windy melodies, until the piece ended in unison, with a long, powerful reverberation.
Kyr’s response to Josquin was an expansive cap to the evening. Its haunting Latin blended with gorgeous English phrases as the choir again encircled the pews, leaving only Abigail Lennox‘s voice to fly around the bricks and domed ceiling, slowly bringing the circle to a close.
Certainly, the Josquin was Conspirare’s best program of the season, perhaps one of its best to date. It was a resounding success: solemn, serious, and gorgeous.
On Sunday, three concerts later on the four-concert program, the ensemble joined a last time to sing Bach and reconsidered all of the Renaissance composers in Kyr’s four responses.
In the daylight of St. Martin’s, Bach felt a little diminished next to the stark beauty of the Renaissance composers.
Bach’s influence looms so large that his style of bright polyphony and counterpoint is still emulated today. So there was an inevitable comedown after the alien beauty of Josquin.
Even on their last, exhausting concert, Conspirare sounded strong. Kyr’s cantata alternated his Renaissance responses with a duo that took its lyrics from “Dark Night of the Soul,” by St. John of the Cross. They told the entire story, reaching a poignant climax, though certain sections felt a touch drawn out.
Kyr’s responses to Lassus and Victoria loomed large, especially “From the Abyss,” which told the story of Jonah and the Whale through the music of Lassus. Conspirare’s singers captured this babbling brook of music, swelling like the sea with its dark, haunting chords.
Kyr’s works were impeccably envisioned. They reinvigorated the concerts as a palate cleanser while expanding on each composer’s musical and lyrical ideas.
Spiritual, contemplative music, with the dazzling arrangements and work of Kyr and Johnson, Austin has much to anticipate from the future of this partnership.
‘Renaissance and Response’ was performed at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church Jan. 21-23 by Conspirare. See Conspirare brings new vigor to Renaissance music.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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January 18, 2011
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra plays Dvorak's "The New World."
“America is full of Indians and wild animals,” says the voice of Antonin Dvorak. It’s 1891 and the composer is mulling over an opportunity to write a symphony.
Dvorak is reluctant, but accepts, and he embarks with his family to New York.
The swirling black and white footage of a sea voyage was a stunning beginning to the live, before-your-eyes film that played onstage above the live narrators and the Austin Symphony Orchestra with conductor Peter Bay, the film’s soundtrack.
The concert’s confusing title (Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s “Beyond the Score”) led to a slightly comical online disclaimer that read “NOTE: Chicago Symphony is not performing.” There was some confusion as to what the program entailed.
With the lush narration talents of Dianne Donovan, Rick Rowley and Tom Byrne (as Dvorak), the period film footage told the story of the construction of Dvorak’s ninth symphony, “The New World.”
The sea rocks and swells with Dvorak’s music pulsing, then the brick and iron of the city vibrates with the crush of people in Lower East Side markets. There’s footage of Niagara Falls and Native Americans in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.
Throughout, the narrators embody different characters. The composer is concerned that expectations of him are too great. He senses that he’s being asked “to create for them a national music.”
Dvorak is moved by the story of Hiawatha (actually a Scandinavian myth, we’re told), but here the film lulls, hitting the musical cues while abandoning the narrative.
For the second half, the ASO performed the symphony in its entirety.
It opened with good energy, building to the major theme, but the second movement began a little roughly, with imprecise entries from the brass. The winds and oboe, in particular, made up for it, carrying the solo melody.
The strings’ dynamics had, at times, some wonderful movement.
The third movement, though, felt a little sluggish, and would have welcomed a little more pace.
Although balance seemed fine, this listener’s ear formed a direct, and unfortunate, link to the bell of a trombone for most of the night, again suffering from the hyper-fragility of the Long Center’s acoustics.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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January 6, 2011
Bach and beyond
Ever since J.S. Bach hit the scene and came to define baroque music, countless music makers have found inspiration in the work of the astoundingly prolific composer — such as Austin Chamber Music artistic director and pianist Michelle Schumann.
Schumann’s crafted an intriguing program that uses Bach’s music as well as that by modern composers greatly influenced by the baroque master — Philip Glass, Arvo Part and Keith Jarrett — alternated and arranged to form a 60-minute seamless musical thread for piano, marimba and vibes. Schumann is joined by percussionist Graeme Francis.
“Out of the Bach’s.”
7:30 p.m. Saturday
First Unitarian Church, 4700 Grover Ave.
$25
www.austinchambermusic.org
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December 13, 2010
Review: Texas Early Music Project
Packed tightly under the wood beams of the First English Lutheran Church, the crowd settled in Saturday nigh for the city’s most moving and intriguing holiday commemoration.
Utterly removed from the commercial trappings of modern Christmas, the Texas Early Music Project transports you to a church in ancient Europe, when songs were a more integral part of the season, and caroling with friends more vital than a letter to Santa.
This concert highlighted the traditions of northern Europe, drawing from as far back as the 15th century.
A series of French Noels were an auspicious way to begin. “Noel Nouvelet,” was sublime, with harmonies from Jenifer Thyssen and Meredith Ruduski that had the audience holding its breath in silence.
The Irish traditionals showed just how far back folk songs go, and gave us a chance to brush up on our Irish Gaelic.
The Wexford traditional, “Ye Sons of Men With me Rejoice,” featured the rousing male voices singing a lively carol with excellent unison.
When Scott Horton’s five-foot-tall lute (a theorbo) let out a troubling crack just prior to intermission, the crowd let out a gasp. But the show went on, and later, when Horton was asked to say something about his instrument, he allowed that it was a “Pain in the butt,” to great laughter.
This is part of the appeal of the TEMP. Everything feels handpicked: a select cadre of outstanding singers, visiting soloists who specialize in period instruments and concert notes with lyrics that gently guide you through each song.
The TEMP’s supporters patronize its work because it consistently proves that this “otherworldly” music is also staggeringly beautiful. That reverence for the music and the group’s unpretentiousness quickly envelopes newcomers too.
After intermission, the German carols took over, most notably with the wondrously complex “In Dulci Jubilo,” which united several different versions in a single tune. Beginning with a canon of little imitating verses that swirled amongst each other, the piece then shifted to the whole chorus, tying the tune together.
By the time the crowd was sent off with a plea for God to “send us a merry new yeare,” everyone seemed grateful to have this pleasant interruption from a hectic season.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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Area student win chance to play with Austin Symphony Orchestra
Three are high school students have won the chance to perform with the Austin Symphony Orchestra as part of the orchestra’s annual Youth Awards.
The winners are Danny Chen for his performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto in D Minor and Eric Wei, piano, for the Piano Concerto No. 2 of Camille Saint-Saëns. Both are from Westwood High School in Round Rock ISD. Also a winner is David Robinson of Leander High School for his performance of the Concertino for Clarinet in E-flat Major of Carl Maria von Weber and Edward Wang of Round Rock’s Cedar Valley Middle School in who played George Gershwin’s Concert in F.
Winners are given the opportunity to perform for their peers with the Austin Symphony during its annual AT&T High School Concerts Tour in January. The competition is sponsored by the Austin Area Music Teachers Association.
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December 8, 2010
Review: Conspirare's 'Christmas at the Carillon'
Framed between two Christmas trees, Craig Hella Johnson and Conspirare brought their diverse sensibilities to their holiday concert on the Long Center’s main stage.
For all the decking of the hall — including colorful shawls for the women and a flock of poinsettias — the program was not festive in the strictly traditional sense. Integrating modern pop music with standards and traditionals, this year Conspirare’s choices trended toward the bittersweet.
Joining the chorus on stage were Patrice Pike, the Austin singer/songwriter, and percussionist Thomas Burritt. Pike, in a red pea coat, was the evening’s standout. She has instinctive stage presence and voice that effortlessly projects emotion.
At times the arrangements felt a little light on counterpoint, but backing up Pike, the choir’s effect was moving. Burritt’s marimba was a soft touch, but had moments that were mesmerizing.
The Christmas season isn’t all reindeer and bows, and this year’s concert made room to consider the melancholy that sometimes arrives with the year’s end. Both lyrically and in a host of quiet, spare arrangements, Conspirare and company were in a reflective mood.
A number of the selections in the collage, like Annie Lennox’s “Why,” and Coldplay’s “The Scientist,” effectively reflected on regret and the end of a relationship. Many delicate tunes featured just a solo or a small group of voices accompanying the piano.
On occasion, then, it was a relief to have the contemplative mood broken with the chorus at its full volume and energy.
The choir was joyous in its “Jubilate Deo,” and shined in more formal works, like “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” and an extended and beautiful “Kyrie.”
The Old Crow Medicine Show’s country tune “Take ‘em Away,” brought a lightness and laughter from the crowd.
The delivery and lyrics (“Every year I just keep getting deeper in debt”) struck a chord, and reminded us that even calamity can be cathartic at Christmas.
Although some tunes felt overly sincere— as when the entire company turned to the audience to sing “True Colors” — these were in the minority. Pike’s original songs and her moving take on pop tunes helped steer mostly clear of treacle.
Even away from the church acoustics, the crowd was rewarded with powerful singing and a breathless, moving reverence for secular and spiritual songs.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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December 3, 2010
UT Symphony Orchestra review
The University of Texas Symphony Orchestra put two influential teachers on stage Wednesday night, as it welcomed Carl St. Clair as guest conductor and Brian Lewis on violin.
St. Clair, originally from Hochheim, Texas, is a gracious and energetic UT graduate who later became a direct disciple of Leonard Bernstein. He has led the Pacific Symphony, in California, for the past two decades, and recently left a Berlin opera company known for experimental productions, after artistic differences.
The hometown crowd was receptive. St. Clair took the stage with Lewis, UT Professor of Violin, who greeted Concertmaster Soo-Jin Nam with a friendly elbow bump before tackling Max Bruch’s demanding “Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor.”
Bruch, the program reminded us, was an “acerbic” composer whose principal contribution was this stunning piece, his first attempt at a violin concerto.
With a large vibrato, Lewis’ tone sang beautifully through the work, projecting nicely above the orchestra. The left-handed contortions that Bruch called for were entirely under Lewis’ control, with high trills and, on occasion, violent, crunchy chords.
Lewis’ onstage movements are slightly squared, as if he’s playing in an invisible box, but it gave a sense of efficiency, not constraint. Indeed, the renowned educator sang through the work’s complexities.
The Sergei Prokofiev “Symphony No. 5, Op. 100” is a captivating work with a wintry feel. Cold and snow too often come to mind around Russian composers, perhaps, but as haunting and isolated tunes crash against big marching themes, the impression of Moscow’s snow and storms remains.
The brass sounded clear, and the tutti entrance in the first movement was strong and nicely unified. The tempo in the Allegro Marcato was quick enough to keep the frenetic tune engaged.
St. Clair was active on stage, his silvery hair bouncing along with him. Under his direction the orchestra had outstanding energy and a warm sound. The frantic finale especially had a thunderous ending that felt potent.
Afterward, St. Clair was presented with a distinguished alumnus plaque and spoke gratefully of his time at the university. “The last thing I did here was 36 years ago,” he said. Let us hope next visit comes much sooner.
Permalink | | Categories: Luke Quinton, Music, Reviews
November 22, 2010
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra and Francisco Ladron de Guevara-Finck
It’s sad that Aaron Copland is probably the best known composer of Mexican orchestral music. “El Salon Mexico,” written in the 1930s, combined folk rhythms with a wickedly catchy melody, but it persists after 80 years.
So, it was a revelation to hear the Austin Symphony Orchestra and conductor Peter Bay tackle the darker and more daring depths of Mexican symphonic work.
Galindo’s “Sones de Mariachi,” is a single movement that whirls through mariachi tunes, with an off-beat so prominent it practically becomes the beat. It’s fun music to watch, because it breaks some instruments out of their shell: take the cellos, who become guitarrons, strumming along without bows.
But none of these folk tunes lack precision. On the contrary, Galindo, who studied under Copland, was equally enamored with difficult and mercurial time signatures. And for Manuel Ponce’s “Violin Concerto,” the complexity increased.
Dressed all in black, with a flowing dress shirt and chin-length hair, soloist Francisco Ladron de Guevara-Finck cast a moody and modest presence. This lifted as soon as his bow touched the strings — he has a sweet tone that’s almost bird-like.
The Ponce concerto seemed a tough sell on the audience though, and that’s understandable. The orchestra and soloist have beautiful melodies, yet they never seem to intersect. The entire work was written at an interval that’s almost grating to the ear.
Luckily, long and gorgeous cadenzas and triumphant endings of movements got the crowd excited.
After intermission, the spirit picked up again with the cinematic “Suite from ‘Redes,’ ” by Silvestre Revueltas, a Mexican composer with an Austin connection: he attended St. Ed’s from 1916-18.
And we ought to claim him as one of our own. The two movements are miniature epics, recalling Hollywood’s golden age and foreshadowing the ghostly scores of westerns to come.
“Redes” was a lot of work for the brass, who did good work setting the mood with shrill themes. Still, it was welcome to return to hummable and danceable themes with Marquez’s “Danzon No. 2.” and “Huapango” by Moncayo.
The percussion was kept busy all night, with precise work on bass drum and timpani, as well as a variety of blocks and shakers.
The concert was perhaps a touch more challenging than expected; less folky, more abrasive. But bravo to the ASO for keeping the crowd on its heels. With an amazing variety of motifs and unusual orchestrations, there were enough moments of brilliance to keep everyone entertained.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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November 19, 2010
Review: The Miro Quartet
The Miro Quartet is always worth watching. On Thursday night at Bates Recital Hall a healthy audience fought the chaos of parking, but were rewarded with the chaos and serenity of Beethoven.
This is Miro’s second concert in a series that will stretch over the next six years as they tackle all of Beethoven’s 18 string quartets.
A concert featuring a single composer can be draining. The tendency is for the listener to take sides, comparing one piece to the other, and there’s rarely an effective musical palate cleanser. This wasn’t quite the case, until the finale of “Op. 130,” which became a little long.
This was a long work by Beethoven, with five movements already. So when he wrote “Grosse Fuge,” a 20 minute work, as its sixth section, his publishers chopped it, and he wrote a shorter end piece.
At the end of a long concert, it seemed they had a point. Length aside, “Grosse Fuge” is an ungainly dance, and though entertaining, it was a harsh blow after “Cavatina,” the delicate fifth movement. Daniel Ching’s violin gorgeously rendered the theme, with sul tasto bowing (near the fingerboard) whose tone was impossibly beautiful and served as the evening’s highlight.
Indeed, set between dark, but sublime chords one one side, and a long rock opera on the other, Ching’s embodiment of serenity was a powerful reminder of Beethoven’s capacity for beauty and discordance. It can be a sort of bitter medicine, but Miro’s selections had effectively pulled us between light and dark all night.
In the opening piece, “Op. 14, No.1,” the fun and bright work often felt danceable, even as the winding violin parts land at a dozen false endings. This must have been high humor back in the day, and the conceit works still.
The “Op. 95” (or “Serioso,”) brought out a mania that recalls Napoleon’s rise to power, which Beethoven viewed as betrayal. It veers from much of his work, balancing bursts of passion with dissonant asides.
And “Serioso” especially brought the Miro’s strengths to light: gentle, pitch-perfect harmonies, enviable tone and brilliant balance, especially from Ching, whose violin seems always to be at the right volume.
Josh Gindele’s cello often felt like the quartet’s nimble fulcrum, which allowed for wonderful interplay between the instruments.
The encore was a graceful version of the Lento Assai from “Op. 135,” leaving an audience satisfied enough to overcome the frustration of any exorbitant parking tickets.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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Symphony broadcasts live on KMFA
Can’t make it to the symphony tonight?
Tune in to KMFA 89.5 and hear a live broadcast of tonight’s Austin Symphony Orchestra concert. It’s the first time ASO and the central Texas classical music station have teamed up for a live broadcast from the Long Center. Austin Lyric Opera has broadcast its season opening performances the last two years.
Hosted by Sara Hessel and Bob Buckalew, tonight’s broadcast begins at 7:30 p.m.
Celebrating the bicentennial of Mexico’s war of independence and the centennial of the Mexican revolution, ASO welcomes the young Mexican violinist Francisco Ladron de Guevara-Finck who will play Manuel Ponce’s colorful, monumental Violin Concerto.
Also on the program is work by Mexican composers including Galindo’s Sones de mariachi, Revueltas’ Redes, Marquez’ Danzon No. 2 and Moncayo’ Huapango.
The concert plays live at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Dell Hall, Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Dr.;$19-$48. www.austinsymphony.org
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November 11, 2010
New music by UT composers: Free concert
Meanwhile, from that often overlooked segment of the self-proclaimed ‘Live Music Capital of the World,’ comes ‘Clutch,’ a free concert of new chamber works by the tribe of young composers busy at the University of Texas.
The night will feature small ensemble pieces by Zack Stanton, Max Stoffregen, Justin Capps and others, including ‘How to Cross the Susquehanna,’ a solo work by Bram Wayman for the Bates Recital Hall’s mighty, three-story Visser-Rowland organ with its 5,315 pipes.
Can’t make it in person? The concert will be webcast live at www.music.utexas.edu.
‘Clutch: New Music by UT Composers.’
7:30 p.m. today. Bates Recital Hall, Music Building, UT campus
Admission is free.
November 10, 2010
Review: Austin Lyric Opera's 'La Traviata'
Austin Lyric Opera went for lush and classic to mark the opening its 24th season Saturday night at the Long Center with its production of ‘La Traviata.’
Opulent sets and costumes, a passionately conducted score and solid performances from the singers marked the robust performance.
Tenor Chad Shelton pleased last season as the Duke of Manua in ALO’s ‘Rigoletto.’ Now, as Alfredo, he brought a rich, resonant tone that was nevertheless nicely uncomplicated. Likewise he infused a good deal of realistic energy into the role of the besotted lover, a nice counterbalance to Verdi’s melodrama.
As the doomed courtesan Violetta, soprano Pamela Armstrong delivered plenty of heart-tugging pathos especially on her arias ‘Ah! for’ lui” and ‘Addio del passato,’ her voice creamy and lyric, yet very well articulated.
Germont, Baritone Grant Youngblood, as Angelo’s misguided father, gave both an expressive and authoritative portrayal.
Desmond Heeley’s sumptuous Victorian interiors and costumes, from Lyric Opera of Chicago, lent an elegance while Christine Binder’s dramatic lighting seemed to emphasize the emotional tone of each scene, again a nice counterpoint to the sentimentality of this favorite tragic chestnut of an opera.
Stage director Garnett Bruce centered the dramatic attention on the principals, which left the chorus adrift though the polished singing made up for it.
In the end, what made this a compelling ‘Traviata’ was the conducting of music director Richard Buckley. Buckley excluded the usual sentimentality of most Traviata interpretations and instead, offered a more delicate, nuanced sound that was therefore more emotionally urgent and credible.
‘La Traviata’ continues 7:30 p.m. Nov. 10, 12 and 3 p.m. Nov. 14. www.austinlyricopera.org.
Photo by Mark Matson for ALO.
November 9, 2010
Review: Bill Frisell at One World Theater
Bill Frisell plays guitar like a professor giving a lecture. Backed on Sunday by Eyvind Kang on viola and Rudy Royston on drum kit, Frisell dispersed little truths with each sentence, showcasing a staggering range of knowledge from the stage of One World Theater.
A few sparse, scattered notes fell around the audience at first, echoing in reverb from Kang’s viola, as if the group was gingerly feeling its way into a cold pool. Things quickly heated up with a ten minute jam that cycled through samples of near-every musical touchstone Frisell cares about: southern rock, bluegrass, blues, hip-hop, reggae, Americana, and a paint-peeling rock solo drenching in distortion.
By the time the trio dissolved back into abstraction, we’d heard a survey of what makes Frisell so vital.
This iteration of Frisell’s band, the Beautiful Dreamers, was a small package of compact oddities. Royston’s drums were tight and sharp, but quickly brought raucous hard rock pounding, as required. Even more entertaining were the little adventures of Kang’s viola.
Using octave pedals to compensate for a lack of bass, Kang and Frisell shared a psychic instinct to play tight, creeping themes in unison. Kang also favored small glissandos that brought a vaguely Asian theme, bouncing them off pretty solos.
Kang’s position as de facto bassist worked better than might be expected, with his instinct for intriguing little background beats and drone. But his two-fingered plucking, a cross between a fast bass line and a trill, inspired awe.
Then there’s the masterful right hand of Frisell. His clean guitar sound may be his calling card — with discordant harmonies that have won over his cult of fans — but what you see live is the delicate finger-picking and strumming that happens simultaneously, a thumb to play the bass line or melody and a ring finger to play harmony.
What really strikes you is how effortless it all seems. But, come to think about it, Frisell (and his band) are at ease with something incredibly hard: never-ending experiments in treating Americana with both reverence and a sense of humor.
You needn’t recognize the bars of the Doors’ “Light my Fire,” to enjoy the band’s deconstruction of its chords and melodies, but it’s fun to catch it.
The sheer breadth of his musical ideas is what stays with you. From favorites like the quiet, funky “Winslow Homer,” to his hummable take on “Goin’ out of my Head,” the professor still has much to investigate, and much to teach.
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Review: Austin Chamber Ensemble
It was nice to see Jessica Mathaes, the Austin Symphony’s Concertmaster, get to own the spotlight for the opening show of the Austin Chamber Ensemble’s 30th season.
Playing alongside Colette Valentine, the stunning and unflappable Austin pianist, Mathaes ventured through music of great virtuosity, as well as a difficult new work by Los Angeles composer Paul Reale.
On Friday at Westlake United Methodist Church, with its handsome space of thick wooden beamed ceilings, the pews were only sparsely occupied. This was a shame, because the duo chose works from among the most challenging in violin repertoire.
Giuseppe Tartini’s “Devil’s Trill” is a showpiece the artist wrote to try and replicate a tune the devil played in his dream. It starts with difficult chords and double stops, a swaying lullaby, until exploding with quick, challenging passages, loaded with, well, trills.
Mathaes, in a black A-line dress with bright pink roses, handled the work well. After a tentative start, her chords carried nicely, and her tone sang.
Paul Reale’s “Seven Deadly Sins,” was a more acquired taste. Seven short movements of two or three minutes apiece, Reale’s work tries to give each sin a distinct character, with both light and dark sides.
“Anger” contrasted moments of uneasy calm with pretty bursts, while “Gluttony” used glissandos up and down the violin that resemble swirling wine or food in the belly. The most interesting of these was “Envy,” with pizzicato that had a beautiful but serious air of mocking.
Ultimately, pieces of each section were interesting, but the work as a whole was draining. There was simply too much counterpoint — a glut of independent playing that rarely aligned.
Saint-Saens’ “Sonata No. 1 in D minor,” however, was reason enough to be in attendance. Valentine’s piano shined with little waves that recalled Debussy, and Mathaes’ tuning in the upper register was immaculate.
The Saint-Saens is a moody, beautiful work. With fast, detailed passages that are challenging for its players, and rewarding for its listeners.
The duo returned for an encore of a Henri Vieuxtemps’ variations on “Yankee Doodle,” the teasing, playful, and entirely more demanding, riff on the traditional. Mathaes played dazzling harmonics and a left-handed pizzicato that put the cap on a evening of playing that was engaging and exacting.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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October 25, 2010
Review: Academy of St. Martin's in the Field with Jonathan Biss
It’s common to play Mozart’s music like the work of a child-savant, treating his long runs like whimsical math puzzles. But Friday at UT’s Bass Concert Hall, pianist Jonathan Biss took a different direction, toying with Mozart’s most mature, most un-romantic musical ideas. The results were spectacular.
Most in attendance had probably come to see their CD collection come to life, drawn by the chamber orchestra from London’s Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. So it was perhaps a surprise that pianist Jonathan Biss left a greater impression.
Just 30 years old, Biss appeared sans tuxedo tails, in the understated suit and tie of a jazz man. And he followed with a like-minded approach: humble but urbane, and very astute.
“Jeunehomme” (“Piano Concerto No. 9”) showed an intellectual, stylish Mozart, as Biss toyed with the composer’s musical ideas, and with the piano’s conversation with the orchestra.
Near the end of one cadenza, he played what sounded like a blues bass riff. It happened, and then it was gone, on to explore Mozart’s next thought.
His interpretations were full of little teases and pauses. Compared with most interpretations, Biss’ rising and falling notes felt more sustained and less flighty; more muscular and less whimsical.
It was like we were watching the pianist work in his study late at night, a feeling enhanced by the period positioning of the pianist, with his back to the audience.
Biss seemed slightly awkward, “conducting” from the piano, especially for a group that more or less directs itself.
But St. Martin’s are entertaining and spirited, with lively interpretations and an jovial sense of humor.
If they’re not always very delicate, they certainly make up for it with persuasive dynamics and movement. Besides, it’s fun to watch a violinist conduct from his chair, using raised eyebrows, nods and movements of his head.
At times during “Symphony No. 29,” the bass and cellos were hard to hear, and during the opener, the second violins suffered the same fate.
But the orchestra often does outstanding work, as with its shimmering scales in the finale’s fourth movement.
And the crowd was quite pleased, goading St. Martin’s into a brief encore, though a brief word from St. Martin’s would not have gone astray, considering it was the opening night of this small tour.
An all-Mozart concert is not usually the most enthralling program. Too many interpreters make everything Mozart ever composed resemble a frolic through the fields. But Biss’ playing may well do for Mozart what Glenn Gould did for Bach, and watching that was a thrill.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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October 22, 2010
Hartman Foundation pledges $1 million to Austin Symphony Orchestra
Austin Symphony Orchestra announced late Thursday that Austin arts patrons Claudette and David Hartman and the Hartman Foundation have pledged $1 million to endow the orchestra’s annual free summer summer concerts.
The Hartman gift will provide permanent endowment for the 12-week series of one-hour casual concerts performed on the terrace of the Long Center for the Performing Arts. The summer concert series began in 2002 and was first presented in Wooldridge Park before the Long Center opened in 2008. The Hartman Foundation has been the sole sponsor of the summer concert series since its inception.
“It is our hope that these free and very informal outdoor events will provide an opportunity for Austinites to become acquainted — or reacquainted — with a classical music experience at Austin’s new gathering place for the arts,” stated Claudette Hartman in a release from the orchestra.
Read a recent story on the orchestra’s summer concert series “Sunday in the park with the symphony.”
Photo by Jarrad Henderson/American-Statesman.
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October 18, 2010
Review: Aeolus Quartet
Aeolus Quartet is a powerful and thoughtful group of young musicians who, halfway through their time as UT Butler School of Music’s graduate quartet-in-residence, are charting an ascending course.
On Sunday night at Bates Recital Hall they played a concert of Beethoven’s first published string quartet, William Bolcom’s modern “Three Rags for String Quartet” and Felix Mendelssohn’s “String Quartet No.2 in A Minor.”
Beethoven’s “String Quartet in F Major, Op. 18” begins with a long allegro, in which Aeolus sounded very at ease, confident in their interpretation. They created weighted pauses — sustained silence, that made for some dramatic space between the music.
The second movement, which is inspired by the death scene from “Romeo and Juliet,” brought out a lovely cello tone and unified, manic dynamics that moved quickly from warm and calm, to furious bursts.
Aeolus are developing and expanding their style, and in the same movement a pause extended perhaps a touch too long, stretching drama into melodrama.
Bolcom’s three rags are super entertaining works that dance with Americana, classical and modern touches. Aeolus have a nice bead on how to play this music. ‘Graceful Ghost,’ an elegy for Bolcom’s father, is especially tender and nostalgic. This piece should be better known and the quartet embodied it beautifully.
The Mendelssohn gave Aeolus another chance to display a unity of technique and purpose, the violins and viola executing precise, exposed notes flawlessly. The work offers a few moments of whimsy that bring out the quartet’s evident sense of humor. After ending the first movement with a slightly uneven tone, they polished the work with sublime harmony, again showing a delicate, emotive touch.
Aeolus’ players are working towards graduate degrees or diplomas while studying with the Miro Quartet. In the meantime, this vibrant group shows great promise.
Before these musicians continue on their travels around the United States and the world, Austinites would do well to catch them at any of their — almost weekly — appearances. This performance was free and open to the public and attended mostly by music students.
To make local connection even easier, Aeolus have a nicely-curated blog and Facebook page that give a very human (and often funny) insight into their demanding performance and rehearsal schedule. One can read them cleverly respond to online spam or see a picture of their evening at Itzhak Perlmans’ home, where “Mr. P” took them on a voyage through the classical offerings of YouTube.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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October 15, 2010
Austin violinist Anne Akiko Meyers buys rare Stradivarius for record-setting $3.6 million
A Stradivarius violin thought to originally belong to Napoleon Bonaparte was purchased yesterday via online auction by Austin-based violinist Anne Akiko Meyers for a record-setting $3.6 million, the highest price on record for any musical instrument sold at auction.
The “Molitor” Stradivarius, made in 1697, takes its name from former owner Count Gabriel-Jean-Joseph Molitor, a General in Napoleon’s army. The instrument was sold online Thursdays by Tarisio Auctions which said the price was the highest for any instrument sold at auction. Its presale estimate was $2 million to $3 million.
A celebrated soloist, Meyers joined the faculty of UT’s Butler School of Music in 2009. Her latest CD ‘Seasons…dreams’ was released by E1 Records in September.
“It was love at first sound,” Meyers said in a prepared statement. “Its power, feel, and range of color are extraordinary. I look forward to sharing this sound with the world.”
Meyers will perform with the Austin Symphony Orchestra Feb. 18-19.
October 11, 2010
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra and Judith Ingolfsson
The Austin Symphony Orchestra’s second concert this season lacked calling-card masterworks but surprised with moving melodies, an offbeat Berlioz symphony and a virtually unheard Schumann violin concerto featuring Iceland’s Judith Ingolfsson, conducted by Peter Bay.
On Friday night at the Long Center, two harps opened “Vysehrad,” the lyrical first movement from Bedrich Smetana’s anthem to his homeland, “Ma Vlast.” The strings showed beautiful balance, especially as the theme traveled back and forth.
At one point the violas played a remarkably breathless tremolo, a moment that stood in contrast to trumpet lines that felt exposed, struggling to blend. The cymbals, too sounded a little dry.
Leaving patriotic homages far, far behind, Ingolfsson graced the stage in an elegant gown, whose rose, peach and gold stripes popped against the orchestra’s black. Her violin sang with technical runs, chords and spot-on arpeggios, staying ever so slightly in front of the orchestra.
Schumann’s only violin concerto is one of music’s ugly ducklings. Composed just before the composer’s suicide attempt, it forever held that association and was hidden for nearly a century. The piece holds quite a melancholic spirit, and in the latter movements falls somewhat listless.
Nevertheless, the audience was grateful for hearing it, and stood for Ingolfsson’s playing, which compelled an encore that seemed perhaps a touch hasty.
Ingolfsson’s Bach sarabande was welcome, however. It was equally contemplative, without great flair, but with a raw, haunting quality.
Berlioz’s “Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14” straddled the Classical and Romantic periods, with a wildly bombastic final movement.
With moments almost stereotypically Classical, the long work has a tendency to dull your interest, until a timpani clangs you out of any stupor.
Unlike much of the acoustic music played in Dell Hall, which is often so quiet as to give the impression the orchestra is playing in a separate room, Berlioz’s loudest sections almost rattled you out of your chair.
The familiar third movement was forcefully played, with the trumpets leading the march. The bassoons and oboes offered confident and lyrical lines, including a fine staccato.
Later, a few french horn entries fished for pitch, but this sat as the only issue in the finely played symphony.
The final movement, a truly bizarre sonic romp, uses every section of the orchestra to paint a scene the composer called “Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath.”
Its triumphant horn melodies are broken by jarring percussion, teetering strings, and finally anchored by clanging bells, which were played through the stage’s back entrance, as if to let the dreamer know the real world is far away.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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October 6, 2010
New music, not ACL
Oh, we know, we know — there’s Austin City Limits Festival this weekend. There’s also other kinds of new live music happening this weekend too, tho.
On Sunday, intrepid new music presenting group Church of the Friendly Ghost hosts Owen Weaver, The Biographers and Derek Johnson at the Salvage Vanguard Theater in a concert featuring new music by Austin composers Steve Snowden and Graham Reynolds, among others.
Weaver, an adventurous percussionist and former Austinite now in NYC, returns to town to play Reynolds’ piece composed for wooden planks, circular saw blades, kitchen sink strainers and electronics. Weaver will also play works by Snowden — who won the Austin Critics’ Table Award last year for Best Original Composition — as well as music by Tristan Perich and Javier Alvarez.
Also on the program: Ambient drone music by Derek Rogers and the folk-pop sounds of The Biographers.
Doors at 8 p.m. Tix are just $5. See www.salvagevanguard.com for directions to the venue.
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October 4, 2010
Review: Conspirare's 'Sing Freedom: African American Spirituals
Conspirare may have met its match, at last.
On Friday evening at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church, Austin’s venerated choral ensemble embarked on a what may be its most challenging material to date —a concert of African American spirituals that offered moments of brilliance but ultimately felt stiff and overly academic.
The opening piece “O Black and Unknown Birds” was slightly askance, as the lower voices lacked precise unity in their entries.
These wrinkles soon smoothed out, and the choir found its pacing, launching into “I’ve Been in de Storm so Long” with an innovative and forceful arrangement by Craig Hella Johnson.
The bass voices sang the title words that rocked the work along, countering the three stunning soloists’ sustained harmonies. It added rhythm to a concert that could have used much more.
There were many flashes of brilliance. “Trouble so Hard/I’ve been ‘Buked,” despite a stiff delivery, offered stunning balance, tight harmony and a soaring climax that reverberated through the pews.
Later, composer Robert Kyr, in attendance, had the evening’s most cathartic moment with his powerful, haunting piece “Freedom Song.”
A lone chorister hammered a stick on the floor, with two soloists wailing a repeated mantra, until the beat sped up and wails swept through the entire chorus.
By intermission however, the evening felt poorly structured, with a long first half, and a lack of discernible themes.
And ultimately the context was the primary obstacle. Johnson spoke early in the evening about the importance of the African American spirituals in our collective history.
“These are songs we should all know because they belong to all of us,” he said.
But the truth is, they don’t. These are not “our” songs; they are the songs of the powerless, the enslaved, the stolen.
When choristers sang about freedom it was difficult to imagine what experiences privileged Americans bring to bear on such a distant concept as slavery.
Like a method actor, one can attempt to interpret and express these emotions. Indeed, Conspirare’s moving interpretations were often stunningly beautiful and effective.
But the audience must feel the actors are embodying the characters.
For the folk vernacular of these spirituals, the King’s English enunciation of Austin’s most accomplished choir simply seemed an awkward tool for the job.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Conspirare plans New York City gigs
Five-time Grammy-nominated Austin professional choir Conspirare is heading to the Big Apple.
In February, an ensemble of 32 Conspirare singers, conducted by artistic director Craig Hella Johnson, will be presented by the Weill Music Institute of Carnegie Hall to perform three concerts as part of the Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concert series.
Conspirare will headline two “Community Sings” — during which the audience is invited to sing along with the choir — on February 22 and 23 in Queens at the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts and in Harlem at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
The choir will give a formal concert in the Bronx Jacobi Medical Center on February 24. The program will include a selection of African American spirituals featured on Conspirare’s forthcoming new CD on the Harmonia Mundi label.
It’s the second time Conspirare has sung in New York. In 2003, under the auspices of the American Choral Directors Association, the choir performed at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage.
The trip to New York augers more travel for the celebrated choir. “National touring is a strategic goal for us,” said Ann Wilson, Conspirare executive directo. “Our CDs, Grammy noms and the PBS telecast last year have put us on a new trajectory and we are beginning to receive more invitations to perform around the country. We are also working on a possible swing through the Midwest in 2012 and I’ve been really pleased at the number of concert series that are interested in hosting us.”
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John Kelly returns with 'Paved Paradise Redux"
Last spring, John Kelly left Austin audiences breathless with ‘Paved Paradise Redux,’ his critically-acclaimed solo show about folk superstar Joni Mitchell, presented as part of Fusebox Festival.
Now, Kelly returns with the show Oct. 6-7 at One World Theatre. It’s something a farewell performance to the show too. Kelly is planning to retire ‘Paved Paradise Redux’ from his repertoire soon.
Kelly is a performer not to be missed. Sublime, charming, mesmerizing, Kelly’s been hailed by critics as one of the “most interesting artists alive.”
Read our Q-and-A with Kelly from last spring in which the two-time Obie Award and Bessie Award winner discusses his genre-busting performances.
Read our review of the show here.
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UT commissions new opera in honor of Sarah and Ernest Butler
University of Texas’ Butler School of Music will announce on Wednesday that has commissioned a new opera by acclaimed Mexican composer Daniel Catan in honor of Austin philanthropists Sarah and Ernest Butler, whose $55 million contribution in 2008 constituted the single largest gift ever made to a public school of music.
The new opera, “Meet John Doe,” will be based on the classic 1941 Frank Capra comic drama and will premiere at UT in the 2012-13 season. Catan’s commission is $300,000.
“I can think of no better way to honor the Butlers for their magnanimous support of this school than to commission a major opera,” said B. Glenn Chandler, director of the Butler School of Music.
A departure from the Latin themes of Catan’s previous operas, “Meet John Doe” is focuses on American musical and theatrical ideas of the early 1940s. The libretto, based on the original screenplay by Richard Connell, Robert Presnell and Robert Riskin tells the story of a grassroots political campaign that is unwittingly started by a newspaper columnist that gains national recognition when a wealthy businessman gets behind it. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Story in 1942.
Catan’s opera “Rappaccini’s Daughter” will be performed at the Butler School Feb. 25 - March 6. The production will be the premier of Catsn’s new orchestration of the work. Previously scored for a large orchestra, the composer has reworked the score for two pianos, harp and percussion.
Catan will be in residence at the Butler School in spring 2011 to complete “Meet John Doe” and workshop select scenes.
Catan’s latest opera “Il Postino,” is based on the much-loved 1994 film by director Michael Radford opened last month at the Los Angeles Opera and starred Placido Domingo.
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September 27, 2010
Review: Texas Early Music Project's 'Convivencia'
Convivencia is the name of an idealized era in Spanish history when Jews,Christians and Muslims lived peacefully alongside one another, inalternating positions of equality, for centuries. The word in Spanish means “co-existence,” an apt title for an age that prospered because it was tolerant, then floundered when its tolerance ran out.
The Texas Early Music Project framed this period Friday night in a concert titled ‘Convivencia’ at the University Presbyterian Church, playing a stirring concert of Renaissance music from all three cultures, accentuating the most spiritual elements.
Two dozen players in black formed a chorus and an ensemble of beautiful period instruments with elaborate carvings and designs.
There were lullabies, drinking songs and plenty of unrequited love; things each culture held in common. The variety was cleverly planned to evoke moods that rose and fell.
There was dancing and hand clapping in the Sephardic children’s song “Rahelica Baila” that would not be out of place on an Austin playground, contrasting with the more serious “Hal Tusta’adu,” which featured Gitanjali Mathur’s moving solo, backed by bells, drums, and the full chorus.
Harmonies had a richness and depth all evening, and the instrumentalists showed brilliant control, dynamics and sensitivity. Very rarely did a bass note drop out, or a rhythm sound out of place; the ensemble seemed confident and relaxed, which made it a pleasure to watch.
Playing the Santjur (a wooden box resembling a pedal steel guitar that is hit with slim mallets), Kamram Hooshmand gave a virtuostic performance that literally echoed out into the pews.
And Tom Zajac, a guest performer, seemed everywhere at once, playing wooden flutes and recorders, often while beating drums in his left hand.
The evening began with a sung prayer that drew from each of the three holy books, and it finished the same way, bookending a thoughtful and moving evening that showed a great deal of variety and had a transportative effect on a humid Friday evening.
For some, it may take some adjustment to attune the ear to the strange and beautiful half-note tuning in many of the solos. It endows the music with a foreign tinge that gives the willing listener a rush of empathy, especially in a world myopically in fear of mosques, Muslim dress and the music of its call to prayer.
This period of musical, architectural and cultural exchange ended with the expulsion of the Moors and of the Jews who refused to convert. Its inherent inequality may not be a model for the modern age, but it’s impressive that some of the earliest known music has made itself so relevant once again.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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'Austin Goes Classical' festival featured on KLRU documentary
In June, Austin became the live classical guitar capital of the world when the Austin Classical Guitar Society played host to the annual Guitar Foundation of America International Convention and Competition.
And Matt Hinsley, executive director Austin Classical Guitar, smartly and artfully turned what is normally an industry-specific event into community-friendly, audience-oriented week-long concert festival complete with family-friendly concerts and a concert featuring 200-plus young guitar students.
The week-long festival, dubbed “Austin Goes Classical,” involved other groups including Austin Symphony, the Miro String Quartet, Austin Chamber Music Center as well as top-flight names in the classical guitar world including Pepe Romero.
Through it all, contestants from 25 countries competed to be in the finals of the world’s most prestigious international classical guitar competition.
Austin’s PBS station KLRU was there to capture it all and a one-hour documentary, “Art on Six Strings,” produced as part of KLRU’s InContext arts series, airs at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 30.
Here’s a trailer:
September 19, 2010
Review: 'Happy Birthday Mr. Cage' concert
John Cage’s music can be hard to love, but the master of art-music experimentation has devout followers in Austin.
Thursday night at First Unitarian Church, Line Upon Line percussion ensemble and the Austin Chamber Music Center interpreted some of Cage’s most challenging work for “Happy Birthday Mr. Cage,” ACMC’s annual celebration of the composer.
Percussionist Matt Teodori gave a brief, and helpful, outline of what we could expect: circular breathing into conch shells, burning pine cones, crumpling (and uncrumpling) paper and replacing phonograph needles with unusual materials.
Then the three percussionists centered on stage for “Three2.” They tapped metallic and wooden objects between long silences, adding the sound and light of a lit match struck on beat and extinguished in a water cup from Chipotle.
It was a spare, but intriguing, place to start; the pacing recalled the chiming of bells in meditation.
In the interlude Michelle Schumann played “Suite For Toy Piano,” numbers one through five, accompanied by a reading of Cage’s text piece “Art Is Either A Complaint Or Do Something Else.”
Unfortunately the live reading and toy piano did not make a friendly pair, as they each fought to be heard, and the monotone spoken word became just an annoyance. Not that this was completely undesirable, in context, of course.
“Inlets” called for conch shells of different sizes, to be filled with water and jostled into microphones. The stunning result is a babbling brook, like water lapping to shore.
The natural theme continued when an assistant stepped outside to light the metal box of pine cones on fire. The sound of burning pine cones and leaves, a few pops with a dim hiss, came in, along with a shifting orange glow that rose and fell behind the trio in the glassed courtyard.
This work did expose a problem with sight lines: it was impossible to see the trio as they moved in front of the courtyard, and again, as they sat on the stairs for the “4’33”.” A secondary concern, of course, but still, they deserve to be seen.
The night’s most fulfilling piece was the last, “Credo In Us,” a modern classic. Schumann played a wonderful hand-deadened piano (whose sound uncannily echoes modern syntheisized sounds), as two players galloped perfectly in time across metal cans.
Cullen Faulk, playing the radio, happened upon a gloriously out-of-place country ballad whose singer cried “I won’t let my guard down … I’m not lovin’ anymore.” The audience chuckled, as if to say, this is what Cage is all about.
Just as much fun as the show was the after-show invitation to swarm the stage and pick through the instruments and tools.
Adam Bedell’s scrapyard finds included a shiny steel oil reservoir and what
looked like the plate off a brake rotor. We tapped the steel tin and rotor, and two clangs of metal, both very different, reverberated. This, too, is what Cage is all about. Looking forward to your next birthday, Mr. Cage.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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September 15, 2010
Review: Artisan String Quartet
The public at large is rarely invited to a masterclass, and that’s a shame. Concerts in such small quarters, with a brief demonstration or talk, provide a rich experience for students, and would give any audience more reason to come see a show.
Sunday night in San Marcos, the Artisan String Quartet put on a powerful performance of Mozart and Tchaikovsky on the campus of Texas State University. It wasn’t a masterclass so much as a chance to see top-tier musicians in an intimate recital hall.
They played Mozart and Tchaikovsky, demanding and beautiful pieces of the chamber repertoire, with the technical precision and artistic flourish you would expect from some of Central Texas’ most esteemed classical players.
The Mozart “Quintet in C Major” pulled in Ames Asbell of the Tosca String Quartet to complete the set, adding maximum viola power to the middle register. It was a treat to hear Asbell working alongside Bruce Williams to play Mozart’s winding harmonies. Both are such expressive players that seeing them together is enough to make viola converts of us all.
The quintet is brimming with themes that rise, fall and intersect with a pulsating background, until they’re traded, unexpectedly, with another player. Artisan’s performance was assured, with astonishing communication between the voices.
Despite this musicality, the small room did allow the first violin’s higher pitches to overwhelm passages meant to highlight the violas; even with two instruments the alto voices were unable to compete.
After a brief intermission, the quartet took on Tchaikovsky’s most famous quartet, “String Quartet in D Major, op. 11,” the evening’s highlight.
The work feels like a full symphony that has been boxed inside four players. Its opening chords felt fresh, as they brought out a solemn country melody, and a gentle, thoughtful tone from the quartet.
Douglas Harvey’s cello playing was delicate, yet sustained, working in tune with Williams, whose viola sang passionately and confidently throughout the piece.
And the eerie second movement gave goosebumps as the quartet brought its sensitivity and lyrical form to the melody’s amused melancholy. Tchaikovsky’s winding runs were played with dynamics in full unison, moving beautifully through the piece — even the silences seemed musical.
Despite the small crowd, which consisted strictly of students (including one who talked, seemingly to himself, at increments throughout) the group brought a full professional weight. The room, despite being a few degrees colder than ideal, plays very warmly, and considering the pittance charged for such shows, they’re well worth the drive.
Hopefully Central Texans will take notice of the outstanding work being done both by the Artisan String Quartet, and other performers on the university’s schedule this semester.
The Artisan String Quartet repeats the program Saturday night at 8 p.m. as part of the St. Cecilia Music Series at First Presbyterian Church. stceciliamusicseries.org
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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September 12, 2010
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra, Andre Watts, piano
Though the centennial of Austin Symphony Orchesta’s founding isn’t until April 2011, ASO is starting the celebrations early with a certain fanfare. And in terms of mood, that fanfare was felt at the Long Center Friday night, the opening concert of the orchestra’s new season.
Music director Peter Bay began the program with William Schuman’s New England Triptych. Based on the hymns of early American Revolution-era composer William Billings, the Triptych a kind full-strength twentieth-century Americana — a Main Street parade of musical quotations that flashes by in impressionistic bursts though Schuman lets Billings’ hymns standout. While the orchestra’s general attack and force had an energy to it, there was some noticeable muddiness in the more vigorous stretches where more alacrity seemed needed.
Pianist André Watts, the evening’s guest artist, delivered a polished if a tad perfunctory performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. Thankfully, Watts held back on easily over-dramatized flourishes, letting Beethoven’s lyricism be the focus, especially in the beautiful second movement. And though he was with the orchestra, Watts seemed to sonically avoided joining it altogether.
After what’s become the obligatory standing ovation for orchestra guest artists, Watts left the stage. No encore for Austin, it seems.
Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 finished the evening’s program after intermission. Again if the orchrestra’s basic attack was there, details and finesse were not. The woodwinds cracked at their few important focused moments. More vigorous passages sometimes seemed a scramble for the orchestra. In the end, the orchestra’s essential competency dominated but what was wanting was élan, intensity and inspiration.
August 30, 2010
'Opera in Cinema' at the Long Center fills the house for its first screening
Can a free show be sold-out?
Well, it certainly can be maxed-out which what happened at the free screening of La Scala’s ‘Aida’ at the Long Center Friday night. All of the 2400 available tickets were reserved in advance. And while there may have been a few no-shows, nearly every seat was taken.
The screening was the first of a new collaboration with Emerging Pictures, purveyors of hi-def movies, many of them cultural. The Austin Lyric Opera is co-sponsoring the 2010-2011 ‘Opera in Cinema’ series with the Long Center.
With bragging rights to the second-largest movie screen in town (after the IMAX screen at the Bullock Museum), and with hi-def projection equipment, the Long Center makes for (literally) picture perfect of hi-def films. The image was crystalline — perfect for the Zeffirelli-designed production and its lavish sets and costumes. Indeed, the quality of the projection was leagues better than Austin screenings of the Met Opera hi-def movie series shown venues that lack hi-def projection equipment.
Without a proper cinema sound system at the Long center though, the acoustics weren’t quite as sparkling as the image, leaving the sound a little mono-directional. (A cinema sound system would cost the non-profit Long Center several tens of thousands of dollars. Who wants to donate that?)
Still, the audience was appreciative Friday night, applauding the arias while they sipped drinks (yes, water and clear-colored beverages are now allowed into the Long Center’s Dell Hall for certain shows).
Up next, on Sept. 14,is Mozart’s ‘Cosi Fan Tutte’ from London’s Royal Opera House followed by ‘Carmen’ from Spain’s Gran Theatre del Liceu on Oct. 13.
See www.thelongcenter.org for more info.
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August 25, 2010
KLRU's "In Context" series to feature Anton Nel and Bion Tsang
Thought that KLRU’s famed Studio 6A soundstage was just pop music?
Think again.
In February, the legendary set of “Austin City Limits” was the site for a concert by two Austin-based classical musicians, pianist Anton Nel and cellist Bion Tsang. The gig was a recording for KLRU’s “In Context” series, which presents performances by Austin artists and cultural organizations.
Tsang and Nel played selected movements from Boccherini’s Sonata in A major, Rachmaninov’s Sonata in G minor, Shostakovich’s Sonata in D minor, Beethoven’s Sonata in A major and Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 1 in G minor.
Thursday KLRU will air the 30-minute special at 8 p.m.
The duo — both celebrated soloists in their own right — crossed paths more than 15 years ago in New York and have since developed a musical partnership. Now both on the faculty of the University of Texas’ Butler School of Music, they continue their collaboration, frequently performing and recording together.
Their new CD, “Bion Tsang and Anton Nel: Live in Concert, Brahms Cello Sonatas and Four Hungarian Dances,” recently was released on Artek Recordings and iTunes. The CD was recorded live in New England Conservatory’s celebrated Jordan Hall in 2008. In his more than three decades of concertizing, Nel has developed a reputation as a sensitive interpreter and wholly present performer, known for his virtually encyclopedic repertoire.
Among the famed concert halls he’s played are Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and London’s Wigmore Halls.
Tsang, who made his debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 11, is noted as a chamber collaborator having played with the likes of Austin Grammy-nominated choir Conspirare, pianist Leon Fleisher and celebrated fellow cellist Yo Yo Ma. Nevertheless, the chance to play on the “Austin City Limits” stage was not without its excitement for Tsang.
“I’ve lived in Austin since 2002, and it is a thrill to play in the ‘Austin City Limits’ studio, where so many legendary musicians — Willie Nelson, B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, to name a few — have inspired audiences,” says Tsang.
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August 18, 2010
La Scala's 'Aida' screens for free at the Long Center
Opera aficiandos, you have options now.
Thanks to collaboration between Austin Lyric Opera, the Long Center for the Performing Arts and Emerging Pictures — an all-digital alternate contect theater network in the United States — Austin will be getting the ‘Opera in Cinema’ series, hi-def screenings of opera productions from around the world.
To kick things off, there will be a free screening Aug. 27 of Verdi’s Aida in the 2006 production by Teatro alla Scala of Milan. Director Franco Zeffirelli brought his trademark over-the-top extravagance to the production which features an ensemble of over 300 actors. It stars soprano Violeta Urmana and tenor Roberto Alagna.
The screening starts at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free, but tickets are required and limited. To obtain tix visit www.thelongenter.org, call 512-474-LONG (5664) or stop by the Long Center box office.
Paul Beutel, interim executive director of the Long Center, and Austin Lyric Opera general director Kevin Patterson will announce the remainder of 2010-2011 opera screenings in the next few weeks.
The free ‘Aida’ screening kicks of a weekend of hi-def cinema at the Long Center.
Aug. 28:
2 p.m. Kurosawa’s ’ The Hidden Fortress’
5 p.m. Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’
Aug. 29:
3 p.m. ‘The Girl With the Dragoon Tatoo’
7 p.m. ‘Monty Python & The Holy Grail’
Admission: $7 advance; $9 day of show ($2 off for kids under 13 and seniors over 65)
P.S. in this Texas heat wave: The Long Center is always a comfortable 68 degrees inside.
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UT's Butler School of Music to offer informal classes
In welcome news given how the University of Texas recently discontinued its busy informal classes program, UT’s Butler School of Music has launched a new program of informal music classes that will offer non-credit music courses to community members. The informal courses are designed to meet the needs of everyone from the experienced musician tothe musically-curious.
The first classes start this fall, with plans to expand the offerings in subsequent semesters. Fees start at $100.
The courses will be taught by experienced graduate students under the supervision of the Butler School’s faculty. Students enrolled in the courses will have access to the Butler School’s classroom and practice facilities. Classes will be held on weekends and evening on the UT campus. Participants will also have the opportunity to attend select Butler School performances free-of-charge as part of their program coursework.
Informal courses offered this fall include:
— Learn to Read Music
— Piano for Beginners
— Guitar for Beginners
— Voice for Beginners
— Private Instruction: Piano
— Private Instruction: Guitar
— Private Instruction: Voice
For more information see www.music.utexas.edu/news
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July 21, 2010
Austin Chamber Music Festival hosts free Pride Concert
Second Annual Pride Concert
7:30 p.m. July 22. St. James Episcopal Church, 1941 Webberville Road
FREE
Donations accepted to pay the musicians at the door and on Kickstarter.
Program
— Trio, Jennifer Higdon. Elise Winter-Huete, violin; Barbara George, cello; Jim James, piano
— Fireside, Eve Beglarian. A piece for spoken word and piano piece featuring performance artist Paul Soileau (aka Rebecca Havemeyer/ Christeene)
— Dream Fantasies III, Russell Reed. A new piece by the Austin composer written for ensemble Waterloo Sound Conspiracy
—Songs by Poulenc and Rorem. Featuring Austin soprano Liz Cass.
— Lachrymae, Britten. Featuring Aurelien Petillot, viola
— Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 6, Barber. Featuring Barbara George and Jim James.
Care to donate to support the musicians.
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July 19, 2010
Review: Cavani String Quartet & The Bad Plus
When Dave King, the drummer for the modern jazz trio The Bad Plus, pulled out two E.T. toys, to play beeps and static, it became clear that the Austin Chamber Music Festival is a fearlessly expanding our definition of chamber music.
The Cavani String Quartet and The Bad Plus each played to a Bates Recital Hall near capacity, drawing deserved standing ovations.
The Bad Plus write original works that show a fondness for complex rhythms, discordant harmonies, frenzied energy and surprise. The trio exudes the complete confidence of three musicians at the peak of their powers. It was enthralling to watch.
King, on percussion, flares his arms on, around and (literally) under his drum kit, looking like the Muppet’s’ Swedish chef, playing with an contagious grin that defined the entire set. His repertoire of clanging bells and other musical objects d’art made it difficult to look elsewhere; you can’t be sure what’s coming.
A small complaint was that Reed Anderson’s bass was often drowned out. He’d be striking the strings furiously, but was nearly inaudible.
The encore brought some covers; “Film,” by Aphex twin, and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Both were well received, but, were no better than their originals; the lyrical “Knows The Difference,” or percussion-centered “Thriftstore Jewelry.” If you’ve missed the Bad Plus live, don’t let it happen again.
The Cavani Quartet, formerly artists in residence at UT, began Beethoven’s Opus 18, No. 2 with light and precise playing as the audience held deathly still.
Their entries were uniformly perfect, though the piece relies disproportionately on the first violinist, and Annie Fullard warbled through a few challenging trills; the evening’s only technical issues.
Next, a Szymanowski quartet worked as a palate cleanser: a dense, dissonant work, that used pizzicato like percussion, along with a few wild glissandos that drew giggles from the audience.
The music was cinematic, eerie in minor chords, starting with the snapshot of an idea, only to scrap it and move on. A challenging work, wonderfully played.
The Brahms Quintet in F Minor was, for many, the big draw. Michelle Schuman, the festival’s director, featured on piano, and introduced it, saying “If this is what classical music is, I want to bathe in it every day of my life.”
She was right. Cavani played a wonderful, complex Brahms; lush harmonies that storm dramatically and pull out just about as much sound as possible from five musicians.
The Austin Chamber Music Festival continues through July 31. See www.austinchambermusic.org.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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July 9, 2010
Austin's Artisan String Quartet
Re-named and with a new lineup, the Artisan String Quartet joins the roster of Austin’s chamber ensembles.
The quartet features violinists Richard Kilmer and Paula E. Bird, violist Bruce William and Douglas Harvey, principal cellist of the Austin Symphony Orchestra and the Austin Lyric Opera Orchestra. Harvey recently won Best Instrumentalist from the Austin Critics’ Table. Read an interview with him here.
The group recently recorded part of the soundtrack ‘When I Rise,’ the documentary about Barbara Conrad Smith, the opera singer who as a young student at UT in the 1950s, faced discrimination and ended up becoming a Civil Rights newsmaker. Austin filmmaker Mat Hames premiered ‘When I Rise’ this year at SXSW. Read about the film and Smith here.
Next week, the foursome will play Mozart’s String Quartet in C major aka the “Dissonance” quartet and Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor, the French composer’s only string quartet
8 p.m. July 15
St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, 8134 Mesa Dr.
Tix: $10-$20
www.artisanquartet.com
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June 30, 2010
Austin Lyric Opera reports lay-offs
Citing a continuing downturn in individual and corporate donations, the Austin Lyric Opera has announced that it has laid off three staff positions.
Kevin Patterson, general director of the opera, said that two full-time and one-half time positions were cut in effort to bring the organization’s budget to $4.3 million as it heads into its new fiscal year, down from $4.5 million this year, a four percent decrease. After the layoffs, the opera will have 22 staff members.
The positions are in development, marketing and in the box office.
“This was an extremely difficult decision to make and we examined every angle to see if there was any way around making any of these cuts, but unfortunately there was not,” Patterson said.
Patterson said the opera board voted to adopt the new $4.3 million budget in May.
“We’ve seen some improvement in contributions from individuals and corporations since (the downturn in 2008), but we haven’t seen a full recovery,” Patterson.
Charitable donations to the arts are down around the nation, a June report by the Giving USA Foundation shows. Philanthropic contributions fell 2.4 percent in 2009. In 2008 giving to the arts dropped 6.4 percent, the report shows.
In Austin, the opera isn’t the only arts institutions that has had to make cuts since the economic tumble of 2008. Last year, the Austin Museum of Art made a ten percent budget cut, eliminating five full-time positions and mandating all staff members to take one-week unpaid furloughs.
Patterson said the eliminated positions will not effect the opera’s artistic or educational programs. “We’re still in a process of tightening the budget, but we don’t want to sacrifice our artistic offerings.”
The opera will continue with its 2010-2011 season as planned, presenting four operas.
Last year, the opera cuts its budget to $4.5 million from $5 million in response to declining donations and ticket sales brought on by the recession. The organization currently carries a $600,000 deficit, Patterson said.
Patterson also noted that tickets sales have not returned to pre-2008 levels.
“It’s very much a buyer’s market right now in Austin in terms of entertainment and there’s just less disposable income in people’s pockets,” he said.
But ticket buyers have responded to the opera’s next production, Michael Nyman’s one-act chamber opera “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat.” Presented in a small-scale production at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church July 9-11, the three-performance run has already sold out.
Tickets, however, were just $25.
June 29, 2010
Met Opera broadcasts return to local theaters this summer
Looking for a cool summer weeknight getaway? A recession-friendly night of opera entertainment?
The Metropolitan Opera will once again present its super-popular ‘The Met: Live in HD’ series in movie theaters this summer.
And the roster features pre-recorded encore performances some of the Met’s greatest hits including popular recent productions of Aida, Romeo et Juliette, Eugene Onegin, La Boheme, Turandot and Carmen.
In the greater Austin area we’ve got five theaters that will screen the Met series: Metropolitan 14, Southpark Meadows, Tinseltown USA Pflugerville, Cinemark Hill Country Galleria and Cinemark Cedar Park. Screenings will be Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m. and Thursdays at varying times.
Check here for ticket prices.
On July 7-8 it’s Eugene Onegin with soprano Renée Fleming and baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Valery Gergiev conducts Tchaikovsky’s most beloved opera.
One July 14-15, it’s the Franco Zeffirelli-designed production of La Boheme with soprano Angela Gheorghiu in her Met debut.
Image: Act II of Franco Zeffirelli’s production La Bohème at the Met. (Photo © Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera)
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June 28, 2010
GFA announces winners to 2010 competition
The Guitar Foundation of America wrapped up its annual convention Sunday night at the Long Center for the Performing Arts with its International Concert Artist Competition concert.
The winner was Johannes Moller of Sweden. Second place was Artyom Dervoed, with Eduardo Costa netting third place and Alexander Milovanov, fourth.
Among the other prizes Moller wins is a 50-concert international tour. Austin audiences take note — that tour will include Austin at some point.
GFA Hall of Fame awards were given to Pepe Romero, Richard Long, Bernard Maillot and John Gilbert.
This year’s convention and competition was hosted by Austin Classical Guitar Society and featured some 60 concerts and events presented in cooperation with several other Austin arts groups including Austin Symphony Orchestra, Austin Lyric Opera and Austin Chamber Music Center.
June 25, 2010
GFA Fest puts 200 guitarists on Long Center stage, and more
Quick — how many guitarists can fit on the stage of the Long Center’s Dell Hall?
Try 200. And it was a phenomenal and charming sight.
Last night, as part of the Guitar Foundation of America’s annual convention and competition now taking place in Austin, some 200 young guitarists from around the country took the stage for a short concert under the direction of Michael Quant. The sea of strings sounded lush and colorful, particularly during the premiere of ‘Powerman,’ a fun yet thoughtful piece commissioned for the event from Austin composer Graham Reynolds. Let’s hope the young guitarists continue to rock on.
The youth guitar orchestra was the warm-up act of sorts for the evenings featured performers: guitarist Adam Holzman with the Miro Quartet.
But before the music started, GFA president Brian Head announced the 12 semi-finalists of the International Competition. Click here to see the list. The semi-finalists are competing today. On Sunday, four finalists will compete in a public concert beginning at 6:30 p.m. The winners will be announced during a 9 p.m. ceremony.
But last night the stage belonged to Holzman and the Miro. All on the faculty of UT, the fivesome clearly relished in the collaboration of playing together. That particularly came through in Boccherini’s exuberant Quintetto No. 4 a piece that bounced between virtuosic flourishes (particulary from the cello) and spirited leitmotifs full of Spanish flare.
Another treat was seeing Miro first violinist Daniel Ching play the delightful Giuliani’s Sonata Op. 85 in duet with Holzman.
The GFA concerts continue tonight with a flamenco program by Grisha at 8 p.m. See www.austingoesclassical.org for complete information.
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June 23, 2010
Galen Wixson, former symphony ED, now leading Guitar Foundation of America
Last night at the Long Center, the Guitar Foundation of America’s annual convention and competition kicked off with stunning concert by guitar great, Pepe Romero.
That nearly 1,000 guitarists from around the world have descended on Austin for six days of concerts and competitions is impressive. In bringing the event to town for the first time, Matthew Hinsley, who heads Austin Classical Guitar Society, has crafted a community friendly event, a model of collaboration.
Check out all that’s happening at www.austingoesclassical.org
But perhaps the biggest news last night — for Austin arts audiences, that is — was the introduction of Galen Wixson as the new executive director of the Guitar Foundation of America.
Wixson previously held the post of executive director of the Austin Symphony Orchestra. But in Sept. 2009 — after only a few months on the job — he was suddenly disappeared from the job with no explanation from the orchestra’s board. Symphony musicians protested. The orchestra’s letter to the board of trustees said the musicians found it “hard to imagine” any justification “to force him to leave.”
Read the story here.
Wixson joins GFA as that organization’s first full-time executive director and will stay in Austin with the new job. The GFA’s annual convention and competition is the largest gathering of the classical guitar community in the world.
Last night, Wixson was greeted warmly by the GFA crowd at Long Center.
Previously, Wixson has served as executive director for the Arkansas Symphony, the Symphony of Southeast Texas, the Manhattan Center for the Arts and the American String Teachers Association.
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June 16, 2010
Review: Conspirare's Bach Mass in B Minor
Two years ago, Austin’s Grammy-nominated choir Conspirare stunned when they performed Verdi’s Requiem in the then-brand new Long Center for the Performing Arts. In a way it was a concert that defined a moment in Austin’s cultural history — a spotless, virtuosic performance and the first proof that the Long Center’s Dell Hall is a first-rate listening room for choral music.
Sunday night, Conspirare the choir, led by Craig Hella Johnson, returned to Dell Hall for another monumental masterpiece of the choral repetoire — Bach’s Mass in B Minor.
And while not as breathtaking and daunting a performance as the once-in-a-lifetime Verdi was two years ago, the Bach nevertheless proved Johnson and his vocalists are superb interpreters, able to bring freshness to even an oft-performed piece like the B Minor Mass.
Presented in collaboration with the Victoria Bach Festival — of which Johnson is artistic director — Sunday’s concert featured the Victoria Bach Festival Orchestra, a 31-piece period instrument ensemble that provide an authentic underpinning to the Baroque masterpiece.
Among the soloists soprano Kathlene Ritch and tenor David Farwig, both regular Conspriare soloists, delivered sensitive performances. Soprano Abigail H. Lennox and tenor Matt Tresler deftly handled the duet “Domine Deus.” Alto Wendy Bloom sang the “Agnus Dei” with delicate melancholy.
Conspriare recently announced its 2010-2011 season at www.conspirare.org. Next June the choir will once again return to the Long Center with the Victoria Bach Festival, this time with Roberto Sierra’s Missa Latina, a critically acclaimed work by the Puerto Rican-born composer.
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June 12, 2010
Review: Austin Playhouse's "Jacquel Brel is Alive and Well in Living in Paris"
Mid-century composer/lyricist Jacques Brel wrote expressive cabaret songs that seamlessly fuse romance with cynicism and blend a particular kind of European world-weariness with a gleeful but urgent folly.
Belgian by birth, living most of his adult life in Paris, Brel came of age in a post-WWII Europe still racked by deprivation and darkness. Teasing out the conventions of tradition — social, romantic, political — were all fodder for his remarkable oeuvre that spanned the 1950s and the 1960s. (Arguably his best known song is the often-covered “Ne me quitte pas.”)
Brel’s songs were little known in the U.S. until 1968 when an American musical revue of his songs, Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, translated by Mort Shuman and Eric Blau, debuted on Broadway to great acclaim, even if some criticized Shuman and Blau for lightening-up much of Brel’s cynical gist.
And in the current Austin Playhouse production of “Jacquel Brel is Alive and Well in Living in Paris,” unfortunately even less of Brel’s complexity shines through.
A cast of six— Boni Hester, Huck Huckaby, Corely Pillsbury, Rick Roemer, Gretech Weihe and Jacob Trussell (standing last weekend for Nathan Brockett) — seem simply to mark their way through the 23 songs.
There’s little theater or drama underpinning this musical revue, directed by Don Toner. What was missing was enchantment, the urgency of Brel’s voice. And for that matter any sense of nostalgia seemed lacking, strange for songs that are acutely products of a certain time and place.
Of all the cast, Trussell brought the only moments of theater and dynamism to the show, amply adding character, acting and emotion to his two solos, “Bachelor’s Dance” and “Bulls.”
Brel, who frequently performed his own songs, had a wild-eyed frenetic style suffused with an urgency in his tale telling and a rawness of emotion.
The Austin Playhouse production, unfortunately, captures none of that, leaving Brel’s fine work to languish in lacklustreness.
‘Jacquel Brel is Alive and Well in Living in Paris’ continues through June 27 at the Austin Playhouse. www.austinplayhouse.com
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June 11, 2010
Bach's biggest to hit Long Center on Sunday
Bach’s Mass in B Minor is arguably a pinnacle of the Western classical music — a crowning achievement for a composer whose entire oeuvre is a masterpiece of classical music.
On Sunday, five-time Grammy-nominated Austin choir sing the Mass in B Minor at the Long Center, accompanied by the 31-piece period-instrument Victoria Bach Festival Orchestra. Conspriare director Craig Hella Johnson has made a life-long study of Bach’s choral music and is a sensitive interpreter of the composer’s voice.
In 2008, Conspirare stunned a Long Center audience with a performance of Verdi’s majestical Requiem. Sunday’s performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor promises to an equally moving experience, a not-to-miss concert.
From the Conspirare program notes comes:
Scholars believe that despite its textual source, Bach intended the Mass in B Minor for secular performance rather than liturgical use. Its two-hour duration was impractical for church, although some movements were performed at occasional special services. The B Minor was first performed in its entirety in the mid-19th century, a hundred years after Bach’s death, and received its American premiere in 1900.
For tix and info, see www.conspirare.org.
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May 25, 2010
Austin Children's Choir announces 25th Anniversary Season
The Austin Children’s Choir is gearing up for its 25th season. And artistic director Kathleen Turner has announced its silver season that is literally taking the choir around town to a host of locations.
Stay tuned to www.AustinChildrensChoir.org for developing details, but here’s the season as it’s now planned.
— Late October 2010: Season Opener: Thank You Austin! at St. Matthew’s Episcopal
— Early December 2010: The Grinch with special ‘honorary Grinch’ locations TBA
— Mid December 2010: Candlelight Lessons and Carols, Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest
— Early February 2011: Inspiration Station and Taste of Sou, George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center
— Mid May 2011: Shine 2010! Judith Arnold joins the Austin Children’s Choir and Shine 2010 participants location TBA
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May 18, 2010
Austin Symphony announces first student composition contest
The Austin Symphony Orchestra has just announced its first Young Composers Competition for Texas students. The purpose is to encourage young composers — and at 18 and younger, ASO mean young — to try their hand at writing symphonic music. The winning piece will be played next season during the orchestra’s high school concerts in Austin.
Here’s the requirements of the contest:
- ASO invites young composers 18 years and younger to submit full, original (not arrangements) orchestral compositions between five to seven minutes in length. Works should use standard orchestral instrumentation and doublings. Works requiring electronics or special effects are not eligible. Works must not have been previously performed, recorded or published professionally.
- The winning composition will be performed during the Austin Symphony’s High School Concerts Tour, January 18 - 21, 2011. The winning composer and their parents will be offered transportation and hotel accommodations to Austin to attend rehearsals and performances of the work. In addition, an archival recording will be made for the winning composer’s personal use.
See www.austinsymphony.org for more information.
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Conspirare nets Chorus America commissioning award
Five time Frammy-nominated Austin choir Conspirare has received a $5,000 award from Chorus American to support the commission of a new choral work by Seattle composer Eric Banks.
The Dale Warland Singers Commission Award will be presented June 18 at the Chorus America’s annual conference.
Banks will compose a work to be entitled “This delicate universe,” in the form of an a cappella cycle for 16-part chamber chorus, based on five poems by the Greek-Egyptian poet Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933). The piece will be performed in both Greek and English. Many of Banks’s choral compositions are macaronic, i.e., composed in multiple languages.
Banks said: “My plan for This delicate universe is to set Cavafy’s strophes of Greek text in the background of the choral texture, and to declaim the English translations in the foreground, by a combination of soloists and small ensembles. I will utilize the full potential of Conspirare’s forces to create a choral soundscape that employs both the linguistic variety of modern Greek and the musical vocabulary of maqqam - the scalar system known throughout the Arab world for its ornaments and microtonal variation. I hope that by coupling such diverse sounds - Greek syllables and Arabic melodies - with my English translations, that Cavafy’s work will reach a wider appreciation with American audiences.”
Conspirare expects to premiere the new work within two years.
Up next for the choir are performances of Durufle’s Requiem on June 5 and the Bach Mass in B Minor of June 13.
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May 4, 2010
Free, new music, tonight
Tonight, Austin percussion original Thomas Burritt guest conducts the University of Texas’ New Music Ensemble, leading the group in an adventurous program including David Lang’s powerful multi-part piece on memory and growing up, ‘Child,’ Belinda Reynolds ‘Path’ and new work by UT student composer Steve Snowden.
Tonight’s concert is just one of several opportunities we’ve had to hear Lang’s music recently. This weekend, Consprirare sings Lang’s haunting “Little Match Girl Passion,” winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in music. Read our interview with Lang here.
Can’t make it in person to the concert tonight? No worries — it will be live-streamed at www.music.utexas.edu
7:30 p.m. Tuesday
Bates Recital Hall, Music Building, UT campus
FREE
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April 30, 2010
Free music, on the roof
Line Upon Line percussion ensemble is taking to the roof for a free concert Saturday night.
Beginning at 8 p.m. the adventuresome bunch will stake out their myriad instruments — marimbas, vibraphones, crotales — on the fourth floor deck of UT’s Art Building at 23rd and San Jacinto streets which offers a great view of downtown Austin.
The program? Music by well-known contributors to the percussion canon — David Lang’s ‘The Anvil Chorus’ and Iannis Xenakis’ ‘Okho’ — along with a few new ‘compositions by Austin young composers. And Toru Takemitsu’s 1981 piece Rain Tree’ is scored for three musicians and lighting effects.
Watch out, grackles!
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April 27, 2010
Review: Golden Hornet Project presents Tosca String Quartet
While so much of the traditional world of classical music in the country ossifies, we’re lucky in Austin to have a tribe of busy, younger praticioners that keep things moving forward.
Among them is the Golden Hornet Project, the indie alt classic music presenters, along with its two artistic directors, composers Graham Reynolds and Peter Stopschinski.
Monday night, at the groovy Alamo Ritz, Golden Hornet staged what is now becoming a programming fixture for the group: An evening of new chamber works played by the always engaging Tosca String Quartet, played in two shows, an even meant to over lap with the Fusebox Festival.
The Alamo makes for an inventive venue for this now-annual concert — there’s plenty to play with, for one thing. Video design by Lee Webster made for real-time live shots of the ensemble writ large on the screen right behind the musicians. It’s just enough of a visual touch to add interest without distracting.
Monday’s program featured ome 12 short compositions by six tunesmiths with about half by Reynolds and Stopschinski — a good thing since both turned in the most musically strong of the dozen new pieces.
Reynolds can’t get the music of Duke Ellington out of his head (he hasn’t for several years now), and Monday night he treated with several of his variations on well-known Ellington melodies — some delightfully unrecognizable as Ellington in origin.
Stopschinski delighted most with his ‘Techno Courante’ for quartet and a percussive sound track, a wonderfully re-imagined riff on a Bach melody.
The layered arpeggios of Christopher Cox’s nicely conceived ‘Pentimento’ arched up, building in a fugue-like fashion, before ending lyrically.
But other pieces on the program, disappointed.
Will Taylor’s ‘Woody’s Green’ was a suitable enough jazz/blues tune exercised for string quartet but otherwise covered no new ground.
And the show’s VIP — Vampire Weekend leadman Rostam Batmanglij — brought out three short pieces that were less considered compositions of any depth and more pop music stuffed with mood and simply arranged for string quartet. (It didn’t help that on one piece Batmanglij’s own acoustic guitar accompaniment fell apart in his hands when he couldn’t keep rhythm.)
Still, it was hard not to notice that some in the audience were clearly brought by the pull of an international pop star. What they got along with that was some new music for a string quartet. And they didn’t seem to mind. And that was a good thing.
Photo by Rino Pizzi Art Photography.
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Review: Austin Lyric Opera's 'Hansel and Gretel'
Engelbert Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel” is most often regarded as a children’s opera. And well, it was, sort of, when it was premiered in 1893.
The composer’s sister penned a kinder and gentler version of the rather grim fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm and then asked her brother to pen some songs. The end result of the two efforts became full-length opera, a hit within the German-speaking world for several decades after its premiere, now a regular Christmas feature.
Though Humperdinck’s version nicefied the rather frightening tale of a witch who devours children, contemporary interpreters can’t resist dousing it with darkness.
Such is the case with the John Conklin-designed 2002 New York City Opera production now getting a decidedly — and unfortunate — underwhelming presentation by Austin Lyric Opera at the Long Center for the Performing Arts.
Re-imagined in 1890s New York, with Hansel and Gretel as two immigrant children who fall victim to a wealthy society woman, this rendition theatrically — at least at first — puts an interesting dark burnish on the fairy tale opera.
Conklin’s fin-de-siecle New York is dark and colorless. The pair of starving children glimpse light and food and family happiness only in striking dreamlike tableaux vivants during Humperdinck’s extended orchestral entr’actes.
But lusterless singing didn’t engender the production with any sophistication. And after two acts, the urbanity of the show conception waned: what remained was a goofing third act that was undeniably a children’s opera.
Strong character acting came from mezzo-soprano Liz Cass, who played the dual role of Gertrude and the Witch, and likewise from soprano Alicia Berneche, who played Gretel. But Adriana Zabala, as Hansel, often couldn’t be heard over the orchestra, and no amount of character acting could overcome that.
ALO resident conductor Richard Buckley once again provided the company with superb orchestral underpinnings. But even his excellent musicianship didn’t supplant the lackluster vocals.
In the end, this “Hansel and Gretel” lacked a ‘happily ever after.’
“Hansel and Gretel” continues 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Friday, 3 p.m. Sunday. www.austinlyricopera.org
Photo by Mark Matson.
April 26, 2010
Review: 'A View from the Bridge'
Bleak yet electrifying, William Bolcom’s operatic version of Arthur Miller’s charged drama ‘A View From the Bridge’ impressed when it debuted in 1999 at Lyric Opera of Chicago.
The opera continues to impress and impact with its a new chamber orchestration which premiered Friday in a superb new production by UT’s Butler School of Music, one of the best the school has presented in recent memory.
All of Bolcom’s nimble stylistic eclecticism — heaped with dashes of American popular song, among many other echoes — is still there, if just in a less sweepingly cinematic fashion than original score for a 100-piece orchestra.
A commission from the Butler School, the smaller orchestration should allow for more universities and regional opera companies to take on this most American of operas. And hopefully it will end up in more repertoire. (Bolcom was on hand for Friday night’s performance before which he was presented with UT’s $25,000 Eddie Medora King Award for musical composition.)
Bolcom’s opera is a faithful adaptation of Miller’s bleak story of Italian immigrants in 1950s Brooklyn and the social, sexual and familial struggles that ensue when two distant cousins arrive from Italy to share the same grimy apartment as a couple and their adult niece. (Miller collaborated on the libretto; The play recently enjoyed a critically-acclaimed Broadway revival.)
Directed by Robert DeSimone and superbly conducted by Jim Lowe, this production artfully stays in period. Richard Isackes brilliant yet economically-designed set used scaffolding to frame action and suggest the gritty Brooklyn neighborhood. An expanse of metal fencing flew up and down, marking when the action was on the street but also brilliantly becomes a jail cell when, Marco, one of the new immigrant cousins, is detained by officials. (Remind you of the border fence between Mexico and Texas anyone?)
Smart acting and deft singing throughout the cast made for a riveting performance. Outstanding as Beatrice, soprano Cristina Caldas mixed theatrical complexity with vocal dazzle. Visiting alum Rubin Casas made a powerful, expressive Eddie. And Icy Simson sang the challenging role of Catherine with aplomb.
UT takes the production to San Antonio this weekend for one show at the Empire Theatre. Lucky Alamo City.
Tonight: Golden Hornet Project alt classical with Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij
Tonight alt-classical initiative Golden Hornet Project presents the Tosca String Quartet playing new compositions by Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij, Will Taylor of Strings Attached, Sam Arnold of Opposite Day and Christopher Cox.
Tix are going fast, too. Better get on it.
And yes Vampire Weekend groupies: Batmanglij will be there to accompany Tosca Strings on his new pieces. There will be new works by Golden Hornet founder Graham Reynolds and Peter Stopschinski too.
7 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. Monday, Alamo Ritz. 320 E. Sixth St. $18. www.goldenhornet.org
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April 25, 2010
Review: 'The Difficulty of Crossing A Field'
Enigma is layered on enigma in ‘The Difficulty of Crossing a Field,’ the haunting opera cum musical theater work now getting an adventurous production at UT’s B. Iden Payne Theater, deftly directed by Luke Leonard.
Such enigmatic layering extends to the very origins of the piece.
This 75-minute opera by David Lang and Mac Wellman is based on 1888 short story by Ambroise Bierce. In Bierce’s odd tale a wealthy farmer in pre-Civil War Alabama drops from sight one afternoon as he crosses his field. His friends, neighbors, family and slaves have all only glanced away for second. But the plantation owner, Williamson, is gone; so is whatever social and political hierarchy his dominate position held. And because he has no male heir, a court must decide if Williamson is truly gone or not so that his estate can be distributed. The center of a world has suddenly, mysteriously vanished.
Wellman, a convention-defying New York-based playwright, transformed Bierce’s inscrutable yet politically satirical tale into an uncommon play in 1999. Then Lang — the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer whose genre-busting career include founding the new music groundbreaker group Bang On A Can — collaborated with Wellman to create a musical version for the stage which premiered in 2002 and featured the Kronos Quartet.
In Lang and Wellman’s variant — in which arias combine with spoken text — we are presented with several re-tellings of Williamson’s disappearance. A neighbor recants his confused remembrances. Williamson’s wife (a compelling Jennifer Adams) goes mad and takes to the roof, refusing to come down until he returns. Williamson’s daughter (a captivating Haley Hussey) demands to know the “mysteries of Selma, Alabama” — a reference that resonates past the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement.
And throughout a chorus of ghostly slaves echo and add to the alternate versions of Williamson’s mysterious disappearance.
“We are building a nation, we are building an erasure,” characters and chorus repeat.
Indeed what churns throughout the dreamlike episodes — or perhaps they’re really nightmarish — is the question of how America’s history of slavery is dis-remembered.
Leonard and the creative team added visually arrestings layers of odd artifice on this already odd though jewel-like piece. Alison Heryer’s period-inspired costumes symbolically weight the slave characters down with bulbuous, twine-wrapped forms. Actors travel across the stage with highly stylized movements. A magistrate stands on stilts far above everyone else. Hyper bright elongated white neon lights, flank the proscenium and like a Dan Flavin installation turned on and off, flood the audience with light at the beginning and end. We are, after all, a part of this telling of American history.
Lang’s eerie, atmospheric, minimalist-infused score, conducted by Lyn Koenning, wraps the odd scenarios with mystery equal to their telling.
“Something has happened,” one character proclaims. “But I don’t know what.” If Lang and Wellman’s piece only offers more variants on an enigmatic tale of history-making, maybe some enigmas are better just left enigmas.
‘The Difficulty of Crossing a Field’ continues at 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday and at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at UT’s B. Iden Payne Theatre. www.texasperformingart.org
April 22, 2010
This weekend, Austin's a three opera town
If Austin arts landscape weren’t already crazy busy right with the Fusebox Festival, among other events, this weekend Austin is a three opera town.
In addition to Austin Lyric Opera’s production of ‘Hansel and Gretel,’ UT is opening Bolcom’s ‘A View from the Bridge’ and Lang’s ‘The Difficulty of Crossing A Field.’
Both Bolcom and Land are in town for the opening night of their respective operas — which both are on Friday. (Planning anyone?) We’d like to think that if Englegert Humberdinck were still alive, he might be here for ‘Hansel and Gretel.’
‘A View from the Bridge’
Composer William Bolcom originally wrote ‘A View From the Bridge’ — based on Arthur Miller’s tragic play about 1950s immigrant life in New York — for a lavish 100-piece orchestra. With a libretto by Miller, the opera saw several extravagant productions including New York’s Metropolitan Opera. But its orchestra demands limited the opera companies that could present it. Now, thanks to a grant from San Antonio Tobin Foundation, the University of Texas’ Butler School of Music commissioned Bolcom for a chamber orchestration of the work. Stars bass Rubin Casas, a UT alum whose work with the Metropolitan Opera has made him one of opera’s brightest new stars. 7:30 p.m. Friday and Sunday. McCullough Theatre, UT campus. $10-$20 www.texasperformingarts.org
‘The Difficulty of Crossing A Field’
Based on Ambrose Bierce’s enigmatic 500-word story of the same name, Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer David Lang and playwright Mac Wellman blend opera and edgy theater in a one-act stage work. In the pre-Civil War south, a wealthy farmer mysteriously disappears from sight one sunny afternoon as he crosses a field in full view of family, his neighbors and his slaves. Everyone has his or her view of what the disappearance means, but the more the witnesses try to recount the disappearance, the more elusive it becomes. A UT Department of Theatre and Dance production. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Show continues through May 1. B. Iden Payne Theater, UT campus. $15-$20. www.texasperformingarts.org
‘Hansel and Gretel’
Austin Lyric Opera presents a critically acclaimed production of the German opera that sets the familiar Grimm’s fairy tale in fin-de-siècle New York, where Hansel and Gretel are immigrant children who get lost in Central Park and the evil witch is a rich matron who eats children. 7:30 p.m. April 23, April 28, April 30; 3 p.m. May 2. Long Center, 711 W. Riverside Drive. $29-$133. www.austinlyricopera.org
Photo: ‘The Difficulty of Crossing A Field.’ Photo by J Elissa Marshall.
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April 19, 2010
Review: 'La Serva Padrona'
La Follia Austin Baroque took a bold step this weekend staging a production of ‘La Serva Padrona,’ a comic operetta by Giovanni Pergolesi.
After all, the longtime period music chamber music group doesn’t have much experience staging operas. And if sometimes that lack of experience showed around the edges on Friday at the First Presbyterian Church, the first of two performances, in the end the utterly charming nature of Pergolesi’s goofball of a piece and some engaging singing made La Follia’s bold step a pleasure.
Hardly a part of any standard opera repertoire, ‘La Serva Padrona’ was originally presented in 1733 as an intermezzo for Pergolesi’s longer opera ‘Il Priogioniero Superbo’ which never exactly became a hit, thus shunting ‘La Serva’ to obscurity for a while before the short piece piece finally got its much deserved solo recognition.
And the operetta is a charmer alright.
Serpina (soprano Gitanjali Mathur) is a spit fire, a cunning young maid to an Italian nobleman, Uberto (Steven Olivares) who desires more from life. So she conspires a way — through the not too unexpected devices of disguise and simple chicanery — to trick Uberto into marrying her and thus making her the mistress of his estate.
With Mathur and Olivares in period Baroque costumes, the action all took place on a small stage backed by drapes — a simple set not without its slightly amateurish look. English supertitles were projected top the right of the stage on the back wall of the church sanctuary. To the left of the stage sat the eight-piece period instrument baroque orchestra lead by La Follia artistic director and harpsichordist Keith Womer.
A regular with Grammy-nominated choir Conspirare, Mathur — while she doesn’t have a big voice — has a sweet clear tone that’s full of delightful color. And humor. Mathur is a natural — and convincing — comedic actress who is a delight to watch. Olivares, too, showed his comedic acting chops, along with good tone that got stronger and more colorful as the operetta progressed.
Though ‘La Serva Padrona’ is a short two acts no more than 45 or 50 minutes, it was nevertheless presented with an intermission. And the second act was proceeded by Pergolesi’s Flute Concerto in G Major, featuring soloist Marcus McGuff.
It was a clever thought to insert an intermezzo piece into a operetta that was itself created as an intermezzo. But the intermission stole energy from Pergolesi’s frothy folly that took the case and ensemble a while to regain after the Concerto.
Still, La Follia earned a tip of the hat for sticking a toe in the opera arena.
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April 13, 2010
UT's Texas Performing Arts announces 2010-2011 season
Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, pianist Emanuel Ax, the National Theatre of Scotland and L.A. Theatre Works are just some of the acts coming to Austin via the University of Texas’ Texas Performing Arts for the 2010-2011 season, officials announced Tuesday night.
Also on the season lineup is the Ornette Coleman Quartet, famed chamber orchestra the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, an evening with food writer Michael Pollan and the last ever tour of the renowned modern troupe, Merce Cunningham Dance.
New music fans have plenty of temptations. Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche will perform with the ultimate al classical group Bang on a Can All-Stars. Indie chamber ensemble Eighth Blackbird will present ‘Slide,’ an unconventional work of musical theater that has the ensemble taking on onstage roles along with a pair of actors. Pioneering composer and video artist Jean Piche brings his multi-media work to Austin. So will composer John Zorn when the Miro Quartet and percussionist Colin Currie performs his work in March.
Perhaps the biggest news though is that TPA is extending its reach by collaborating with several Austin arts organizations, bringing them on as co-sponsors of certain shows. Austin Classical Guitar Society, the Fusebox Festival and the Long Center — which is hosting one next season’s touring Broadway shows — are co-sponsors of several events throughout the season. And that’s wonderful to see that kind of town-and-gown collaboration.
See www.texasperformingarts.org for complete information.
‘Slide’ with Eighth Blackbird, Rinde Eckert and Steve Mackey.
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Composer David Lang all over Austin this spring
It’s a veritable David Lang mini-festival this spring with work by the contemporary composer presented by several different groups.
Tonight, in a free concert, the always-engaging UT Percussion Ensemble, led by Thomas Burritt, performs Lang’s “so called laws of nature,” Can’t make the concert in person? It’ll web cast live. See www.music.utexas.edu for info.
Lang’s referred to ‘so called,’ which is performed on a variety of invented percussion instruments ‘as close to becoming a scientist as I will ever get.’
Lang will be in Austin later this month when UT’s Dept. of Theatre and Dance present his chamber opera “The Difficulty of Crossing a Field,” based a short story by Ambrose Bierce, about southern farmer in the pre-Civil War south who purportedly vanished while walking across a field. The UT production runs April 23-May 2.
Then come May 7-9, five-time Grammy-nominated choir Conspirare will perform Lang’s haunting oratorio, ‘The Little Match Girl Passion,’ for which the composer received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. See www.conspirare.org.
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March 31, 2010
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.
March 30, 2010
GHP to present Tosca Strings and new compositions by Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij
Alt classical organization Golden Hornet Project is at again, premiering new work by genre-less composers.
On April 26, as part of the Fusebox Festival, GHP will present Tosca String Quartet playing new compositions by Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij, Will Taylor of Strings Attached, Sam Arnold of Opposite Day and Christopher Cox. GHP
And yes, Vampire Weekend groupies — Batmangliji will be there to accompany Tosca Strings on his new pieces.
There will be two shows at 7 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. at the Alamo Ritz. Tix are $18.
See www.goldhenhornet.org for more info.
Earlier this season, GHP presented new symphonic works as well as Popcorn Superhet Receiver by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood
Also leaders on the indie classical scene, Tosca Strings has played with David Byrne, Spoon, Bob Schneider, Lucinda Williams and the Dixie Chicks, among others.
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March 16, 2010
Review: Ellen Fullman and the Long String Instrument
Venue and performer synched perfectly Sunday night when experimental composer and instrument creator Ellen Fullman brought her 100-foot Long String Instrument to the Seaholm Power Plant, a defunct 1930s power plant in downtown Austin.
Hosted by the New Music Co-op, Fullman installed her Long String Instrument in the Seaholm’s towering turbine hall — its cavernous corners, abandoned industrial fittings and dust-caked windows dramatically lit by lighting designer William Meadows.
Atmosphere is everything for Fullman, a self-taught musician who began her career as a sculptor (and who created the Long String Instrument when she lived in Austin from 1985 to 1997).
Yes, there’s the resonance from the enormous venue that accentuated the almost ethereal sound of Fullman’s instrument. But the visuals and the environmental - and the audience interaction with both — played an equally strong part in the 90-minute performance.
Coating her hands with rosin, the petite Fullman walks like a tight rope performer, one foot carefully in front of the other as she moves the length of her instrument, vibrating its long strings as she slowly moves.
And as if to acquaint the audience to exactly what she was doing, Fullman started with “Event Locations, No. 2” a solo piece she played with tiny surveillance cameras attached to each of her wrists. The detail of her hands on the strings projected in black-and-white on a wall several yards away.
The magnificient ‘Adaptations from Stratified Bands: Last Kind Word’ was a re-setting for of Fullman’s epic piece composed in 2002 for the Kronos Quatret. Fullman was joined by New Music Co-op members James Alexander (violin), Henna Chou (cello) and Travis Weller (violin) whose fixed string instruments provided a kind of tonal grounding against the ethereal bent pitches of the Long String Instrument. Fullman used as a starting point for the piece a haunting 1930s blues song which echoed throughout.
Weller and Nicke Hennies joined Fullman on the box bow — the boxes are handle-held rhythmic devices used to play Fullman’s string instrument more rhythmicall — for ‘Time Crossing.’ Developed as Fullman’s homage to the sound of the harmonica in folk music, the box bow created repeated rhythms that jigged along sounding also sometimes like an accordion or a pump organ or a harmonium or a couple of banjoes or even the vestiges of marching band heard from a distance.
Its simple harmonies — characterized by big wide open fourths and fifths — bore the unmistakable sounds of early American folk music, at once joyous and plaintive and nostalgic.
Though there were seats for the sold-out audience of 250 (the second of two shows last weekend), people were invited to move quietly around the vast turbine hall. And wander they did, some slipping off to far corners, others drawing closer to the musicians. One woman danced free form. A woman and her young daughter paraded the perimeter of the crowd for a while quietly swinging hands.
As shadows in the industrial setting grew deeper as the night outside darkened, the audience only seemed to grow more engaged. As the last sounds resonated resonated, people seemingly froze for a moment — venue, musicians and audience by then in perfect synch.
Photos by Dell Hollingsworth.
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March 15, 2010
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra, Douglas Harvey, cello
The shout of ‘bravo’ came a micro second after cellist Douglas Harvey let go of the last note of Strauss’ ‘Don Quixtoe’ at the Long Center Friday night.
Loud, clear, sincere — that ‘bravo’ packed a kind of spontaneous emotion rarely witnessed from an Austin Symphony Orchestra audience.
The kudos were deserved. Harvey, who is principal cellist for ASO, delivered an emotionally thoughtful, musically wise interpretation of Strauss’ vivid, spirited tone poem that tells the story of Cervantes’ picaresque novel through a series of lush yet highly caricaturesque variations.
Conductor Peter Bay kept the tempos moderate and sympathetic to Strauss very literal musical interpretation of Don Quixote’s imaginative adventures without letting the sometimes satirical piece from turning into caricature. The whimsy was just right; So was the pathos of Quixote’s misguided adventures.
Other orchestral soloists featured in the piece — concertmistress Jessica Mathaes and violaist Bruce Williams — deftly handling Strauss’ conversation-like musical dialogue.
Indeed, ASO is to be complimented for featuring soloist talent from its own ranks rather than hosting a guest soloist: It should happen more often.
Bay organized the evening’s program around works that celebrated literature and hence also presented Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture. With pieces both so often excerpted and rehashed in popular culture, they could remain indistinct, or worse, exaggerated. But again, Bay kept things nicely measured and sharp, allowing for a full-bodied presentation of each lush, fantastical work to take shape. No cartooning here.
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It was more than a little auspicious Sunday afternoon at the Paramount Theatre that opera singer Barbara Smith Conrad was greeted with waves of applause and standing ovations during the premiere of “When I Rise,” the intelligent, poignant and ultimately liberating documentary by Austin filmmaker Mat Hames chronicling Conrad’s life.
After all, when Conrad was a gifted young music student at the University of Texas in 1957 — part of the first group of African Americans to be admitted as undergraduates to Texas’ flagship university - she wasn’t initially allowed into the Paramount to see a film that her drama professor sent the class to see.
Produced under the auspices of UT’s Briscoe Center for American History, “When I Rise” is ultimately about the extraordinary grace of an extraordinary woman.
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March 2, 2010
A 100-foot-long string instrument to take up residency in Seaholm
The turbine hall of the historic Seaholm power plant will become the site for an utterly unconventional concert when Ellen Fullman, composer/performer and former Austinite, returns to town with her 100-foot-long string instrument.
When Fullman was here in Austin, 1985 to 1997, she rented a space in a former candy factory off Manor Road It was there that she developed her very unique instrument known as The Long String Instrument.
Fullman used amazing lengths of wire and custom-built wooden resonators to fashion her gigantic instrument. To play it, she developed a method of rosining her hands and walking the lengths of wire as she coaxed out otherworldly vibrations.
“My work resides between the fields of sound art and music,” she has said. “My interest is in composing music on multiple levels, constructing not only the fundamental harmonic content, but also creating a phantom composition by choreographing the performer’s movement through a multi-dimensional matrix of unfolding overtones.”
Fullman’s return visit — her first in 12 years — jibes with the SXSW premiere of Peter Esmonde’s documentary film about her music entitled “5 variations on a long string.”
The two performances at Seaholm are courtesy the non-profit group New Music Co-op.
8 p.m. March 13
8 p.m. March 14
Seaholm Power Plant, 214 West Ave.
Tickets: $12 students/advance and $15 at door
www.newmusiccoop.org
For the concerts Fullman will perform her compositions solo and in ensemble with NMC instrumentalists James Alexander (viola), Henna Chou (cello), Nick Hennies (percussion) and Travis Weller (violin).
Ellen Fullman performance at Berkeley Art Museum, Dec. 2009.
Photo by John Fago.
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March 1, 2010
Review: 'Albert Herring,' Butler Opera Center
Though it debuted in 1947, Benjamin Britten’s comic opera has only fairly recently gotten the love from the opera world with productions popping up on calendars more and more.
The University of Texas’ Butler Opera Center mounts a comely new production of its own which opened this past weekend.
Perhaps it’s Britten’s particularly cruel British comedic sensibility hits home with today’s audiences? Then again, perhaps it’s only now that Britten’s status as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century is now a given.
Like his more popular opera ‘Peter Grimes,’ Britten’s ‘Albert Herring’ centers on an outsider character misunderstood by uptight British society as represented by a small town riven with hypocrisy and intolerance.
Based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant — but thoroughly British in Britten’s interpretation — ‘Albert Herring’ is vicious satire on societal propriety as portrayed in early 20th-century Britain that leaves no character unscathed.
When the autocratic Lady Billows (in this production played by soprano Emily Ward) finds no suitably chaste young woman to be crowned May Queen in the village’s annual celebration, she is convinced by the a council of villagers to elect the hapless grocer Albert Herring (tenor Brad Raymond). Albert is, after all, a simpering momma’s boy.
After being dressed in the clownish humiliating May King costume for the village festival, Albert benefits from a glass of surreptiously spiked lemonade which leads him on an all-night bender. After a night of reckless wanton behavior, Albert returns to the village defiant in his new-found embrace life’s more licentious behavior.
The notable highlight of UT’s production was the orchestra led by Jim Lowe, the Butler Opera Center’s new conductor. Lowe (whose resumes includes stints with Houston Grand Opera and conducting the recent Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of ‘Gypsy’ starring Patti LuPone) wrested considerable panache out of the 12-piece chamber orchesrta of student musician. And that’s not an easy feat given that Britten’s score is chock full of deft musical craftsmanship and witty, ironic references to both the whole operatic canon and popular British music. (Britten quotes everything form Gilbert and Sullivan operattas, Baroque operas and even the late Romanticism of Richard Strauss). Lowe’s musical direction is some of the best seen yet from the Bulter Opera Center.
Though the voices in Sunday night’s cast were generally good, (a few secondary roles are double cast), Marc Reynolds’s limp stage direction left some cast members and their characters adrift.
Those who rose above it — and whose voices also stood out — shone.
Raymond makes Albert his own dramatically and vocally, utterly convincing at first as the hapless nerd, a convincing buffoon as the May King and finally a rather sardonic convert to life’s pleasures — and musically strong and distinct throughout.
As Albert’s erstwhile buddy Sid, baritone James Van Rens (who recently had a small part in Austin Lyric Opera’s charming ‘The Star’) was the complete opera package: a performer with excellent comedic acting chops and a rich voice full of clarity and seasoned with superb articulation.
Ditto with baritone Brian Pettery, in a secondary role as the Vicar. Vocal clarity and theatrical aplomb made his character stand out in a cast filled with many secondary characters.
An awkward set by Anne McMeeking had a split staircase serving as the main scenic element but its institutional modernist style were out-of-place next to Michaele Hite’s luscious period costumes.
Though in places uneven, this production of ‘Albert Herring’ nevertheless gives notice that this bitterly funny Britten comedy is not to be ignored.
‘Albert Herring’ continues at 7:30 p.m. March 5 and March 7. McCullough Theatre, UT campus. $20 ($10 for students). www.music.utexas.edu.
Photo by Jon Smith.
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Review: New Music Co-op 'Invisible Landscapes'
Silence permeated the new compositions played Saturday night by Austin’s New Music Co-op at Ceremony Hall, one of three different concerts — under the banner ‘Invisible Landscapes’ — the music collective presented which focused on the music of California-based composer Michael Pisaro in collaboration with percussionist Greg Stuart.
Warm water morphing into air was the primary image behind Pisaro’s ‘Ascending Series(7) (Evaporation),’ a 25-minute piece. A commission from the New Music Co-op, called for seven bowed instruments — in this case two violins, a viola, a bass and three percussionists who used bows on the rims of floor tom drums to create a soft, ethereal scraping sound. ‘Ascending’ started with a tone that formed something of backbone of the sound. Then, after slowly crescendoing, the tone seemed to evaporate, longer stretches of silence marrying the ever quieter moments of the almost white noise coming from the percussive bowing. Ambient noises from outside the auditorium made delightful guest appearances while ‘Ascending’ demanded careful, meditative listening.
New Music Co-op member Nick Hennies debuted his ‘Second Skin With Lungs’ which had five musicians at floor toms making a circle around the audience. Slowing using their hands to make circular motions across the drum skins, the musicians created a gentle wave of sound, sometime no more than a whisper.
Also getting a debut was Travis Weller’s ‘Toward and Away From the Point of Balance,’ a mesmerizing 10-minute piece for a string trio and The Owl, Weller’s inventive 16-string instrument that produces haunting sounds. Toward’ arched from silence to purpose and back to silence with moody slivers of harmony roughed up a bit with the string players injecting near-silent and other-worldly scraping sounds.
Sound may have been the product of Saturday’s concert, but, cleverly, silence emerged as the subtle star.
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February 25, 2010
This weekend, fresh music abounds
Live Music Capital of the World? We got your fresh music right here. This weekend offers several opportunities to catch fresh approaches to the classical canon and also new composed music.
Friday night conductor Kristjan JärvI and his Absolute Ensemble play ‘Absolute Bach Reinvented’ at Hogg Memorial Auditorium.
The program features a 16-piece ensemble playing pieces that riff on Bach’s Inventions by members of the band.
To Jarvi, Bach is like water. ‘Like water is essential for life on this planet, Bach is essential to musicians,’ the Estonian-born conductor says by phone last week from New York.
Jarvi’s boundary-shredding musical MO eschews dumb-downed crossover antics, the typical model used to popularize classical music. If anything, he wants to return classical music back to its origins when a score was considered a little less sacrosanct and musicians and conductors felt empowered to improvise.
Read our story here.
Also this weekend, Friday through Sunday, Austin’s irrepressible New Music Co-op presents ‘Invisible Landscapes’ three different programs featuring the music of guest composer Michael Pisaro and percussionist Greg Stuart.
Featured on Friday is Pisaro’s piece ‘A Wave and Waves’ for 100 percussion instruments, played by Stuart accompanied by an eight-channel surround sound system. Saturday’s show features two major commission pieces, ‘Red River 7’ by Radu Malfatti and Pisaro’s ‘Ascending Series (7) (evaporation).’ Sunday’s free concert features more by Pisaro as well as new works by Co-op composers Brent Fariss and William Bridges.
Shows are at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Ceremony Hall, 4100 Red River St. $12-$15 (free on Sunday). www.newmusic.coop
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February 22, 2010
Bang! Free music tonight
Forget the violin and the piano: In the new millennium, percussion has become the favored solo instrument of young composers.
Tonight, in a free concert, University of Texas-based percussion ensemble Line Upon Line spearheads ‘Clutch: New Music by UT Composers,’ a program of new percussion-based music by student and faculty composers. Included on the program are ‘Echoes of Veiled Light’ by Zack Stanton and a new piece by Steve Snowden.
The free concert is at 7:30 p.m. Recital Studio 2.608. Music Building, UT campus.
If you can’t make the concert, it will be Webcast live from www.music.utexas.edu.
Photo by www.c2wphotography.com.
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February 17, 2010
Austin's Miro Quartet leading Naxos online chart
The Miro Quartet — the string quartet in residence at the University of Texas’ Butler School of Music — is topping the charts right now.
That is, the foursome’s latest release is running in the number one spot on NaxosDirect, an online music distribution site run by the classical music label.
‘The Miro Quartet Live’ is actually co-released on the Longhorn label, UT’s all-but-invisible record label. The Miro plays Dvorak’s String Quartet in F Major “American,” and the world premiere recording of “Credo” by Kevin Puts. a work commissioned for the Miro Quartet by Chamber Music Monterey Bay.
The CD was recorded live in UT’s Bates Recital Hall.
The Miro Quartet next plays in Austin May 9 with cellist Lynn Harrell.
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February 9, 2010
Ellington's 'Sacred Concert' reprised Feb. 28
Last year, it was beyond standing room only when Austin Chamber Music Center hooked up with Huston-Tillotson University choirs and other performers in a rousing performance of Duke Ellington’s ‘Sacred Concert.’
People filled the aisles and even stood out in the hall of HTU’s King Seabrook Chapel last year as the choirs, jazz orchestra, soloists and an accompanying tap dancer made Ellington’s oratorio mighty.
Now, ACMC and Huston-Tillotson is reprising the concert at 3 p.m. Feb. 28, once again in King Seabrook Chapel on the HTU campus at E. Seventh St. and Chicon.
The concert is free. Seating is first-come, first-served. Early arrival is advisable if you want a space.
Ellington wrote three massiive works he called ‘Sacred Concerts, sprawling collections of songs and suites that blend gospel music with jazz, classical music, spirituals, blues, choral music and even dance and oratory. They were performed in cathedrals and churches during the last decade of his life, including 1973 in London’s Westminster Abbey.
Read more about last year’s joint performance with ACMC and HTU.
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February 8, 2010
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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February 4, 2010
Two new symphonies, with a little help from Radiohead, make their debut
It’s not easy for a genre-blurring musician in a genre-focused music industry. When it’s simpler for the music biz to sell its cultural product in neat categories, any music that bridges or blurs those market-described categories often gets left behind.
Graham Reynolds and Peter Stopschinski know that all too well. The pair of genre-defying Austin composers, well-known to arts audiences for their myriad collaborations with theater and dance productions, will debut their respective sixth symphonies on Saturday at Austin Ventures Studio Theater inside Ballet Austin’s downtown headquarters.
Read the rest of the story here.
Preview the music:
- Graham Reynolds: ‘The Difference Engine’, Movement 2: Ada
- Peter Stopschinski: ‘Rough Night with Happy Ending’, Movement 4
Photo by Ralph Berrera/Austin American-Statesman.
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February 2, 2010
Q-and-A with Anne Akiko Meyers, violinist
Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers burst onto the international concert stage when she was just 11 years old. Now, the California native is a sought after soloist with a busy schedule of concerts around the globe.
Meyers is also a new member of the faculty at the University of Texas Butler School of Music.
On Sunday, she gives her first recital since moving to Austin, with Anton Nel at the piano at UT’s Bates Recital Hall at 4 p.m. See www.music.utexas.edu for ticket information.
A-AS: How did you select the program you’ll be playing?
Anne Akiko Meyers: I programmed Schnittke, Beethoven, Vernon Duke, Gershwin and this amazing premiere by Jakub Ciupinski with several things in mind. I love how Schnittke took classical themes and sacred music such as ‘Silent Night’ and put such an ironical twist on it. Usually music like that can be so overdone but when you hear his music, he spins everything very subtlety on it’s head and ends up making a very dramatic original statement. That originalality is uncanny and very brilliant. There is also a seasonal thread through the program with me visiting spring in the Beethoven ‘Spring’ Sonata, summer with the Gershwin, autumn via Vernon Duke and winter with the Schnittke. The premiere by Jakub Ciupinski is with electronics. This is a first for me, exploring the rich tapestries of a musical universe using a recording to accompany the solo violin.
AA-S: You started your career at a preciously young age. What kind of career advice do you give your college-age students at UT?
Meyers: Yes, I began my career at a very young age and relished every bit of it! Everybody’s development is very different and most my students have no desire to be soloists. Being a soloist must start at a very young age and by the time one is in college, that choice should have been made much earlier in one’s life. I think it is very important to be honest with one’s abilities in order to focus on learning and making the most of one’s talents and capabilities. This way, the path is clear to make plans with one’s life and hopefully make an impact with the environment around you.
AA-S: You’re new to town. What are some your favorite places in Austin?
Meyers: Being that I travel so much, my favorite place to be in Austin is at home. I love being able to sleep in my own bed, crawl to the kitchen and serve myself loads of ice cream. Other places I love visiting are Mount Bonnell, Zilker Park, the shops and restaurants at the Domain, Whole Foods and the Milk and Honey Spa. I seem to spend a lot of time on Research Blvd. as well!
Anne Akiko Meyers
When: 4 p.m. Sunday
Where: Bates Recital Hall, Music Building, UT campus
Tickets: $10-$20
Information: 471-5401, www.music.utexas.edu
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February 1, 2010
Review: Austin Lyric Opera's 'The Star'
Combine a zany plot propelled by wacky characters, charming music laced with witty dialogue and a mad world made into a visually arresting mod funhouse and you have the utterly entertaining production of Emmanuel Chabrier’s ‘The Star,’ now getting a turn by Austin Lyric Opera at the Long Center.
Only now recognized for its brilliant goofiness after a century in obscurity, Chabrier’s 1877 opera bouffe is a sparkling confection — a bon bon for the opera connoisseur in this impressive, inventively-designed production by New York City Opera and Glimmerglass Opera.
And yet, with its mix of dialogue and singing — and thanks to some very clever direction by Alain Gauthier and droll dance moves by choreographer Jeff Michael Rebudal - this version of ‘The Star’ is also pure delight for any opera novice or musical theater aficianando.
Superbly conducted by Richard Buckley, who brilliantly extracted the lyrical wittiness in Chabrier’s exquisite score, ‘The Star’ is an opera bouffe that gently satirizes opera itself.
In this comic confection, King Ouf the First (tenor Jean-Paul Fouchecourt) scours his kingdom to find a subject to impale — a public execution, after all, being Ouf’s favorite birthday celebration. But unluckily, Ouf chooses a young peddler Lazuli (mezzo-soprano Deborah Domanski), whose star, the king’s astrologer, Siroco (basso buffo Kevin Glavin), reveals, is linked to Ouf’s.
And the problem? If Lazuli dies the king will die a day later — and Siroco 15 minutes after that. To complicate things, Lazuli falls in love with Ouf’s fiancée, Princess Laoula (soprano Nili Riemer)
After that, well, the plot spins comically out-of-control.
As Ouf, Fouchecourt is a remarkably gifted comic actor and sang with terrific lyricism. Domanski did well in the classic trouser role, all gangly moves capped by a sweet tone. Riemer impressed as Laoula. But it was the ensemble together in comic play that impressed the most.
So did the crazy yet stylish sets and costumes. Set designer Andrew Lieberman and costumer Constance Hoffman created a world where characters clad in saturated hues stood out against bright white surfaces and curving funhouse mirrors. Costume silhouettes are part period Toulouse-Lautrec, part animated Beatles movie, “Yellow Submarine.” Characters rode goofily adorned scooters on and off the stage. Ouf’s throne is giant, inflatable and yellow.
Special props have to go to the chorus who not only sang well but managing the abundant comic choreography with aplomb.
For a relatively young regional company, Austin Lyric Opera has made many a sophisticated gestures itself in its almost 25 years through tackling challenging contemporary repertoire, staging productions in non-traditional venue and premiering new operas.
Now, ALO demonstrates its sophistication again by joining the strata of international opera presenters who are smartly resurrecting forgotten jewels of the repertoire.
‘The Star’ continues at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 3 and 5 and 3 p.m. Feb. 7 at the Long Center. $29-$133. www.austinlyricopera.org
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January 31, 2010
No Grammy for Conspirare, but cheers at the ceremony
No Grammy this year for five-time nominated choir Austin Conspirare.
But we did hear audible cheers and hollers in the audience when Conspirare and artistic director Craig Hella Johnson were named. Johnson is at the awards with a contingent of family, friends and Conspirare supporters.
The Grammy’s pre-telecast show is being Web-cast live at www.grammys.com/live with Aretha Franklin hosting the classical awards.
Conspirare was nominated in the Best Classical Crossover Album for ‘A Company Of Voices: Conspirare In Concert,’ recorded live at the Long Center for the Performing Arts and released on the Harmonia Mundi label. It’s the fifth nomination for the non-profit organization.
The winner of the Best Classical Crossover Album was ‘Yo-Yo Ma & Friends: Songs Of Joy And Peace’ (Sony).
January 29, 2010
For a third time, Conspirare heads to the Grammy Awards
For a third time, Austin-based choir Conspirare is headed to the Grammy Awards.
That’s a remarkable feat: Conspirare is the only Austin classical music group to ever be singled out so repeatedly by the industry. And to boot, Conspirare is a non-profit organization that only started year-round programming in 1999 and has a current annual budget in the $1.3 million range. Their artistic achievements are nothing short of outstanding.
Conspirare is nominated in the Best Classical Crossover Album for ‘A Company Of Voices: Conspirare In Concert,’ recorded live at the Long Center for the Performing Arts and released on the Harmonia Mundi label.
Last year, the choir, founded and directed by Craig Hella Johnson, netted two Grammy noms for, “Threshold of Night,” also released on Harmonia Mundia. The nominations were for Best Classical Album and Best Choral Choral Performance. “Threshold of Night” featured a song cycle by award-winning young British composer Tarik O’Regan.
And in 2006, Conspirare received two Grammy nominations for the CD “Requiem,” in the categories of Best Choral Performance and Best Engineered Album, Classical.
The classical music categories aren’t part of Sunday’s prime time telecast. But earlier in the afternoon, can follow the results and see a live stream of the ‘other Grammy’s’ here www.grammy.com.
We’ll also be posting the results in this blog and its accompanying Twitter handle, artsinaustin.
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January 26, 2010
Review: Austin Chamber Music Center
Concerts by Austin Chamber Music Center never fail to impress. And Saturday night’s program at the First Unitarian Church once again proved that ACMC is one of Austin’s most notable music groups.
Part of what makes ACMC’s programs so appealing is their, well, appealing-ness. There’s none of the classical music exclusivity to the tenor of ACMC’s audience
For starters, pianist ACMC artistic director Michelle Schumann eschews written program notes in favor of informal introductions she gives before each piece — wonderful, friendly short talks that reveal not only clever anecdotes into the composers and their lives, but Schumann’s own intelligent musicological insights
Such short chats seem like such a minor detail, but those chats have a way of prepping the audience as a group, getting them ready to listen, together. A little reaching out to the audience goes a long way in the usually stuffy classical music world.
Which is good because Schumann and ACMC are serious about the type of music presented.
Bucking the big B’s of the repertoire — Bach, Beethoven and Brahms — Schumann opted for chamber music by the R’s: Rossini, Ravel and Rachmaninov.
Schumann along with violinist Teresa Ling and cellist Greg Sauer were locked in a tight embrace for Ravel’s Piano Trio in A, full of energy and ardor for the composer’s colorful ride through myriad, diverse influences: Basque dance, Malaysian poetry, Baroque formalities. Whew.
Dedicated to his mentor, Tchaikovsky, Rachmanivov’s Trio Elegiatique No. 2 is utterly poignant and its sprawling length makes it more than reminiscent of the composer’s symphonic music for which he is much better known. Schumann brought her laser-like emotional committment to the virtuosic piano writing together the trio shoulder the weighty mournfulness with considerable inspiration.
Sauer opened the evening’s program with a cello transcription of Variations on One String on a Theme by Rossini, a rollicking virtuosic delight that he played with aplomb.
Yes, chamber music can be fun.
January 15, 2010
Austin Lyric Opera announces 2010-2011 season
Verdi’s ‘La Traviata,’ ‘Rossini’s ‘The Italian Girl in Algiers’ and ‘Flight’, the contemporary comedy by Johnathan Dove mark Austin Lyric Opera’s 2010-2011 season, ALO general director Kevin Patterson will announce today.
Actually, the new season will begin this summer with Michael Nyman’s chamber opera ‘The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat.’ Based on the popular book by poetic neurologist Oliver Sacks, Nyman’s 60-minute opera will be staged at St. Martin Lutheran Church in collaboration with the Austin Chamber Music Center’s summer festival. ‘Hat’ will run July 9-11.
And ‘Hat’ marks an important development for ALO and opera in Austin. Finally, some chamber opera in this town — and some contemporary chamber opera to boot Nyman’s minimalist score riffs on Schumann lieder. The three-character story follows a singer who suffers from visual agnosia, the inability to recognize familiar things and people.
Dove’s ‘Flight’ will also make a mark on the Austin scene. Based the true story of Mehran Nasseri, an Iranian refugee whose stateless status forced him to live for years within Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport. Dove’s opera, premiered by Glyndebourne Touring Opera in 1998, finds a cast of very modern characters grounded by their own emotional incapacities and stuck together in an airport during a storm. ‘Flight’ plays in April 2011.
In November, ALO will present a Lyric Opera of Chicago production of ‘La Traviata’ wiht Pamela Armstrong singing Violetta and native Texan Chad Shelton singing Alfredo.
And in January 2011 it’s Rossini’s ‘The Italian Girl in Algiers (L’Italiana in Algeri)’ in a smart production from Santa Fe Opera. Sandra Piques Eddy, who wowed Austin in La Cenerentola in 2008, will sing Isabella.
Richard Buckley will conduct all of ALO’s upcoming season.
Image: ‘Flight.” Glyndebourne Opera.
January 11, 2010
Review: Conspirare's 'New Year's Classic'
There’s a reason Richard Strauss’ Deutsche Motette isn’t frequently performed. Though only about 20 minutes in length, it’s a sprawling late romantic symphony for voices, dense in its musical imagery and staggering in its complexity with some 16 vocal parts.
Leave it to Austin choir Conspirare — which just received its fifth Grammy nomination — to make stunning work of Strauss’ stunning Motette, the marquee piece of a concert Saturday night at the acoustically fine St. Martin’s Lutheran Church.
Rich in impressionistic nuance, the Motette awes with its spectacle — particularly its astonishing harmonic shifts. And Conspirare’s genius at singing as one voice while also allowing enough space of each singer’s own voice to shine through made for much clarity and emotional resonance.
If there was a theme to the program selected by Conspirare founder and artistic director Craig Hella Johnson, perhaps it was musical complexity.
Before unleashing the Strauss, Johnson and the choir pulled off Bach’s motet Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied with aplomb, deftly maneuvering through Bach’s rich and intriguing wave of counterpoint.
Balancing the mighty weight of the Bach and the Strauss were a selection of Brahms’ romantic Leibeslieder Waltzes, stylishly sung. And as a delightful detour, Johnson threw in ‘My Little Green Cactus,’ a jumpy 1920s tune sung in the a capella style of the Comedian Harmonists, an all-male German close harmony ensemble that was one of the more successful pre-World War II groups. As cute as it was, the song really just re-enforced what the rest of the program made clear: That Conspirare continually demonstrate superb control and dexterity as a choir, no matter the repertoire.
Later this month, Johnson and Conspirare will go up for their fifth Grammy nomination, this time for Best Classical Crossover Album, competing against the likes of Yo Yo Ma. That an Austin non-profit musical organization even has the chops to even compete against a classical music icon —and commercial juggernaut — like Ma is impressive. Then again, Conspirare has the voice that roars, sublimely.
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January 5, 2010
Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet plays Jan. 27
With UT’s Texas Performing Arts (formerly known as the Performing Arts Center) program up and running full-throttle for a year now, Austin’s seeing a greater influx of marquee-caliber international classical ensembles and artists.
This is a very good thing for the self-proclaimed Live Music Capital of the World. After all, there’s nothing like raising the bar.
A $14.5 million renovation to UT-TPA’s main venue, Bass Concert Hall, and the hiring of Kathy Panoff as the organization’s new director. has led a season with some notable offerings.
Up next, the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet plays the intitimate McCullough Theatre on Jan. 27. Tickets are $36 ($10 for students). See www.texasperformingarts.org.
The Quintet’s program for the concert is:
W. A. Mozart: Fantasy f-minor KV 608 for a mechanical organ
Anton Reicha: Quintet in D Major, Op. 91, No. 3
Samuel Barber: Summer music, Op. 31
Carl Nielsen: Quintet Op.43
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December 31, 2009
Review: 'A Texas Christmas Carol'
Variety shows are tough. They can demand lightning fast emotional shifts as a troupe moves from lighter fare to more melodramatic matters. But they also can offer quick hits of all kinds of entertainment - here’s a show choir, here’s some ballet, here’s a jazz singer — a jukebox of the stage, if you will.
It helps to have a theme, and “A Texas Christmas Carol” pretty well explains it. No, Scrooge is not involved, thank God — transplanting him to Austin would be a bad look.
Instead, veteran producer Charles Duggan (“A Greater Tuna” and two sequels) has assembled an all-Austin talent revue based around a loose Christmas/holiday theme.
The MVPs are the almighty Biscuit Brothers and Tish Hinojosa — the former move the show along, the latter sings a mess of songs. Dancers from Ballet Austin crank out a nine-minute Nutcracker, perfect for your local 4-year-olds. (I took my 4-year-old Tuesday night.)
The Amazing Grace Gospel Choir gave us “Go Tell It On The Mountain” (not sure if the intro was supposed to remind me of Gyorgy Ligeti’s “Requiem,” but the effect was cool). Members of the Austin Lyric Opera were sprinkled throughout — they led a “Hallelujah” chorus sing-along and soloist Liz Cass delivered a sharp “O Holy Night” (a.k.a. the best Christmas carol ever).
Jazz vocalist Kat Edmonson was the guest star for the Dec. 30 performance, torching up “Santa Baby” and “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” The Tapestry Dance Company kicked, the Bowie High School Silver Stars show-choired and Zach Theatre regular Jill Blackwood seemed to sing on just about everything. The show benefits a variety of charities on various nights (see below).
At one point, Duggan emerged with his twin 7-year-old sons to talk about how the show was for them and children everywhere (see also the list of charities involved). It’s the first year for this production and Duggan hopes to make it an annual event. He’s enough of an old pro to learn from some slower moments (and a second act that’s longer than the first) and tighten things up next year.
Here’s hoping “A Texas Christmas Carol” is around for enough years for the twins to get thoroughly embarrassed by their dad bringing them out on stage.
‘A Texas Christmas Carol’
When: 1 and 6 p.m. today.
Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Drive.
$10-$60
www.thelongcenter.org
Each performance features a special guest artist or artists and also benefits an Austin charity with 20 percent of the ticket proceeds donated.
2 p.m. Saturday: Matthew Hinsley, Austin Classical Guitar Society (Helping Hand Home for Children)
7:30 p.m, Saturday: Anton Nel, Stanislav Pronin (Any Baby Can, Ronald McDonald House)
1 p.m. Sunday: Anton Nel (St. David’s Foundation)
6 p.m. Sunday: Matthew Hinsley and the Austin Classical Guitar Society (Make-a-Wish Foundation)
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December 21, 2009
School of Music faculty meets fundraising match
Despite recessionary cutbacks, some faculty at UT’s Butler School of Music have donated $25,000 to establish a new endowed scholarship in musicm, the university announced today.
The grassroots effort began this summer when philanthropists Sarah and Ernest Butler — who last year contributed $55 million to the UT School of Music which was named in their honor — said that they would provide matching funds for any scholarship gifts between $25,000 and $50,000 through the end of 2009. According to UT officials, several members of the music faculty saw the announcement as an opportunity to help provide much-needed student aid.
The resulting $50,000 endowed scholarship in music — when matched by the Butlers in January 2010 — will support undergraduate and graduate students in music.
“I am particularly moved by the fact that in a year in which the faculty received no merit raises, they would voluntarily donate funds in an amount sufficient to establish an endowed scholarship,” said B. Glenn Chandler, director of the Butler School of Music. “This is just another example of the unwavering dedication our faculty have to the education of their students.”
To date, the Butler’s dollar-for-dollar matching program has resulted in seven new scholarships for music. Chandler reportedly said he anticipates that three additional scholarships in progress will also be matched.
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Anton Nel named to endowed faculty position
The University of Texas has named UT professor of piano Anton Nel to the recently established Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Endowed Chair in Piano in the Butler School of Music.
The the endowed position was established through a $1 million gift from the Longs.
An nternationally-recognized pianist,Nel joined the UT faculty in 2000. In March, he was the first classical performer to play a solo concert at the year-old Long Center for the Performing Arts, also named for Joe and Teresa Long.
Nel’s next Austin appearances include a concert with violinist Anne Akiko-Meyers and with the Texas Piano Quartet on April 28. Both concerts are at UT’s Butler School of Music.
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December 10, 2009
Austin Symphony Orchestra hires new executive director
After suddenly losing its executive director earlier this year under a cloud of confusion, the Austin Symphony Orchestra has announced that it is hiring one of its own for the top management position.
Anthony Corroa, the orchestra’s operations manager since 2000 and the recent interim executive director, has been named the new executive director.
Orchestra board president Joe R. Long said in the announcement Thursday that Corroa was selected after a nationwide search.
Corroa’s appointment comes after the orchestra went through a tumultuous management shuffle earlier this fall.
Galen Wixson, the organization’s previous executive director, disappeared from the organization’s Web site Aug. 31. At the time, ASO board leaders offered no explanation for Wixson’s disappearance though it was reported that he had been fired.
On Sept. 1, more than two dozen orchestra musicians sent a letter to the board’s executive committee protesting Wixson’s sudden and unexplained absence.
Then on Sept. 9, Long finally issued a statement saying Wixson has resigned as executive director over creative differences.
Wixson never responded to requests for comment.
Wixson was hired in mid-March after a national search. He left the position of executive director of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra to take the Austin job. Previously, Wixson had served as executive director for the Symphony of Southeast Texas, the Manhattan Center for the Arts and the American String Teachers Association.
‘Dance-Along Nutcracker'
Keeping Austin invincibly weird. Donning fanciful red jackets and hats that resemble the old-fashioned military outfit worn by a classic nutcracker figurine, the indie band Invincible Czars charge through their rock-ed up version of “The Nutcracker Suite.” And you’re invited to dance along!
‘Dance-Along Nutcracker’
When: 3 p.m. Saturday, family-friendly show. 9 p.m. adult show
Where: Jovita’s, 1617 S. First St.
Cost: $8 adults, $4 children. Adults’ show: $10
www.invincibleczars.com
The Invincible Czars perform their ‘Dance-Along Nutcracker’ at Houston’s Wortham Center Houston
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December 4, 2009
Guitar maestro, William Kanengiser
A member of the famed LA Guitar Quartet, William Kanengiser has a repertoire that ranges from the classics to contemporary adventures. On this program, he’ll play, among other selections, Spanish classics by Albeniz (‘Granada (Serenata) from Suite Española’) and by Sor (‘Elegiac Fantasy’) along with jazz-inspired pieces by contemporary composers such as Bryan Johanson and Brian Head.
8 p.m. Saturday
Northwest Hills United Methodist Church, 7050 Village Center Drive
$25-$35
www.austinclassicalguitar.org
William Kanengiser playing ‘Brookland Boogie’ (by Brian Head)
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December 3, 2009
Austin choral group Conspirare nets fifth Grammy nomination
Austin-based professional choral ensemble Conspirare has been nominated for a Grammy for Best Classical Crossover Album for its CD ‘Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert’ on the Harmonia Mundi label.
“Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert” was recorded live at the Long Center for the Performing Arts in October 2008 in cooperation with PBS television station KLRU. It was first released as a DVD for national broadcast on PBS affiliate stations nationwide beginning in March 2009, and was subsequently released on CD by Harmonia Mundi in June 2009. Both the CD and DVD are available for purchase through Conspirare www.conspirare.org.
Previously, Conspirare received Grammy Award nominations in 2009 for “Threshold of Night.” The nominations were for Best Classical Album and Best Choral Performance.
Conspirare previously received two nominations in 2006.
‘Christmas at the Carillon’
Conspirare’s annual holiday concert showcases artistic director Craig Hella Johnson’s blending of music old and new. This year’s special guest is Patrice Pike.
8 p.m. Long Center. 701 W. Riverside Drive
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November 24, 2009
Austin Children's Choir founder dies
Bernard Gastler, founder of the Austin Children’s Choir, died Saturday. Gastler died of a stroke. He is survived by his wife, Ruth Meyer Gastler, and two children, Connie and Gregory. Gastler was 80 years old.
Founded in 1986 by Gastler with the support of Concordia University, the choir performed throughout the country and locally. Gastler served as the choir’s conductor and artistic director for 23 years.
Over the course of his career, Gastler worked as an elementary school teacher and minister of music at Trinity Lutheran Church in Port Arthur and at St. Paul Lutheran Church and School in Austin, where he has also served as an organist. In 1982, he became a professor of music at Concordia University Texas.
Memorial services are pending.
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November 23, 2009
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra and Conspirare
The soaring articulate voices Grammy-nominated choir Conspirare proved the star Saturday night at the Long Center when joined forces with the Austin Symphony Orchestra.
And Cary Ratcliff’s sweeping oratorio ‘Ode to Common Things’ proved to be the hit — a captivating, charming ride.
Collaborations between two of Austin’s major classical groups are always rewarding. That this one featured contemporary repertoire — not so typical for ASO — was decidedly refreshing.
Too bad, then, that attendance was far less than capacity. Empty seats — sometime whole rows — were scattered around the house.
The Rochester-based Ratcliff set music to poems by Chilean writer Pablo Neruda who, throughout the course of his life, devoted four volumes to odes to ordinary, everyday objects. Ratcliff selected five, keeping the text in the original Spanish.
Percussionists and harpist stayed busy with the shifting rhythms. Two pianos and a synthesizer (which added echoing sounds and Dopple shifts) gave the music dimension.
Starting with the percussive ‘Ode to Things,’ Ratcliff’s score rapidly shape-shifted through many moods yet the fury never overwhelmed. There was pleasure in the racket Ratcliff created — the almost 100 voices of Conspirare generating the rhythm with the textures of short consonants and open vowel sounds of Spanish.
The musical, and emotional, dimension grew deeper with ‘Ode to the Bed’ before the reflective ‘Ode to the Guitar.’
Among the trio of vocal soloists, mezzo-soprano Dana Beth Miller impressed in ‘Ode to the Guitar’ particularly in the almost edgy duet with acoustic guitar which echoed the darker, thoughtful tonal colors and complex harmonies.
The mood shifted again with ‘Ode to Scissors,’ a gentle parody of sorts of Orff’s over-played Carmina Burina. Syncopations ruled here, rhythms snipped along.
The final ‘Ode to Bread’ was as much urgent as hymnal, a reminder of our connection to the universal life of the everyday.
On the program’s first half, ASO music director Peter Bay placed Mendelssohn’s Incidental Music to ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ Performed nicely, it was nevertheless an oddly formal counterpoint to Ratcliff’s expressive, emotive work.
November 22, 2009
Review: DJ Spooky's 'Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica'
Appropriately, DJ Spooky, aka multi-media artist and brainy hip hop deejay, Paul D. Miller, started his ‘Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica’ by playing a piece of ice. A haze filled the Hogg Auditorium Friday night before the show while sounds of crunching glaciers grew louder. Then Miller took the stage, a piece of a dry ice (the source of the haze, as it turns out) on a silver platter before him. Across the ice he slowly drew a set of metal chimes to create eerie tinkling sounds.
‘Terra Nova’ is Miller’s sometimes mesmerizing, sometimes not so mesmerizing, musical and visual consideration of Antarctica.
Riffing on the concept of Ralph Vaughan Williams ‘Sinfonia Antarctica,’ (Williams’ seventh symphony which originated with the composer’s score for the 1948 film ‘Scott of the Antarctic.’) Miller composed a 70-minute piece for piano, two violins and cello to lead by his live re-mixing of digital and found sounds.
Austin’s alt-classical ensemble Golden Hornet Project — here represented by Graham Reynolds, Hector Moreno, Alexis Ebbets and Joseph Suffield - accompanied, giving full throttle to Miller’s charging and very cinematic score. (GHP collaborated with Miller on his latest release, ‘The Secret Song,’ playing on six tracks.)
On two rear projections screens images flashed by in choreographed collage - swooping aerials of the startling Antarctic landscape, scientific data charts on rising sea levels, footage of a 1950s-era Soviet polar exploration, maps historic and current and deliberately provocative phrases such “ice is a geological clock.”
Though cleverly edited, the hardly-subtle, nor deep, collage grew repetitive. And in the end, Miller’s new millennium travelogue didn’t necessarily take us to a new point: Mostly, we already know the polar environment is threatened.
But if the unoriginality of the visuals wore, the music redeemed. And when considered as a live chamber symphony with some video and digitized accompaniment — rather than a new visual/aural re-mixed art form as may have been suggested — then ‘Terra Nova’ pleased.
Miller stylized his score with a kind of driving crescendo-filled minimalist repetition. Cinematic, often dire or plaintive in mood and only partially reflective, the music nevertheless communicated a sense of urgency.
Miller’s media mix-up isn’t for everyone. Some audience members walked out Friday night. But for others ‘Terra Nova’ deserved a very spontaneous standing ovation. Likely, the final point to ‘Terra Nova’ is somewhere inbetween.
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November 18, 2009
DJ Spooky's 'Sinfonia Antarctica'
Inspired by a trip to Antarctica, DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid (aka Paul Miller)’s ‘Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica” is a multimedia travelogue by the avant garde turntable master and intrepid re-mixer.
The 70-minute piece — which plays Hogg Auditorium Friday night — is a visual and acoustic portrait of the ever-mysterious yet rapidly changing Antarctic continent.
Read a feature story on the show here.
DJ Spooky will participate in an online chat 1 p.m. Thursday.
For the Austin gig, Miller has tapped Austin musicians Graham Reynolds on piano, violinists Alexis Ebbets and Joseph Shuffield and Hector Moreno on cello.
And as the Golden Hornet Project, Graham and Moreno, along with Peter Stopschinski, Bruce Colson, Jason Elinoff and Seetha Shivaswarmy join DJ Spooky on his new CD ‘The Secret Song,’ including on the track ‘Measure for Measure.
Photo by Rita Antonioli.
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November 11, 2009
Now, everyone can sing with Conspirare
Always dreamed of singing with Grammy-nominated choir Conspirare? Now you can as Conspirare presents its inaugural Rush Hour Big Sing.
The free community event invites everyone — regardless of their musical talents or lack thereof — to join Conspirare’s artistic director Craig Hella Johnson and members of the choir in a group sing.
Johnson will lead everyone through breathing exercises, vocal warm-ups, and short, melodic songs that can be easily learned without reading music. Conspirare Symphonic Choir members will sit among the audience to sing along and provide musical support and encouragement during the one-hour event.
Rush Hour Big Sing
5:30 p.m. Nov. 12
St. Martin’s Lutheran Church, 606 W. 15th St.
Free
www.conspirare.org
November 8, 2009
Review: Austin Lyric Opera's 'La Boheme'
How to make “La Boheme” one of the most performed and beloved operas of all times sparkle anew?
Add some youthful energy. Austin Lyric Opera does just that with its current production at the Long Center which opened Saturday night. A roster of up-and-coming soloists bring vigor to this “La Boheme.” And that gives this story of struggling Parisian artists and a doomed love affair — wrapped in achingly beautiful music — a new vitality.
The bravos started early Saturday night, coming first for French tenor Sebastien Gueze who sang the role of Rodolfo, the poet who falls in love with the tuberculosis-stricken Mimi. His ‘Che gelida manina’ — one of the opera’s most famous arias, and really, how to follow up when the likes of Pavorotti made it world-famous to a popular audience? — brought Gueze spontaneous cheers. No wonder: Gueze delivered it with a bright-toned richness and his lyric quality seemed effortless. And after that, he could do no wrong with the audience. Acting the role of the young lover, Gueze was all gangly energy and expressive emotion.
As Mimi, Dina Kuznetsova had a sweet tone and manifested a sense of pathos in her tragic role.
Baritone Craig Verm — a native Houston making his Austin Lyric Opera debut - shone as Marcello, Rodolfo’s sidekick. Again, a youthful energy made for a character that was robust and forceful while Verm’s tone rich and passionate.
Liam Moran sang a touching Colline in the fourth act and Sari Gruber’s vivaciousness made a saucy Musetta.
Conductor Richard Buckley brought a gorgeous lushness along with a refreshing dynamism to the score. Puccini’s big sweeping emotional moments got all their due and then some without ever over-shadowing the tenderness of the smaller poignant episodes.
The scenic design, by San Diego Opera, only got its most interesting in the second act when giant Toulouse-Lautrec inspired posters decked out the Cafe Momus, the artists’ hangout. Indeed, the visual trappings of this “La Boheme” didn’t stray beyond the traditional.
But any conventionality to this production was undone by a uniformally lively young cast replete with excellent singers. Pucinni’s romantic coming-of-age tale rings true in this “La Boheme.”
“La Boheme” continues 7:30 p.m. Nov. 11 and 13, 3 p.m. Nov. 15. www.austinlyricopera.og.
Image: Craig Verm as Marcello, Jonathan Beyer as Schaunard, Liam Moran as Colline, Sébastien Gueze as Rodolpho. Photo by Mark Matson.
November 2, 2009
'La Boheme' keeps it young
Since its debut more than a century ago, Puccini’s tragic romance about two young lovers struggling in 19th-century bohemian Paris has arguably become the basis of all subsequent struggling-artist love stories.
And while the production presented by Austin Lyric Opera that opens this weekend keeps Puccini’s story in the 19th century (created by the San Diego Opera, the sets riff on the art of painter Toulouse-Lautrec), the cast for this “La Bohème” is most decidedly young
Here’s 30-year-old French tenor Sebastien Gueze who plays Rodolfo in a recent production of ‘La Boheme.’
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October 28, 2009
'The House of the Sun'
Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara based his opera ‘The House of the Sun’ on the true tale of two sisters who fled the Russian revolution in 1917 and lived in virtual isolation in Finland for almost 70 years, refusing to believe that the revolution had ever happened and that their previous life of luxury was over. Finally in the winter of 1987, the sisters froze to death in their house in the woods, a house called Solgården (‘Sun’s garden’).
The Butler School of Music collaborates with the Sibelius Academy of Finland in this new production.
Sometimes characterized as a mystic or romantic composer, Rautavaara nevertheless employs a fundamentally post-modern musical language in which theirs a blend of modern and traditional tonalities and elements.
‘The House of the Sun’
7:30 p.m. Thursday through Sunday
McCullough Theatre, UT campus
$10-$20
www.music.utexas.edu
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October 16, 2009
Free. Music. Sunday.
We love recession-friendly arts programming.
Programming like the free concert by the Santiago-Salomon Duo, 3 p.m. Sunday at Mexic-Arte Museum, 419 Congress Ave.
The Austin Chamber Music Center is hosting the Oaxaca-based pair of musicians for a concert.
Violinist Ana Patricia Santiago and pianist Carlos R. Salomon have carved our a repertoire for themselves that blends classical music with the traditional music of Mexico and Latin America. For Sunday’s program, the duo will play many of Salomon’s own compositions.
A complimentary reception featuring Mexican-desserts reception will follow the concert. See www.austinchambermusic.org for more information.
Here’s something of what you can expect:
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October 14, 2009
Dial 'O' for opera tonight
Austin Lyric Opera general director Kevin Patterson wants to talk to you.
Tonight, from 7 to 7:30 p.m. Patterson is holding an live interactive phone chat with anyone who wants to dial in.
Patterson’s up for talking about ALO’s upcoming season which opens Nov. 7 with ‘La Boheme.’ And he promises to reveal what makes this production of ever-popular Puccini’s romantic tragedy — ‘La Boheme’ inspired ‘Rent’ — a must-see. Patterson also promises to reveal ‘five Incredible secrets no one knows about this season.’
Dial 512-501-4531 and enter the conference ID code 865962#.
Go to the live Web cast page for more info. And you can submit questions now.
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October 11, 2009
Review: Conspirare 'A Time for Life'
“Remember” the chorus breathed at the end of Robert Kyr’s ‘A Time for Life,’ a 90-minute piece for eight voices and a string trio.
Friday’s presentation at St. Louis Catholic Church was the second of four Conspirare performances of Kyr’s oratorio (it was premiered in 2007 by Portland, Oregon’s Cappella Romana).
Kyr plucked from myriad texts for his elegiac libretto. Native American prayers, Orthodox Church writings, portions of the Old Testament - it was all mixed together in an invocation for humankind to renew its commitment to the care of the planet.
Likewise, Kyr layered modalities that hinted at non-Western musical traditions as well as those from earlier eras of Western music in stunning blend. Wafts of medieval chants mixed with complex canons and contrapuntal harmonies or tender moments of sheer lyricism.
Conspirare director Craig Hella Johnson collaborated with Kyr (the composer was in town and offered pre-performance talks at each show) to stage ‘A Time for Life’ in the active manor Kyr intended. Tenor David Farwig walked slowly down the center aisle to the stage as the music began, pleading with us in quiet song to recall how the planet is dying. The other singers joined from the outer aisles before talking their places in front.
Farwig’s clear and present tenor commanded in his many prominent moments. Soprano Abigail Lennox deftly combined luscious tone with captivating drama.
The oratorio journeyed from dark and almost woeful to deeply thoughtful to an almost - though not entirely - celebratory end.
The Farwig proceed down the aisle followed be the remainder of the singers.
“Remember” they told us.
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October 6, 2009
'Hi, How Are You Are You?' artist Daniel Johnston gets an iPhone app
In a case of technology imitating art, the bipolar singer-songwriter and artist Daniel Johnston — legendary in Austin for, among other creations, his ‘Hi, How Are You?’ mural near the UT campus — now has a iPhone app that’s been created based on music and visual art.
Johnston’s quirky cartoon creatures inhabit a virtual world — the game is actually called ‘Hi, How Are You?’ — and as a player sets out to battle the devil-as-frog enemy, Johnston’s quirky folk music plays.
Read American-Statesman tech culture writer Omar Gallaga’s blog note on the game.
‘Hi, How Are You?’ was developed by Austin-based game creators Peter Franco and Steve Broumly of DrFunFun.
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October 5, 2009
More live music without the mud
Yes, you can enjoy live music in Austin without destroying the lawn at Zilker Park. (See “ACL grounds to remain closed until end of month.”)
On Wednesday, two of Austin’s busiest virtuosos — pianist Anton Nel and cellist Bion Tsang — team up for concert of sonatas by Barber, Prokoviev and Grieg.
The concert by pair of UT music professors is a t 7:30 p.m. in Bates Recital Hall. Tickets are $10 ($5 for students).
The concert will also be Web cast live. Log on to www.music.utexas.edu a few minutes before the concert begins to catch the live stream.
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Live music without the mud
Not into rolling in the mud in Zilker Park to see live music?
This Saturday, Austin Classical Guitar Society brings virtuoso Kazuhito Yamashita to town for a rare concert.
Yamashita rose to international prominence when he performed phenomenal feats on the solo classical guitar including Dvorak’s ‘New World Symphony’ and Musorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition.’ He recorded and toured extensively with flute giant James Galway and has enjoyed the distinction of being Japan’s most celebrated classical guitarist. Though a legendary performer, Yamashita makes trips to North America with extreme rarity.
For Saturday’s concert, Yamashita will play Sonata No.1 for solo guitar “The Blue Flower,” by Keiko Fujiie. He’ll also play his arrangements for Bach’s Cello Suite No.1, BWV 1007 and Bach’s Violin Sonata No.2 BWV 1003.
8 p.m. Saturday. Northwest Hills United Methodist Church, 7050 Village Center Dr., Tickets: $35-$60. www.AustinClassicalGuitar.org
Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012: I. Prelude by Johann Sebastian Bach. Arranged by Kazuhito Yamashita. Guitar : Kazuhito Yamashita. Live at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, Tokyo, Japan. May 20, 2000
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October 2, 2009
Meanwhile, not at ACL
Not going to Austin City Limits this weekend? There’s plenty of ‘other’ music and arts going in town.
At the Long Center tonight through Sunday, Ballet Austin is staging Stephen Mills’ new choreography of ‘Firebird, offering a 21st-century take on a century-old dance to music of Igor Stravinsky. Read more about it here.
Here’s a rare video of the 82-year-old Stravinksy himself conducting the finale to his ‘Firebird Suite.
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September 24, 2009
Ann Hume Wilson named as Conspirare executive director
After a nationwide search, Austin Grammy-nominated choirConspirare has selected Ann Hume Wilson as its next executive director, Conspirare officials announced today.
Wilson is currently associate director of the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin, where she also served as interim director during 2008-09.
“Much as I will miss being at the Blanton, I jumped at the chance to come to Conspirare, which brings such acclaim to Austin through its recordings, tours, and always-moving performances,” said Wilson, in a statement released by Conspirare. “I am thrilled to be returning to the performing arts after many years with museums, and look forward to building more recognition and support for the inspiring art of Craig Hella Johnson and his amazing company of voices.”
Wilson’s job at the Blanton will conclude on October 23 and she will take the helm at Conspirare on November 2. Melissa J. Eddy, who has served as Conspirare’s interim managing director since July 1, will become its communications and grants manager.
A native of Washington D.C., Wilson has over three decades of experience in arts administration. Since 2004, she has been associate director of the Blanton, also serving as interim director during 2008-09. At the Blanton, she oversaw all administrative and operational aspects of the museum and led the institutional branding efforts and marketing campaign for the highly successful grand opening of the Blanton’s new building in 2006.
Wilson has served as director of marketing and communications for the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; manager of public relations and marketing for the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; director of marketing for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; director of public relations for Spoleto Festival U.S.A.; and assistant manager of the Opera Company of Boston. She is a frequent speaker on arts management, branding and strategic planning at national and regional arts conferences.
Wilson bears a connection to a fun footnote in American vocal music history. Wilson is the daughter of the late Washington Post Music Critic Paul Hume who in 1950 earned the wrath of President Harry Truman when Hume wrote a negative review of a solo voice performance by Margaret Truman, the president’s daughter, who had aspirations to be a professional singer. “(She) cannot sing very well … is flat a good deal of the time,” wrote Hume. President Truman wrote Hume a blistering letter of complaint telling Hume “you’re off the beam.”
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September 21, 2009
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra's season opening concert
Friday night at the Long Center the Austin Symphony Orchestra opened its 99th season with a concert featuring music by Mozart and Ravel.
Yet there was little sense of occasion that evening. (For most regional arts organization, a 99th season is a milestone.)
No public greeting or acknowledgment of the orchestra’s impending centenary. No usual beginning-of-the-season curtain speech by an official or a board leader welcoming the orchestra’s loyal audience and thanking patrons.
That silent treatment Friday night was all the more noticeable given the recent dust-up at the orchestra.
Reports emerged Aug. 31 that newly hired orchestra executive director Galen Wixson had suddenly been fired. Callers to the orchestra’s office were told that Wixson no longer worked there and he was scrubbed from the symphony’s Web site. The next day, orchestra musicians sent a protest letter to the board asking for explanation of Wixson’s disappearance.
More than a week later, board officials offered their explanation. The orchestra’s long-time legal counsel assisted in “facilitating the resolution” of “creative differences between the Austin Symphony Orchestra Society and Mr. Wixson.”
Just six months after he was hired to great fanfare, Wixson was gone.
The chill of those events seems to linger. What musical verve and artistic emotion there was to the Friday’s concert came from guest artists Leon Fleisher and Katherine Jacobson Fleisher.
With its jazzy rhythms and harmonies, Ravel’s Piano Concerto in D major for the Left Hand is a dramatic rocket ride that Fleisher — who himself spent nearly 40 years limited to the use of left hand after a neurological disorder affected his right hand — played with uncommon flair and vibrancy. The most stunning aspect of the Ravel is that by just listening to it, you would never know it’s scored for just one hand. But Ravel’s genius — and Fleisher’s virtuosity — makes for one of the best piano concertos in the repertoire.
After intermission, Fleisher was joined by his wife Jacobson Fleisher in a delightful, spirited performance of a two piano version of Mozart’s Concerto in F Major.
But the concert opener — Mozart’s Symphony No. 31”Paris” — felt perfunctory and dry, not spirited, buoyant and colorful as this popular Mozart symphony should be. The concert’s final piece Ravel’s Rapsodie Espagnole managed some verve and spirit if only because the rollicking Rapsodie is impossible, even in a dark mood, to resist.
September 19, 2009
Review: Cassatt String Quartet
Captivating and full of nuance, the Cassatt String Quartet delivered a mesmerizing concert that was very warmly received Thursday night at UT’s McCullough Theatre.
The New York-based ensemble was there to feature the Texas premiere of String Quartet No. 3 “Cassatt” by Austin composer, and UT professor, Dan Welcher, a piece they commissioned from Welcher.
The quartet did so with passion, extracting considerable affection from Welcher’s complex three-part composition. Welcher based the quartet on three paintings by American impressionist, and ensemble namesake, Mary Cassatt, reproductions of which shared the stage with the musician. (That the quartet, now entering its third decade, had asked Welcher to compose its first namesake piece is an honor.)
Welcher’s appropriately very impressionistic piece made delightful use of a recurring theme that wove through the three movements. Yet each movement had a distinct profile thanks to some clever musical quoting and riffing. Shades of Gounod’s “Faust” percolated up in the atmospheric second movement; Debussy in the melodic and melancholy third. Tone and mood ruled mightily - and delightfully — in Quartet No. 3.
(The Cassatt String Quartet recently released a CD on Naxos of all three of Welcher’s quartets.)
The Cassatt finished with a breathtakingly moving performance of Ravel’s String Quartet.
Perhaps what give the Cassat String Quartet its distinction is the distinctive presence each musicians brings to her instrument. Seamless as an ensemble, Nicole Johnson, Jennifer Leshnower, Michiko Oshima and Muneko Otani nevertheless offer rare individual clarity and appeal.
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September 17, 2009
Tonight: Cassatt String Quartet gives Texas premiere to Dan Welcher composition
The Cassatt Quartet — the New York-based all-female string quartet — has crafted its acclaimed reputation over the past two decades as being a champion of work by living composers.
The Quartet commissioned noted Austin composer Dan Welcher to write the namesake piece. Tonight, the group will give Welcher’s String Quartet No. 3 “Cassatt” its Texas premiere at the University of Texas’ McCullough Theatre.
The piece is also included on the groups latest release on Naxos Records, “Dan Welcher: String Quartet’s Nos. 1-3.” Thursday’s program also include’s Welcher’s String Quartet No. 2 “Harbor Music.”
Cassatt String Quartet
8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 17
McCullough Theatre, University of Texas, 2350 Robert Dedman Drive
$30
www.utpac.org
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September 16, 2009
ALO names artist-in-residence
The Austin Lyric Opera has named Vincent Frittelli, former concertmaster for the opera orchestra, as the artist-in-residence at the opera’s Armstrong Community Music School.
Frittelli was concertmaster for ALO from their first production of Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’ in 1987 to its 2007 production of Rossini’s ‘The Barber of Seville.’ He also was concertmaster for the Austin Symphony Orchestra for 25 years and recently retired from the University of Texas at Austin where he was associate professor of violin.
“We feel it’s a real feather in our cap to have such a talent associated with our school.” said ALO’s General Director Kevin Patterson.
Fritelli will maintain a studio at the Armstrong Community Music School and will be accepting violin students.
ALO’s first production of the season “La Boheme” opens Nov. 8 and runs through Nov. 13. See www.AustinLyricOpera.org for more information.
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September 9, 2009
Orchestra confirms Wixson out
Austin Symphony Orchestra officials announced Wednesday that Galen Wixson has resigned as executive director over creative differences.
The announcement, made by Joe R. Long, the orchestra’s board president, comes more than a week after reports that Wixson was longer at his post.
Wixson, who had just been hired in March, has not returned phone calls for comment.
The statement released by Long on Wednesday says that William F. Kemp, the orchestra’s long-time legal counsel assisted in “facilitating the resolution” of “creative differences between the Austin Symphony Orchestra Society and Mr. Wixson.”
Long said he had no further comment beyond the statement.
Reports emerged early last week that Wixson had been fired. A person answering the phone at the orchestra office Aug. 31 told the American-Statesman that Wixson no longer worked there, and Wixson was no longer listed anywhere on the organization’s Web site.
On Sept. 1, more than two dozen orchestra musicians sent a letter to the board’s executive committee protesting the sudden and unexplained absence of Wixson. The orchestra’s letter said the group found it “hard to imagine” any justification “to force him to leave.”
Wixson’s hiring in March, after a national search, was greeted with much fanfare by orchestra officials. Before coming to Austin, Wixson had been executive director at the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. He also held similar posts with the Reno Philharmonic, the Symphony of Southeast Texas and the Manhattan Center for the Arts. A statement issued by the Arkansas orchestra when Wixson announced he was headed to the Austin job praised Wixson for his “valuable leadership.”
Long said a search will begin immediately for a new executive director. Anthony Corroa has been named interim executive director of the Austin Symphony.
The departure comes at a critical time as the orchestra is about to start its 99th season on Sept. 18 and is preparing for centennial celebrations. Founded in 1911, the Austin Symphony Orchestra is one of the city’s longest-standing arts organizations. But its inner operations are fairly secretive because the privately held 501(c)(3) nonprofit receives only a small percentage of its approximately $4.5 million budget from government sources.
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September 3, 2009
Big weekend of new music (Happy Birthday John Cage!)
It’s a big weekend for new music in Austin, with two stellar concerts offered.
`Happy Birthday Mr. Cage’<br>
7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 4
First Unitarian Universalist Church, 4700 Grover Ave.
$10
www.austinchambermusic.org
That his birthday is celebrated every year in Austin with a concert followed by a grocery store sheet cake would no doubt tickle the late composer John Cage, the radical innovator whose experiments challenge the entire notion of what music could be.
For the past nine years, pianist Michelle Schumann has done precisely that. A scholar of Cage’s music and a skilled interpreter of his avant-garde stylings, Schumann, artistic director the Austin Chamber Music Center, will again celebrate the composer’s birthday.
Schumann will play Cage’s complete Sonatas and Interludes, his most ambitious set of works for what is perhaps his signature instrument: the prepared piano.
Cage re-imagined a piano by inserting screws, bolts, rubber, wood, weatherstripping, pencil erasers and various other found objects into the piano at prescribed points along the strings. The result is a piano that sounds tonally and rhythmically like no other, filled with rattles and rings.
‘The piano is an iconic instrument,’ Schumann says. ‘Everyone knows what a piano sounds like, and it has such an incredible history, from classical music to salacious lounge music. When you see someone sitting down at a piano, you pretty much know what to expect. But when someone sits down at a prepared piano, and starts to play, it shatters expectations.’
For Cage, the goal of music was to achieve a certain ‘purposelessness.’ The role of the composer, in Cage’s viewpoint, was to create situations in which sounds could simply be. And in his ‘Sonatas and Interludes,’ Cage sought particularly to exemplify the emotional impact that music had on the mind.
Schumann says she loves Sonatas and Interludes, a 70-minute piece because of the emotional impact.
‘It’s this incredible journey of the basic emotions of the human spirit, and after all the exploration, you’re left with this complete and utter peace,’ she says.
And the absurdity of sticking nuts and bolts in a piano?
‘I think Cage understood that his breaking down of barriers had both elements of profundity and banality,’ Schumann says. ‘I think he was very serious about his concepts, but approached everything with a childlike wonderment that allowed him to explore and create without boundaries — and without being self-conscious.’
Image: Michelle Schumann at the piano. Photo by Ricardo Brazziel.
‘Immeasurable Space & Infinite Worlds’
8 p.m. Saturday
Mexican-American Cultural Center, 600 River St.
$12-$15
www.amoda.org
Think you know percussion music? Think again.
Six musicians and a truckload of percussion instruments will envelop the audience Saturday night at the Mexican American Cultural Center, as the New Music Co-op and ensemble Line Upon Line join talents to present three of the 20th century’s most radical experiments in percussion music.
The musicians will transform the concert venue into a giant bell for a rare eight-channel surround realization of Xenakis’ 1962 electroacoustic piece `Bohor.’
Next, they will coax otherworldly sonic colors from metal, wood, skin. bamboo and live electronics in Luigi Nono’s 1979 work `Con Luigi Dallapiccola.’
Finally, Xenakis’ celebrated work `Persephassa’ - commissioned in 1969 by the Empress of Iran and premiered at the historic desert site of Persepolis - will be performed by six percussionists in a ring around the audience.
Think of it as live surround sound - with a beat.
Image: Line Upon Line.
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September 1, 2009
Orchestra musician protest ED's absence
More than two dozen musicians of the Austin Symphony Orchestra have signed a letter protesting the sudden absence of Galen Wixson, the orchestra’s executive director.
The letter was sent Monday to the orchestra’s executive committee after rumor’s emerged that Wixson had been fired.
A person answering the phone at the orchestra’s office Monday told the American-Statesman that Wixson no long works there. And Wixson is, as of late Tuesday, no listed on the orchestra’s Web site. Anthony Corroa is listed as interim executive director.
Jane Sibley, chairman of the orchestra board of directors, declined to comment.
“The Musician’s Committee found him to be a forward-thinking man, well-spoken and willing to listen to ideas,” said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the American-Statesman. “We find it hard to imagine a reason good enough to force him to leave. We believe his leaving would be a mistake for this organization.”
Lana Harris, a violist and chairman of the committee that represents the orchestra musicians’ interests to the board of trustees, said that the musicians rarely petition the board.
Harris said that no board meeting was called to discuss Wixson’s dismissal.
“This was an unusual enough situation to state what we felt and state it quickly,” said Harris. “We’re concerned long-term what kind of message this will send.”
Wixson had only been on the job since mid-March.
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August 31, 2009
Austin Symphony Orchestra loses executive director
Galen Wixson, executive director of the Austin Symphony Orchestra, has left the organization, a call to the orchestra’s office Monday morning confirmed.
A person answering the phone at the orchestra office told the American-Statesman that Wixson no longer works there. Wixson is also no longer listed on the organization’s Web site as executive director.
Wixson had been on the job only since mid-March.
Jane Sibley, chairman of the board of directors, declined to comment. Edward Z. Safady, executive vice president of the board of directors, said that he was unaware of Wixson’s departure until told this afternoon by a reporter.
Calls to other board members, to symphony staff and to Wixson have not been returned.
Wixson was previously executive director of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra as well as executive director for the Symphony of Southeast Texas, Reno Philharmonic, Manhattan Center for the Arts and the American String Teachers Association.
Wixson has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in cello performance from Wichita State University in addition a master’s in arts management from the Carnegie Mellon Heinz School of Public Policy.
Story developing.
August 14, 2009
'O Fortuna' gets a makeover
To extent, every artistic creation is a response to or a riff on every artistic creation that came before it.
Texas Choral Consort makes the point clear this weekend with their concert, ‘A Shadow of Light’ which plays Saturday and Sunday at the Northwest Hills United Methodist Church. The program features music from many centuries that is also music, well, based on other music.
Featured are J.S. Bach’s reworking of an old Lutheran tune and Mendelssohn’s Romantic-era take on Bach’s tried-and-true cantata style. And Arvo Part’s ‘Te Deum’ is a confluence of medieval chants and popular Eastern European sounds.
And getting its premiere is a new piece, ‘Orff’s Good Fortune’ by Austin composer Peter Stopschinski.
‘Orff’s Good Fortune’ is a riff on the most popular part of Carl Orff’s super-popular (and darkly dramatic) choral work, ‘Carmina Burana.’ Orff used the text from a 13th-century Latin poem cycle for his cantata which has been co-opted ad nauseum by popular culture.
Stopschinski says the opportunity to riff on that popularity was too unresistable.
“I wanted to do a parody and make a harsh song sound nice,” he says. “(I) ended up making this ‘O Fortuna’ a lullaby (by) picking and choosing text from the ancient Latin — which is amazing text — and using the motif and other random bits of musical material from the Orff’s composition. You get this kind of hip blend of extremely dark lyrics about succumbing to fate set to pretty music.”
“I’m interested in the ‘super-mega-hit classical pieces and why they are so popular,” Stopschinski continues. “My piece is in an ultra-lush romantic choral style with string orchestra accompaniment and mezzo-soprano and violin solos — a lullaby spectacle!”
See www.txconsort.org for ticket information.
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July 25, 2009
Review: Jorge Caballero
Sometimes, some concerts just strike a note of perfection from the top.
Such was the case Friday night at the Mexican American Cultural Center ‘Strings, Rhythm and Lyrics’ featuring Peruvian guitarist Jorge Caballero along with violinist Maria Conti, cellist Douglas Harvey and mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Cass.
A combination of vivid programming and superb musicianship dovetailed to produce a sparkling concert that spotlighted Caballero smart and sensitive arrangements on an eclectic range of music.
Caballero’s version of Falla’s Danza from ‘La Vida Breve’ let the piece remain the virtuosic violin showpiece that is, but gave it lustrous color with a guitar accompaniment.
A charismatic performer, Cass brought charming emotion to Falla’s ‘Siete Canciones Populares Espanolas,’ an enchanting song cycle packed with melodic beauty and rhythmic energy that swooped through moods from tenderness to playfulness to nostalgia.
Caballero and Conti brought plenty of panache to Piazzolla’s ‘L’Historia du Tango,’ the composer’s musical telling of the tango from its earliest folk-inspired days to the modernist angles of nuevo tango.
Fronting the program was Jorge Morel’s ‘Rapsodia Latina’ a rich, striking composition for violin, cello and guitar with melodies that chased from instrument to instrument.
To finish the concert, Caballero paid tribute to his mother, noted Peruvian singer Maria Obregon, with instrumental arrangements of a trio of classic Latin American songs his mother recorded. It’s was a charming flourish to an utterly charming concert.
‘Strings, Rhythm and Lyrics’ continues at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. See www.austinclassicalguitar.org for more info.
July 21, 2009
The Longs give UT's Butler School of Music $1 million
Austin philanthropists Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long have donated $1 million to the University of Texas Butler School of Music to create a chaired professorship in piano performance.
The new gift follows the Longs’ $500,000 donation in March that created a piano scholarship endowment.
The Long Chair in Piano will be recommended by B. Glenn Chandler, director of the Butler School of Music, and approved by the board of regents. An appointment is expected to be announced at the end of the summer.
“We hope to accomplish two things with both of these gifts,” said Joe Long in statement released by the university. “One is to always have a professor of piano of national and international stature who will attract very talented students, we hope among the best in the nation. Secondly, with the gift for scholarships for piano students, we hope to further this goal and enable an outstanding professor in piano to offer scholarships to the very best students they can find.”
July 20, 2009
MET Opera HD screenings
Cool summer getaway option: ‘The Met: Live in HD’ is returning to theaters with two encore performances from this past season.
‘Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Barber of Seville)’ screens 7 p.m. July 29 and Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’ screens 7 p.m. Aug. 5.
Screenings are at the Regal Metropolitan 14 in South Austin. Tickets are $15. See here for more information.
Met Opera production of ‘The Magic Flute.’
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July 10, 2009
What kind of Pops do you want?
The Austin Symphony Orchestra wants your opinion. What kind of Pops concerts do you want to see ASO present?
Take the survey here:
www.austinsymphony.org/news/pops-artists-survey
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July 9, 2009
P. Kellach Waddle celebrates the violin with Jessica Mathaes
One instrument at a time, award-winning Austin composer P. Kellach Waddle has been offering concerts of his compositions.
Now, it’s the violin’s turn and Waddle has enlisted the considerable talents of Jessica Mathaes, concert mistress for the Austin Symphony Orchestra, to play the premiere of several new pieces this Sunday.
True to his penchant for long titles, the always colorful ever-prolific Waddle again delights. Here’s the program:
• Two Lyric Pieces for Solo Violin:
— The Mist in the September Wine: Aria-Bagatelle for Solo Violin
— On Passing Texas Churches At Mystic Sunset: Hymn for Solo Violin
• Bottled Dreams in Liquid Oak: Sonata-Ballade in One Movement for Bass and Violin
• Staring At the Unremembering Moonlight: Elegy for Violin and Piano
• The Attack and Reign of the Broken Stained Glass Angels: Trio Gloratio for Violin, Viola and Piano
• The Flowers of Darkness: Sonata in forma di 4 Legendes for Solo Violin
Joining Waddle and Mathaes on the program is pianist Nikki Birdsong along with guest composer and violist Lawrence Wheeler. Wheeler will play two of his own works.
‘The Violin According to PKW’
3 p.m. Sunday
Hyde Park United Methodist Church, 4001 Speedway
Free, with a suggested offering of $15 for adults and $7 for students.
Wait — here’s more:
- Read a recent Q-and-A with Waddle here.
- Read a recent Q-and-A with Mathaes here.
Photo: P. Kellach Waddle by Benjamin Sklar.
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July 1, 2009
Celebrating pride with chamber music
Inclusive, accessible, celebratory — and FREE — a new addition to the line-up of the Austin Chamber Music Festival offers a fresh and much-needed way of considering classical music.
Thursday night it’s ‘Pride Concert: Celebrating Music by Gay and Lesbian Composers.’
Organized by Austin composer Russell Reed and pianist Jim James, the free concert features the work of gay and lesbian composers. ‘I think it is important for people to know about gay artists, both living and dead, who have helped to shape our artistic and cultural heritage,’ says Reed. ‘I wanted to do this for my community because I am constantly dismayed about how little gay people know about their own history.’
On the program are works by well-known composers such as Aaron Copland (Duo for Flute and Piano), Benjamin Britten (Lachrymae), John Cage (‘In a Landscape’) and Reynaldo Hahn (Sonata for Violin and Piano). And representing today’s new music by living composers is Reed’s own ‘Princess Songs,’ William Lackey’s ‘Twisted Tension’ and Pauline Oliveros’ ‘To Valerie Solaneas and Marilyn Monroe.’
Reed, by the way, was most recently nominated for Best Original Composition from the Austin Critics Table for ‘Light the Lovely Candles,’ a song cycle he wrote for soprano Elizabeth Petillot and violist Aurelien Petillot.
Aurelien Petillot is one of the musicians on the roster for Thursday’s concert. Also performing is Kim Pollini, soprano; Joseph Smith, violin; Seeth Shivaswamy, flute and Adam Bedell, percussion. Both Reed and James will play piano.
‘Pride Concert: Celebrating Music by Gay and Lesbian Composers’
7:30 p.m July 2
St. James Episcopal Church, 1941 Webberville Road
www.austinchambermusic.org
Photo: Russell Reed
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June 29, 2009
Review: Chamber Music Fest, Weekend One
Cool.
It’s how the Austin Chamber Music Festival unfolded its first weekend with a trio of eclectic concerts: Modern classical guitar, a string quartet’s Grammy Award-winning riff on jazz great John Coltrane and the indie stylings of the genre-busting Tin Hat Trio.
Friday, the Brasil Guitar Duo — a concert co-sponsored by the Austin Classical Guitar Society — made an impressive, virtuosic program seem effortless in front of a full house at Northwest Hills United Methodist Church. With extraordinary technique rising young international starts Joao Luiz and Douglas Lora moved fluently from Bach (with Luiz’s arrangements) to Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s to Lora’s own sparkling compositions. Drama came with Gismonti’s “Don Quixote,” an alluring rich composition from the contemporary Brazilian composer.
Saturday night at UT’s Bates Recital Hall, the festival shifted mood. The Turtle Island String Quartet won a Grammy for their CD “A Love Supreme: The Legacy of John Coltrane.” And no wonder. The quartet’s inspired interpretations of a wide range of jazz repertoire - Coltrane, yes, but also Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke — proved the foursome has not only the courage but the soul and the chops to channel the jazz legacy with freshness and authenticity. No schmaltzy pops stylings here — these are jazz musicians. And the improvisational finesse of David Balakrishnan, Mark Summer, Mads Tolling and Jeremy Kittel percolated with complexity and originality.
Sunday night, the Chamber Music Festival boldly went to a venue no chamber music group has been before — the Continental Club. About 200 people filled the storied South Congress Avenue rock club to hear Tin Hat Trio, the San Francisco-based group that blends blues, jazz, tango, classical and little cabaret into its own blend. Theirs is the kind of genre-defying music that signals the direction younger musicians are taking chamber music - blending it seamlessly with other genres and busting out of the formal concert hall. Tin Hat Trio made a bold but much welcome (and needed) choice for inclusion on a chamber music festival program.
You have to wonder when the last time people were handed a program when they walked into the Continental Club. And when was the last time the Austin Chamber Music Center music crowd ordered drinks during a concert? Both were refreshing sights.
However blame it on the current wilting heat wave or perhaps some awkward technical sound problems, but Tin Hat Trio didn’t quite deliver much energy Sunday. Ethereal to point of being atmospheric, they skittered around the music more than they seemed to arrive with it. The unusual combination of colors from the combo guitar, a soulful violin and an assortment of clarinets intrigued, but felt more like a tease than a show.
The Austin Chamber Music Festival continues through July 11. See www.austinchambermusic.org for more information.
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June 25, 2009
UT Butler School of Music hires violinist Anne Akiko Meyers
Another major score for the University of Texas’ Butler School of Music. This fall internationally renowned violinist Anne Akiko Meyers will join the school’s faculty, university officials announced today.
Meyers has earned world-wide recognition as asoloist, chamber musician and recording artist. She’s soloed with orchestras such as the Boston Symphony, London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, l’Orchestre de Paris, New York Philharmonic and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
‘I am thrilled at the opportunity to work with the incredibly talented faculty and build on the inspiration the Butlers have afforded the University of Texas at Austin,’ said the 39-year-old Meyers. ‘I believe the students and quality of music making will be the talk of the world! I look forward to passing on the traditions that I learned from my mentors and incredible teachers throughout my life.’
And in a great piece of news for the future of Austin’s percolating new music scene, Meyers is an avid champion of contemporary music. She has premiered pieces by, among other noted composers, John Corigliano, Jennifer Higdon, Olivier Messiaen, Arvo Part, Manuel Maria Ponce and Ezequiel Vinao.
Meyers most recent recording — ‘Smile’ (Koch International) — features a boundaring-busting program that includes Schubert’s Fantasie, Op. 159, Arvo Part’s Spiegel im Spiegel, the U.S. premiere of the Messiaen’e Fantasie and tango great Piazzolla’s Introduction et Angel and Milonga en Re “Tango.” Also on the CD are a pair of ethereal arrangements of traditional Japanese folk songs, Kojo no Tsuki (Moonlight Over the Ruined Castle) and Haru no Umi (Sea in Spring). And to finish off its eclectic and forward-thinking offering, the CD also has a very intimate renditions of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ as well as Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Smile.’ Sweet.
Meyers played the program in recital in Austin this April at UT.
Here’s Myers with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestr playing Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, Leonard Slatkin conducting:
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June 24, 2009
ACMC Fest: Week One's stunning line-up
The heat wave may be burning down on us and the economy is still fizzling, but this year’s Austin Chamber Music Festival is bringing us some inspiring talent, and free concerts to boot.
Here’s the first week of the three-week festival offerings:
FREE CONCERT: Mendelssohn Piano Trio
12 noon, Thursday
Central Presbyterian Church, 200 E. Eighth St. Program: Three Nocturnes by Ernest Bloch and Brahm’s Piano Trio in B Major.
Brasil Guitar Duo
7:30 p.m. Friday
Northwest Hills United Methodist Church, 7050 Village Center Dr.
Young and blazingly talented, the Brasil Guitar Duo make their mark with a seamless blend of traditional and Brazilian works. On the program is music by Bach, Rameau, Piazzolla, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and others. Check out the Brasil Guitar Duo’s YouTube page.
Turtle Island String Quartet
7:30 p.m. Saturday
Bates Recital Hall, University of Texas Butler School of Music, 2350 Robert Dedman Drive.
The boundary-breaking quartet present their much-heralded interpretation of the music by the 20th-century jazz master that re-frames the improvising riffs of Coltrane’s saxophone for a sometimes-improvising string quartet. Also on the jazz-centered program — the first half of which will be announced from the stage — is Stanley Clarke’s ‘For John.’
Tin Hat
7:30 p.m. Sunday
Continental Club, 1315 S. Congress Ave.
This San Francisco-based ensemble uses accordion, guitar, violin, clarinet and other instruments in a singular blend of tango, blues, Eastern European folk music, cabaret songs and avant-garde classical. And where better to listen to that at one of Austin’s iconic live music clubs? (Yes, the club’s bar will be open.)
All concerts are $25. See www.austinchambermusic.org for more information.
See previous coverage and reviews of the festival here.
Image: Brasil Guitar Duo.
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June 21, 2009
Review: 'Tango on the Terrace'
Tango set a sophisticated tone for Austin Chamber Music Center’s kick-off concert Friday night for its annual summer festival.
Beautifully played by a five-piece ensemble led by ACMC artistic director Michelle Schumann and featuring Grammy-winning bandoneonist Raul Jaurena, the virtuoustic hour-long program of Astor Piazzolla’s urbane and expressive nuevo tango exemplified the smart, forward-thinking turn this chamber festival has taken since Schumann took the helm.
Regarded as one of the world’s most prominent bandoneonists — and a musician who can claim a direct link to Piazzolla before the great composer’s death in 1992 — Jaurena’s masterful playing exemplified tango’s schizophrenic tones and moods. Nervous and edgy, lusty and full-bodied, mournful and nostalgic — Jaurena wrested it out of an instrument that has one the most compellingly unique voices.
Schumann and the ensemble — Korine Fujiwara on violin, Russ Scanlon on electric guitar and Chris Maresh on bass — made spotless work of Piazzolla’s charging rhythms, twisting harmonies and jumpy use of counterpoint. In tango, every instrument can be used as percussion, with string players not just using pizzacato plucking, but making the distinctive ‘chicharra’ sound produced from scraping the strings. Those are tricky techniques that can sound inauthentic in some hands, but both Fujiwara and Maresh pulled it off with aplomb.
Jaurena and the ensemble poured a breathtaking level of energy and passion into the seamless program and that energy flowed off the stage. The audience — a packed house in the intimate auditorium of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center — began the rousing cheers about half-way into the concert that were soon joined by ovations.
Nothing like starting a sizzling three-week line-up of concerts with a sizzle.
The Austin Chamber Music Festival continues through July 11. See www.austinchambermusic.org for information.
June 17, 2009
Symphony ED joins in on the concert
Galen Wixon — who came on board in Marchc as executive director of the Austin Symphony Orchestra — is picking up his cello and joining the ASO Woodwind Ensemble Sundya in a free performance of Dvorak’s Woodwind Serenade. The piece is scored for cello, double bass and woodwinds and will be played as part of the orchestra’s free Hartman Foundation Concerts in the Park which run every Sunday through Aug. 23.
7:30 p.m. Sunday
Long Center City Terrace Lawn, 701 W. Riverside Dr.
www.austinsymphony.org
Wixson has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in cello performance from Wichita State University in addition a master’s in arts management from the Carnegie Mellon Heinz School of Public Policy.
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May 28, 2009
Dvorak comes to Georgetown
Czech composer Antonin Dvorak wrote perhaps one of the most seminal, and most popular, American symphonies ever — his Symphony No. 9, known as ‘From the New World.’ So perhaps it’s fitting that he’s celebrated this summer on the frontier that is Central Texas.
The annual Georgetown Festival of the Arts, which begins Saturday, gathers internationally recognized Austin-based musicians — pianist Anton Nel along with the Miro Quartet — and special guest artists — including the Shanghai Quartet — for a series of concerts honoring Dvorák’s singular contribution as a music maker who artfully plumbed folk music traditions for inspiration for his classical compositions.
‘This year we are honoring Antonin Dvorak, who enriched this tradition by infusing it with national styles of his native Bohemia and of 19th-century America, with particular interest in American and Native American music,’ says Georgetown Arts Festival director Ellsworth Peterson. ‘In a way, this festival celebrates the ethnic diversity of our own Central Texas heritage.’
The festival starts with a free concert in San Gabriel Park; it runs Saturday through June 7. Tickets are $20 a concert (festival pass $80), $5 students. More information is at www.gtownfestival.org.
Other highlights:
• Free Concert: ‘Dvorak in the Park: ‘From the New World,’ Symphony No. 9.’ Performed by Temple Symphony Orchestra. 8 p.m. Saturday. Gazebo, San Gabriel Park. 1101 N. College St.
• ‘Chamber music: ‘American’ Quartet in F major, Quintet for Piano and Strings, Sextet for Strings.’ Performed by Anton Nel, Miró Quartet, Shanghai Quartet. 8 p.m. June 4. Alma Thomas Theatre, Southwestern University. 1001 University Ave.
• ‘Dvorak’s Songs: Songs in Folk Tone, Moravian Duets, Gypsy Songs and more.’ Performed by Virginia Dupuy, Lynn Parr Mock, Scott Cameron, Bruce Cain. 8 p.m. June 5. First United Methodist Church, 410 E. University Ave.
• ‘Chamber Music: Romance in F minor, Songs My Mother Taught Me, Rondo in G minor and more.’ Performed by Eri Lee Lam, Vincent Lam, Hai Zheng. 3:30 p.m. June 8. First United Methodist Church, 410 E. University Ave.
• ‘Dvorak’s Piano Music.’ Performed by Anton Nel, Michael Schneider. 8 p.m. June 6. Alma Thomas Theatre, Southwestern University. 1001 E. University Ave.
• Dvorak’s ‘Stabat Mater.’ Performed by festival orchestra and chorus with soloists Mela Dailey, Virginia Dupuy, Scot Cameron, Bruce Cain. 4 p.m. June 7. Klett Center for the Performing Arts, Georgetown High School, 2211 N. Austin Ave.
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May 27, 2009
Review: Audio Inversions' 'Meditations and Homage'
Austin indie classical music group Audio Inversions paid a smart homage Friday night at the Long Center to one of their inspiring sources, the late American composer Lou Harrison — a pioneer in the use of world musical influences, new instruments. inventive textures that yet never lost track of a deeply felt lyricism and delightful tonality.
The winner of the third Audio Inversions composition competition? ‘Lou’ by Balinder Singh Sekhon, a short piece for percussion ensemble of regular and irregular instruments (including flower pots, brake drums and metal pipes) and amplified cello, written as tribute to Harrison.
And ‘Lou’ was a fitting tribute: percolating with offbeat character, filled with world music references that were honest and not hamfisted (as such reference so often can be) and a delightful challenge to the cellist Benjamin Westney who didn’t so much touch a bow as strummed and picked. ‘Lou’ rocketed along, sometimes almost threatening to collapse under its own rhythmic cacophony. But it recovered and ended with an energy-packed flourish.
Sekhon received Audio Inversions $750 prize money along with the premiere performance.
‘Lou’ made a fitting to finale to solidly conceived program of new classical music, a keen mix of brand new works and two masterful song clusters by Henryk Gorecki.
Both the captivating Gorecki vocal pieces — ‘Three Lullabies’ and ‘Szeroka Woda’ — got a luminous treatment from the unaccompanied vocal quintet (Jeb Mueller, Amanda Lundy, Jimmy Shepard, Meredith Bowden and Caitlin Anderson-Patters) and seemed to grab the audience in a thrall of hushed awe.
James Norman’s ‘Incline, O Maiden’ was a brilliant mini-opera enchantingly sung by mezzo-soprano Misha Penton. Using text from Goethe’s Faust, Norman — who is composer-in-residence with Audio Inversions — gave us a jewel-like monodrama modern in its stylings and packed with both visceral drama and ethereal sounds. Short, dramatically direct, modern — is ‘Incline, O Maiden’ the anti-Wagner opera? Perhaps.
Audio Inversions stirred up entries from more than 100 composers for this year’s composition contest. And in addition to performing the Sekhon’s winning entry, the group also premiered Delvyn Case’s ‘Gemini Variations,’ the competition’s honorable mention and a short, spirited if still immature piece for two saxophones.
Audio Inversions does it right. Taking matters into their own hands, they advocate for the progression of classical music by just doing it — supporting new compositions, framing new classical music in approachable terms and making it happen. Kudos.
May 21, 2009
Indie classical group Audio Inversions awards, and premieres, a new composition
The foursome of adventurous indie classical musicians who make up Audio Inversions are only too happy to put their money where their mouths are.
On Friday, they’ll premiere the third recipient of their annual composition competition, which awards $750 to the winning score and most importantly, gives the new music its premiere.
On Friday’s program is the winning piece, ‘Lou’ by Baljinder Singh Sekhon II, and also compositions by Delvyn Case, Arvo Pärt, Henryk Górecki, and Audio Inversions’ composers-in-residence James Norman and Anthony Suter. Expect an eclectic mix of sounds ranging from mixed chorus to saxophone duets to percussion orchestra to chamber ensembles.
We caught up with Audio Inversions’ composer Norman for a few questions.
What inspired you to start a composition competition?
James Norman: Composers today need all the help they can get to find opportunities for their music. And too often truly special music will sit on the shelves of young (and sometimes experienced) composers because the right performance opportunity has not made itself available. The goal of our competition is to continue promoting the most outstanding musical works and composers, with the added hope of engendering a love of contemporary music in a new audience. One of our main objectives has been to seek out lesser-known and underplayed composers and their compositions, regardless of the styles they represent, and it is our hope that this competition will aid us in our search.
What kind of musical trends did you see emerging based on the competition entries?
We received entries from over 100 composers and nearly 300 total works submitted (we encourage composers to submit more than one work) from 12 different countries such as Turkey, Greece and Japan. The great thing about this competition is that we get a snapshot of the various musical trends influencing young composers. However, if this competition has taught us anything, it’s that people are writing music in all styles — serialism, post-minimalism, post-modernism, neo-romanticism — you name it, all the major trends of the past century, although, it’s tough to ignore the growing trend of electro-acoustic composition. With each new year of the composition we find more and more works that strive to integrate this new soundscape into their compositions.
What was it about what winning composition that made it the winner?
Norman: After incredibly long sessions of studying scores and listening to the recordings, ‘Lou,’ by Baljinder Singh Sekhon II, truly began to stand out amongst its peers. It’s an incredibly mature work and beautifully written for cello and percussion orchestra. ‘Lou’ is a modern homage to Californian composer Lou Harrison, whose music was the very model of diversity and the global reach of classical music as many of his works included the music of non-Western cultures, such as Javanese-style gamelan music. And like Harrison, Sekhon has woven the traditions of Eastern and Western music together into something completely unique. We are thrilled that we are honoring a composition that is not a only the work of an extremely talented up-and-coming composer, but that we get to perform what we consider to be a great work as well.
Audio Inversions’ Fourth Season Finale
When: 8 p.m. Friday
Where: Rollins Studio Theatre, Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Drive
Cost: $15 ($10 students)
Info: www.audioinversions.com
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Music, Q&A
May 20, 2009
Ceremony Hall to fill with immersive sound art on Saturday
In the last few years, sound art has rippled at the edges of Austin’s contemporary culture scene.
Now, Austin’s New Music Co-op brings some serious talent to town.
Love the sound of leaves rustling in the wind? What about the soft clink of a handful of small river stones? Then prepare for an immersive sonic art experience. And prepare to listen closely like you might never have listened before.
Arizona composer and sound artist Jeph Jerman has spent 10 years presenting different iterations of his ‘Animist Orchestra’ project. The orchestra exists wherever Jerman fiinds artist willing to go down the same creative path as he.
He found like-minded artists in New Music Co-op — the first ensemble for which Jerman has specifically written a piece.
On Saturday Jerman, along with the collaboration of 20 Austin musicians will coax polyphonic masses of sound out of natural found objects (animal bones, seeds, leaves) culled from around Austin, as well as some from Arizona. Jerman’s score will direct the ensemble in the creation of soundscapes that are carefully wrought yet also spontaneous, wholly natural and at the same time artificial.
Jerman’s ultimate question — what happens when we listen? Two of the project’s primary goals are to let the sounds be themselves and to listen. As Jerman writes, his aim to “remove, as much as possible, the intent to ‘make music’ or ‘express ourselves,’ and just let the sounds be.” Jerman issued the simple instruction to continually re-listen and to turn one’s attention ever toward the sounds.
‘Animist Orchestra.’
8 p.m. Ceremony Hall, 4100 Red River St.
$15. www.newmusiccoop.org.
“If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.”
— John Cage
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May 18, 2009
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra's make Mahler mighty
Austin Symphony Orchestra left the audience — and itself — breathless Friday night after its performance of Gustav Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony, the final concert of the orchestra’s subscription series.
Have we ever seen so many musicians on the stage of the Long Center’s Dell Hall? With Mahler’s massive work requiring additional musicians to the orchestra’s line-up and the 110-member Conspirare Symphonic Choir upstage, the musicians, in particular the string sections, spilled out past the proscenium.
This mighty mob of musicians was up to the monumental task Mahler’s emotional — and technical — rollercoaster of a symphony, as was conductor Peter Bay. (Conspirare conductor Craigh Hella Johnson prepared the choir.)
From the opening tremor of the bass lines to the massive chorale finale, Bay kept a tight reign. And the musicians respond with focus and energy.
Mostly importantly, Bay kept the musical integrity of each movement in tact, balancing the first movement’s motion between edgy tensions and soulful emotions while letting the second movement sound ethereal and nostalgic. The scherzo starts with a surprisingly sunny theme that’s then contrasted against bold fanfares before spinning seemingly out of control. But Bay kept Mahler’s musical madness in check while accentuating its complexity.
We’re almost exhausted by Mahler’s mood shifts by the time we get to the massive fifth movement. But it’s in the fifth movment that the whole package arrives and Bay and the musicians delivered it with gusto.
Having the violins well in front of the proscenium in Dell Hall, though, meant they didn’t always project as well and were sometimes overshadowed by the winds and brass. And while soprano Linda Mabbs and mezzo Susan Platts performed nicely, and both had lovely tone, they too perhaps suffered from being past the proscenium and somewhat subdued.
Next season, ASO and Conspirare will collaborate again, this time on Cary Ratcliff’s oratorio ‘Ode to Common Things’ based on the poems by Pablo Neruda. Let’s hear it for such musical partnerships.
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May 7, 2009
Bion Tsang, Anton Nel celebrate Brahms' birthday with a free download
Two of Austin’s most luminous musicians, cellist Bion Tsang and pianist Anton Nel, are celebrating Brahm’s birthday with a nifty little gesture.
Last year the duo recorded Brahams’ four Hungarian Dances by Johannes Brahms at the New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall for their second CD ‘Bion Tsang and Anton Nel: Live in Concert, Brahms Cello Sonatas and Four Hungarian Dances,’ to be released this summer by Artek Recordings.
But before the CD’s release and in honor of Brahms’ birthday — which is May 7 — Tsang and Nel offer a free MP3 download of Hungarian Dance No. 5 at www.biontsang.com. The download is available May 7-31.
Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5 is one of those classical pieces that’s infiltrated popular culture, and can be heard in many different arrangements, from orchestra versions to solo instruments. It was wildly popular during Brahms’ lifetime as well.
Here’s a video clip of Tsang and Nel performing the Hungarian Dance No. 5 at Jordan Hall:
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May 4, 2009
Review: Peter Bay conducts Dan Welcher's Fifth Symphony with flair
Finally — on the eve of its centenary — the Austin Symphony Orchestra made a gesture this past weekend that actually gave the organization somewhat of a timely and relevant burnish as a resident of the ‘Live Capital Music of the World.’
The orchestra premiered Dan Welcher’s Fifth Symphony, arguably the first time in living memory — or ever? — that ASO has premiered a symphony by an Austin-based composer.
And what a heartfelt musical gesture on Welcher’s part from: His Fifth Symphony was written for his good friend of three decades, ASO conductor Peter Bay who conducted it with brio, sincerity and passion.
There was no doubt that at least some in the audience Friday night found such a premiere thrilling with Welcher receiving heartfelt cheers and a very considered standing ovation.
Such a reception was deserved. Welcher’s Fifth is a 21st-century symphony for Austin: urbane, expressive, filled with touches of whimsy and expansively American in its artistic references.
Welcher’s far too mature of a composer to have quoted directly from his American composer predecessors. But the past century of American music percolated intelligently and originally throughout: A bluesy riff, syncopated rhythms, bold percussive turns, vigorous melodies and confident brass chorales balanced against moody swirls of woodwinds.
Most delightful was the second movement, Scherzo. In it, Welcher produced the most sophisticated musical impression yet of Austin’s famed colony of Mexican free-tail bats which fill the city’s evening skies. The woodwind melody, altering in its harmonic modes, skittered into a great cloud that was then countered by blasts from the brass section.
A more reflective and melodic third movement crossed seamlessly into the final fourth movement in which everything — the swirling woodwinds, the brass chorales, the driving rhythms, the bluesy riffs — built into a brilliant burst that ended with a bright flourish. A perfect ending.
But after intermission, the evening seemed to diverge into a totally different mode - not necessarily a bad divergence, just a marked one.
Star violinist Sarah Chang delivered every inch of star performance of Bruch’s Violin Concerto No 1. (interestingly the same piece the now 28-year-old phenom played for her audition at Julliard when she was a mere six-year-old).
Chang made the Bruch rhapsodic, giving it lyricism even though the piece does little to hide its profile as a soloist’s showpiece. Though her assertive virtuosity was at sometimes odds with the orchestra’s less propulsive thrust, Chang brought on an expressive voice.
Then the program’s mood shifted again with Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien, a lively piece full of 19th-century colloquial character that the orchestra clearly relished.
If anything, this weekend’s program, while noteworthy, revealed ASO’s greater disconnect from the very musical culture of its place and time.
Little if anything was done by the ASO management to specifically market Welcher’s piece to Austin audiences. It shouldn’t have had to share the limelight with a celebrated soloist.
And that strategy is curious, because a premiere by an Austin composer would have been an obvious means for ASO to connect with potential new and younger Austin audiences who wouldn’t normally connect with most of the symphonic repertoire ASO typically offers.
In fact, Welcher’s commission fee was paid for not by ASO, but by an independent consortium of private donors in a fundraising drive spearheaded by non-profit classical music radio station KMFA-FM. Welcher gifted his symphony to ASO in honor of his good friend Bay.
What a wonderful gesture — one that Bay, no stranger to open and forward-thinking programming, took up with honor.
It leaves to wonder how much ASO management has invested in what noted music scholar Joseph Horowitz, author of “Classical Music in America,” identifies as the over-esteemed “culture of performance” — a value system that holds above everything else celebrated soloists playing a very Eurocentric, or at least very typical and expected, classical repertoire. Where’s the confidence in the symphonic music being created here and now?
Would that ASO’s management reconsider its connection to its place in a music capital so much of the world already esteems for its progressiveness.
May 3, 2009
Revew: UT Symphony Orchestra
Whoever had the idea of raising the pit in Bass Concert Hall and putting the entire University of Texas Symphony Orchestra on the apron out in front of the proscenium deserves a Wall Street-style bonus. This seating plan transformed Saturday night’s special concert honoring School of Music patron Sarah and Ernest Butler from another concert in Bass (renovated or not) into the best-sounding live performance by a symphony orchestra that these ears can remember.
The stage of Bates Recital Hall (the UT Symphony’s usual hangout) and the hall as a whole are too small to hold a large instrumental ensemble happily. Saturday night in Bass, the players had the physical room and their instruments had the acoustical room to speak properly. Every note (and every mistake) could not have been clearer, but the marvelous blend that conductor Gerhardt Zimmermann has built with his orchestra was audible in a dramatically new way. I heard the kind of presence and detail combined with an expansive, nicely reverberant room sound that I thought only those fancy Dutch recording engineers get using about 80 microphones.
But a great hall or a great setup don’t make a dumb performance into a great one. What we heard in Bass Saturday evening, quite precisely, was what wonderful work Zimmermann has been doing at UT, where before we only sort of got the idea.
Neither piece on the program — the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with student soloist Soo Jin Nam and the Beethoven Symphony no. 9 with a solo quartet of young professionals and the massed UT choruses (excellently trained by John Len Wiles)—was note-perfect. And I could quibble about some of Zimmermann’s interpretive choices (Beethoven wrote only F’s for the timpani in the second movement; don’t add stuff at the end). But Zimmermann’s interpretation made sense, it honored the piece that Beethoven wrote and he made the whole performance totally persuasive.
This is not the first time that a conductor who is an artist and a seasoned professional has led a talented and enthusiastic student orchestra (with an expanse of rehearsal time thrown in that most professional orchestras would kill for) and produced thrilling results. But those results happened in Bass Concert Hall on Saturday in a big way.
One more thing. I generally don’t like talking from the stage at music concerts; but Zimmermann’s spoken introduction to the Beethoven, witty and revelatory, was as valuable as the performance that followed it.
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May 1, 2009
Explosive new music: Free on Saturday
It’s something of a fitting finale to Fusebox — Golden Hornet Project unleashes new sounds in two free concerts tomorrow that will surround the audience with mesmirizing sound.
PVC in Surround: Piano, Cello and Violin in 5.1 Surround Sound.
When: 2 p.m, and 5 p.m, Saturday May 2
Where: 100 Congress Ave.
Who: Music composed by Peter Stopschinski, Gabriel Prokofiev (US Premiere), DJ Spooky, Josh Robins, and Graham Reynolds. Performed by Reynolds, Stopschinski, Leah Zeger (violin) and Hector Moreno (cello). Sound by Robert Fisher.
Graham Reynolds writes:
“Piano, violin, and cello is one of our favorite combinations, and it’s reasonably compact so we decided to create this show as our tour-able line-up of instruments and pieces. But the surround sound element is not particularly tour-able, so that will most likely be special to Austin and this performance. Robert Fisher is helping us out with this, putting the instruments through crazy effects that will send the sound all over the place. I recorded Austin’s fleet of trash trucks at 5:30 in the morning last week and am building a piece with those sounds in preparation for the Forklift Danceworks show later this year. Peter’s got these crazy drumbeats that swirl around the room.”
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April 28, 2009
Review: Graham Reynolds and Carrie Fountain give us a new kind of art song
Composer Graham Reynolds and poet Carrie Fountain delivered a totally Texas 21st-century remake on the classic art song with “Between Steel and Stardust (Songs of Texas Women)” which premiered Sunday at UT’s Butler School of Music.
UT vocal professor Darlene Wiley, wanting new repertoire for young singers — in particular new selections of high school singers to sing in UIL competitions — commissioned Reynolds for the song cycle. And Reynolds in turn tapped Fountain.
And together Reynolds and Fountain dreamed up charming, fresh, sweet and wonderfully relevant songs — all for soprano voice and piano accompaniment — that honored an utterly original fivesome of Texas women.
The Angel of Goliad, cosmetics empire builder Mary Kay Ash, Tejano pop singer Selena, colorful outlaw Bonnie Harper and U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Jordan got their musical and poetical due from Graham and Fountain. What better pantheon of Lone Star women to represent an modern, eclectic, inclusive view of history while engaging and delighting young women singers?
Wiley performed the songs Sunday accompanied by Rick Rowley.
The Angel of Goliad, who administered to wounded solidiers during the Texas ware for independence, received an appropriately honorific ode.
Mary Kay Ash likewise had a song that evoked the strong-willed self-made millionaire who built her fortune by unleashing thousands of Cadillac-driving cosmetics saleswomen. Reynolds gave it a melody that was charging, hectic, delightful. Fountain drew us charming images:
Pink
I’m thinking Pink.
Driving these streets
thankful some things are only skin deep
Selena and Harper were honored with beautiful, sensitive melodies. And for Jordan, Fountain pulled language from the Congresswoman’s own speeches to paint a portrait of a woman — the first African American female member to serve in the U.S. Congress from the South — who was steadfast in her will.
Let’s hope the UIL forces recognize what a delight — what a unique opportunity to sing about Texas women as inventively imagined by a Texas-based composer and poet — these songs could be for young singers.
Also premiered was Reynolds’ “Double Double: A Suite for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano,” a virtuosic piece pulled off with flair by Rowley, Rebecca Henderson and Kristin Wolfe Jensen and filled with Reynolds’ signature turns: charging rhythms, sweeping cinematic crescendos narrative melodic lines and rollicking arpeggios.
Both “Between Steel and Stardust” and “Double Double” were commissions by UT faculty to a non-UT local composer. And that represents a much commendable reach on UT’s part to the community and to Austin’s music scene — a reach that shouldn’t be so infrequent.
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Review: TEMP delivers delightful musical complaints
Whine, whine, whine.
We all do it. And we’ve been doing for centuries, sometimes, thankfully, with more poetry and music than not.
Taking a cue from the recent popularity of complaints choirs — modern ensembles specializing in resurrecting, and sometimes refashioning, Renaissance and Baroque songs of woe and heartbreak — the Texas Early Music Project delivered their own humor-inspired musical litany of grievances Saturday night at First English Lutheran Church.
TEMP artistic director Daniel Johnson’s musical celebration of kvetching attracted about 100 people who laughed at the funnier turns (and there were plenty) or showered with applause some of the regular TEMP soloists — mezzo-soprano Stephanie Prewitt and sopranos Gitlanjali Mathur and Jenifer Thyssen.
The musical grumbling began with secular songs from the 13th-century and wound their way through the centuries to the 18th-century. An instrumental ensemble — including Reniassiance lute, violin, harpsichord — complemented the changing line-up of vocalists.
Prewitt started things off with a soulful lament about a jealous husband, her voice clear yet rich and always full of nuance. Mathur and Thyssen impressed with their deft phrasing and full tones on a duet about a heartbroken young woman. And Mathur captivated with a poignant song adapted from Shakespeare’s ‘Othello.’
But the concert wasn’t all songs of woe and sadness. A
Giving their own nod to the centuries of complaints they sang, the ensemble ended with an hysterically funny flourish of their. Johnson molded the much-loved but over-played Pachelbel Canon in D into a 21st-century complaint song with lyrics culled from the TEMP member themselves.
“My boss doesn’t care if I do a good job, but I really have to look interested in the meetings.”
“Why can’t I ever catch up on sleep?”
“Why do they sell us ten hotdogs and eight buns?”
Valid gripes indeed and utterly charming when sung, as TEMP did, with plenty of flare and polish. Johnson and his ensemble get it right — they make gorgeous music and make it a good time.
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April 27, 2009
Long-awaited in the Live Music Capital of the World: Austin's orchestra premieres an Austin-made symphony
Among the dozens of commissions Austin-based composer Dan Welcher has received in his three-decade career, he’s written works for the Boston Pops, Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Guggenheim Foundation, and his work has been performed by more than 50 orchestras including Chicago Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony and the Atlanta Symphony.
This weekend the Austin Symphony Orchestra premieres Welcher’s Fifth Symphony,
And although it’s arguably the first time in living memory the Austin Symphony Orchestra is premiering a symphony by an Austin composer, the cost of the project is underwritten by an independent consortium of local donors, not the orchestra itself. The nonprofit radio station KMFA-FM spearheaded the fundraising drive that began nearly a year ago. To date about $40,000 toward the $50,000 goal has been raised, with donations ranging from as little as $50 to as much as $5,000.
Welcher is honoring his good friend Peter Bay, Austin Symphony Orchestra conductor. The two have been friends fo 30 years and Bay is celebrating his 10th season with the orchestra.
Sample Welcher’s music:
Austin Symphony Orchestra
Dan Welcher’s Symphony No. 5. Also on the program is guest violinist Sarah Chang playing Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1.
When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Where: Dell Hall, Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Drive.
Cost: $19-$48
Information: 512-476-6064, www.austinsymphony.org
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April 25, 2009
Q-and-A: Jessica Mathaes, violinist and concertmaster with Austin Symphony Orchestra
In 2005, violinist Jessica Mathaes won the distinction of being the youngest-ever and first female concertmaster of the Austin Symphony Orchestra at age 25.
Since landing the position, Mathaes has delighted Austin audiences with her vivacious playing that’s both technically superb and emotionally engaging. In addition to her role with the orchestra, Mathaes has a busy solo career, which you can find on her Web site, www.jessicamathaes.com, and this spring is releasing her first solo CD, ‘Suites and Sweets.’
Preview a sample here:
What are you working on right now?
It’s been a busy and fun 2009 for me so far! Most recently I soloed with the Round Rock Symphony— they are in their debut year as an organization and had such a great energy. I played a world premiere with them by Manly Romero, and a surprise encore, the “Souvenir d’Amerique- Yankee Doodle Variations” by Henri Vieuxtemps. The program was very virtuosic, so I had to practice it a lot, and playing it for the audiences made it very rewarding.
When I’m not on the Long Center stage performing as concertmaster of the Austin Symphony, I am usually preparing for or playing solo engagements both in and out of town. This year so far I have performed three different solo recital programs and a concerto program. There is so much great violin music to play, so I’m constantly learning new repertoire, which really keeps me on my toes. A lot of my work over the past months has been devoted to my debut solo CD, “Suites and Sweets.” The official release of the disc is coming up in May, which is very exciting for me.
What do you like about Austin’s classical music scene?
I love the audience members! I have felt very welcomed and appreciated ever since I came to the city in 2005, which makes it so fun to share my music with the Austin community. I always enjoy talking to the concertgoers and have met many interesting people that way.
One of my fondest Austin classical music memories is the bicentennial birthday bash I threw for my violin back in 2007. A perfectly quirky Austin event, the idea was actually dreamed up for me by an audience member at one of my previous concerts! I played pieces from 1807, 1907, and 2007, including a world premiere by Austin’s own P. Kellach Waddle. I was overwhelmed by the turnout when I walked out on stage and was greeted by four or five hundred Austinites in the hall to help celebrate. We had a birthday cake reception afterwards — it was a blast!
How could Austin’s classical scene be improved?
Unlike some other forms of music, classical music has a history that goes back a few hundred years. It is a really rich and exciting history, but the music is still very relevant to today and the emotions and tastes of modern people. The problem is when it is treated as something that’s old and stuffy, which it does not have to be. I think it’s up to the people who advertise classical music events to market them as something young people might enjoy. It is also up to the performers to be accessible and to potential audience members to go ahead and try classical even if they haven’t in a while — they might like it!
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April 24, 2009
Texas women get a new kind of tribute song
What if young Texas female singers could sing about the fabulous women who made Texas history?
They can now.
UT voice professor Darlene Wiley commissioned composer Graham Reynolds to write a song cycle for emerging singer. Reynolds in turn tapped poet Carrie Fountain to collaborate. On Sunday, “Between Steel and Stardust: Five Songs About Texas Women” premieres.
The concert is at 4 p.m. in Recital Studio 2.608, Music Building, UT campus. Admission is $10.
This is a not-to-miss gig, but if you can’t be there, it will be Web cast live at www.music.utexas.edu.
The Texas women honored in “Between Steel and Stardust” include the Angel of Goliad, U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, Bonnie Harper (of Bonnie and Clyde), Selena and Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics.
Also premiering is Reynolds’ Double Double: A Suite for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano.
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April 22, 2009
Q-and-A: Stephanie Prewitt, mezzo-soprano
Stephanie Prewitt’s luminous and rich mezzo-soprano voice has graced Austin stages for more than a decade. A native of Galveston and winner of an Austin Critics’ Table Award, Prewitt sings a vast repertoire and can be most often seen with several local ensembles that notably La Follia Austin Baroque and the Texas Early Music Project.
This Saturday, she’ll be featured in TEMP’s next concert, “Complaints Through the Ages,” 8 p.m. First English Lutheran Church, 3001 Whitis Ave. See early-music.org for ticket information.
What are you working on?
II just finished three performances of Messiah with Conspirare, which was enjoying its first excursion with a period orchestra. After this I’ll be singing in La Follia’s May concert.
So lately I’ve been immersed in singing with historical instruments, something I really love to do. Not that I don’t still love the modern ones! But when you’re singing the old style stuff, it’s great to get to do it with the old style instruments.
‘m now in rehearsals with Texas Early Music Project for a concert at the end of this week. TEMP’s next concert will involve medieval, renaissance and baroque instruments. It’s called “Complaints Through the Ages” and was inspired by this Complaint Choir fad that’s been happening in Europe and Canada. I first heard about it from my mother, who’d seen it featured on CBS Sunday Morning. Go to YouTube and type in “complaint choirs” and you’ll see what I’m talking about — it’s people singing about the things that annoy them, truly making lemons into lemonade.
When I heard them, I was reminded of a medieval piece that TEMP director Danny Johnsonloves to do called “Fort m’enoia” (in English, “I am greatly annoyed”); it’s basically a litany of complaints; and I thought, “Boy, we’ve been doing this for a long time, haven’t we?” When I told Danny about it, he said, “You know, I think you’ve got something there,” and proceeded to create an entire concert of complaints, from medieval time to now, topping it off with his own creation, woven out of the complaints of various members of TEMP. We just sang through it for the first time last night. I love it. It’s delightfully amusing and beautiful to hear.
What do you like about Austin’s classical music scene?
Two things occur to me at once: the warmth and collegiality, and the enormous range of repertoire that’s offered here. I love it that I never get up in front of an orchestra in Austin anymore that isn’t comprised of lots of old friends who I’ve heard playing……. tango, celtic, Brahms, Corigliano, a film score, jazz, you name it, in some other venue. And there they all are, come together to play a larger work, with a real depth of understanding for that style too. The Live Music Capitol of the World gets more of its juice from classical repertoire than a lot of people realize. The musicians that you hear in classical concerts here are gigging all over the place, and many of them bring in colleagues from other parts of the world to “enrich the scene”, so to speak. Musicians from around the country and around the world love to visit and perform in Austin — that’s true for classical music as well as other musical genres. It all makes for a great musical community in which to live and work.
How could Austin’s classical scene be improved?
One thing that would help enormously — a piece of real estate to call our own. I work with a lot of chamber groups and vocal ensembles, and we were all so sad when the Long Center had to scale back it’s original design, which provided more rehearsal and office space, as well as a medium-sized hall with acoustics more suited to chamber music.
We’re truly fortunate to be supported by so many of the beautiful churches in Austin. That’s where most of our work happens. But life would be easier for us — and more good work could happen — if we had a building in which to rehearse, perform, park instruments between performance, etc.
April 21, 2009
Q-and-A: Matthew Hinsley, Austin Classical Guitar Society
On Saturday, the Austin Classical Guitar Society will present Tunisian-French guitarist and composer Roland Dyens in a solo concert.
We caught up with Matthew Hinsley, executive director of ACGS and himself a guitarist, to ask a few questions.
What are you working on?
I am fortunate to have a very rich and full life. My wife Glenda was recently doing an exercise where she was trying to brainstorm about what her ideal day would be and, after spending the day on it, she snagged me and asked me what my ideal day might be like. After thinking about it briefly, I surprised us both by responding: “I actually think I just lived it”.
My weekday mornings are spent running the Austin Classical Guitar Society, an organization I have been running for the past 12 years. The organization has grown to be the largest guitar society in America and it is a great privilege for me to be working on effective programs that benefit our community with the great people that give their time and energy to the organization. In the afternoons and evenings, and on Saturday, I teach. I have students of all ages and levels but my passion is teaching young people. Over the years I have been extremely fortunate to train major international award-winning youngsters and it seems like the more great young people I work with, the more come to see me from further and further away. Sharing music with passionate and talented young individuals is one of the great joys of my life. I was trained as a performer on the classical guitar (undergraduate at Oberlin Conservatory and Doctoral work at UT) and I round out my professional life as a concert artist.
My current projects for the Guitar Society include closing our 2008-09 International Concert Series and preparing for our 2009 Summer Chamber Series. In October 2008 we published (at www.GuitarCurriculum.com) a full-scale middle school and high curriculum for classroom classical guitar that serves over 500 students each day in Austin now and is in use around the world, so a major project currently is developing and implementing strategies for success with regard to that curriculum and our educational outreach program. The guitar society is also hosting the world’s most prestigious international classical guitar competition at the Long Center for a full week in June 2010 and so I am busy laying the groundwork for what I believe will be the most important guitar convention ever including local partnerships with the Austin Symphony Orchestra, Austin Lyric Opera, Austin Chamber Music Center and more.
As a teacher, I recently published my first book called “Classical Guitar for Young People.” The book comes on the heels of some of my students distinguishing themselves nationally and internationally and I have been simply thrilled at the rate of adoption of my book both as a teaching tool for colleagues around the country and as a text for university pedagogy classes. I was asked to begin the UT string project classical guitar program last fall, which has been marvelous, and I am coming off of a month of traveling where I judged several competitions and taught masterclasses. Two more trips are planned in the near future.
Performing is the hardest part of my life to keep balanced, but I have played several concerts this spring, I have an in town engagement in the next few weeks, and will travel for several concerts this summer and next fall. I am also an avid singer (tenor), and I still take voice lessons. Some of my favorite programs are when I self-accompany on art songs from the renaissance through romantic and modern works. Pure self indulgence really!
Increasingly I am being asked to consult for non-profit organizations. The Guitar Foundation of America asked me to join their board and chair their development committee this year, I have consulted for many guitar societies and in May I’ll travel to Toronto for my first International consulting job for the Toronto Guitar Society. In fact, I am just finishing a draft of what will be my second book this spring about building non-profit arts organizations.
What do you like about Austin’s classical music scene?
What is not to like? Our larger established groups are great, our mid-sized groups (like my organization!) are varied and high-quality, and we have amazing diversity in our smaller organizations and independent artists. The UT Butler School of Music is simply unbelievable and, in many ways, is the generative center of the wheel around which the rest of the arts community spins. Austin audiences are educated, have diverse and, I think, progressive interests, and support our rapidly evolving arts community. Recently I presented a fabulously talented young Polish virtuoso who is programming a lot of new music. I was very gratified that our artist received a standing ovation at the end of his first half (in and of itself an unusual thing) following a remarkable performance of a long, complex, modern work that no one had ever heard before.
I am extremely grateful to the Austin arts community for helping me to build the largest classical guitar society ever in America. Many people view classical guitar as a tiny segment of the classical music world which is itself a tiny segment of the entertainment industry in America. But the Austin arts community was open to the benefits we bring to our community through our vast education and community initiatives, and was willing to take a chance on us.
How could Austin’s classical scene be improved?
The great thing about our classical music scene is that it is evolving. There is a tremendous amount of talent and creativity and collaborative spirit in Austin that is always creating something new. From my limited perspective as a classical musician whose passion is for recitals and chamber music, I would say the single greatest missing element is a world-class 500 to 700 seat recital hall available for the public to use. I would love to be involved in the development of such a facility.
Photo by Greg Abell.
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April 20, 2009
Review: Ellington's 'Queenie Pie' gets a respectful refashioning
Duke Ellington received due homage this weekend when the University of Texas’ Butler School of Music debuted their smartly crafted production of ‘Queenie Pie,’ the jazz genius’ only opera.
Before his death in 1974, Ellington and his collaborating librettist, Bettie McGettigan, never completed ‘Queenie Pie,’ which was originally intended to be a one-hour PBS special.
From the remaining manuscripts — which sometimes indicated merely a melody for what should have been a fully-fledged orchestrated song — UT music scholars Jeff Hellmer, John Mills and Robert DeSimone crafted together an finished version of ‘Queenie Pie’ as close as possible to what Ellington may have envisioned.
(Concert versions of the work have been done and last year Oakland Opera presented their extended, operatic version.)
Read more about their process.
The result? A snappy operatta cum nightclub revue that wonderfully showcased Ellington’s big band-era genius. No extraneous excesses of added material here. Instead, we arguably got pretty close to what Ellington and McGettigan intended ‘Queenie Pie’ to be.
This production also showcased an important collaboration between UT and Huston-Tillotson University, an historically black college across town from UT. DeSimone, director of UT’s opera studies and director of ‘Queenie Pie,’ tapped HTU choral studies professor Gloria Quinlan who in turn rallied her students to join the production. Quinlan is also a UT alum, another element of synergy to the collaboration.
For all the musical burnish in this re-imagined ‘Queenie Pie,’ the plot remains slim. Queenie Pie is a Harlem beautician — a character modeled after Madam C.J. Walker, an early 20th-century cosmetician whose hair straightening product helped make her one of the first African American millionaires — and the reigning champion of a local beauty contest. When her primacy is challenged by the young Cafe Olay, Queenie frets and fusses. In a vivid dream, Queenie Pie finds love in the arms of the king of a magical island — a way out of her previous life.
But the UT creative team smartly didn’t try to overwrite or add to what Ellington and McGettigan left behind, patchy as the plot may be. Instead, this iteration ‘Queenie Pie’ played like a two-act, 75-minute revue, songs strong together with a little bit of narrated plot or dialogue in between and singers and big band presented as if the stage of UT’s McCullough Theatre were that of a Harlem jazz club.
And really, who needed a fleshed out plot when Ellington’s music did it all?
In their arrangements, Hellmer and Mills seamlessly filled out Ellington’s sound. And Hellmer led a crackerjack student big band (culled from UT’s jazz program) who sat behind glittering marquee stands on stage and delivered the punching, swinging rhythms with plenty of brio.
Although special guest, noted jazz singer Carmen Bradford, as Queenie Pie, ddin’t get her chance to impress until the second act, she wowed immediately with impeccable phrasing and pure panache. No wonder Count Bassie plucked her to sing with his orchestra when she was just a teen.
Soprano Morgan Gale Beckford, a UT student, stunned as the sassy Cafe Olay, with a voice clear, polished and full of confident character.
An energetic chorus of UT and HTU students flashed through their song and dance. And Michaele Hite’s 1920s period costumes dazzled, especially the women’s extravagant hats.
Somewhere, the Duke, has reason to be honored that his ‘Queenie Pie’ has gotten her proper moment on the stage.
‘Queenie Pie’ continues at 8 p.m. Friday and 7 p.m. Sunday at McCullough Theatre, UT campus. See www.music.utexas.edu for ticket information.
April 19, 2009
Review: 'Dialogues of the Carmelites'
Austin Lyric Opera delivers a nuanced yet gut-wrenching production of Francis Poulenc’s “Dialogues of the Carmelites” which opened Saturday night at the Long Center.
And that’s no a small feat to pull of with Poulenc’s very modern intellectual yet ultimately emotional query into the nature of belief. “Dialogues” is hardly an easy opera (to like or to present well) though it’s gaining currency as one of the masterpieces of the 20th-century repertoire.
Premiered in 1957, “Dialogues,” is based on a screenplay that was in turn was based on historical accounts of 16 Carmelite nuns sent to the guillotine by revolutionaries during France’s Reign of Terror.
(ALO’s special guest in the audience Friday night was the renowned soprano Virginia Zeani who originated the role of the young nun Blanche de la Force and who was invited by Poulenc himself to take the role.)
As the title suggests, most of the opera is conversationally sung text. That throws a challenge to those who might expect that opera can only be bodice-ripping romances filled with show-stopping arias.
And it clearly threw a challenge to the audience at the Long Center Friday night: In the orchestra section at least, empty seats appeared after intermission.
That’s too bad because this “Dialogues” not only had vocal talent in spades but rang with a smart emotional and intellectual clarity.
Her voice beautifully shaded in tone yet powerfully dramatic, Emily Pulley relayed every ounce of Blanche’s neurosis, fear and ultimate acceptance of her vows. In Pulley’s hand, Blanche’s anxiety-fueled religious conversion and subsequent psychological journey rings with a very contemporary reality.
Always a highlight of any ALO productions she joins, the luminous soprano Suzanne Ramo brought a charming no-nonsense to Constance, the nun whose good nature belies her smarts and her beatific faith.
In their solos, Jennifer Check (Madame Lidoine) and Dana Beth Miller (Mother Marie) unleashed torrents of luscious clear tones.
Conductor Richard Buckley perfectly calibrated the color and pace of Poulenc’s score which is by turns hauntingly lyrical, sweepingly cinematic and even occasionally playful.
Director Eric Einhorn brought a very modern, realistic tone to this nicely spare production (originally created by Calgary Opera). These were no one-dimensional nuns but rather each emerged as complex and distinct as they wrested their decisions to sacrifice their lives for their faith.
In this telling, this production of a about 18th-century Catholic nuns transcends time and place to speak to us now.
“Dialogues of the Carmelites” continues 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Friday, 3 p.m. April 26 at the Long Center. See www.austinlyricopera.org for ticket information.
April 17, 2009
Eric Einhorn rethinks 'Dialogues of the Carmelites'
Eric Einhorn thinks of himself as a storyteller. And he’s the first to admit that’s almost a traditional way of thinking about his role as an opera director, not one you might expect from a 28-year-old like himself.
It’s hard to know what would be typical from someone who isn’t even 30 and has already started to carve a national reputation for himself in a notoriously hierarchical and competitive profession.
Einhorn arrived in Austin about a month ago to direct Austin Lyric Opera’s production of Francis Poulenc’s “Dialogues of the Carmelites” which opened last night at the Long Center. Einhorn has a regular gig as an assistant director for many productions at the Metropolitan Opera. And increasingly, he’s invited to direct for opera companies across the country.
“What I crave (in an opera) is human interaction,” he says. “And what the challenge is for me as a storyteller, is to make those human relationships as real and direct as possible.”
In our day and age of multimedia, Einhorn points out, there’s no fooling an audience any more with routine theatrical tricks. If you can YouTube your way through the world, what haven’t you seen at this point? If media keeps you in the role as passive observer, what do you crave? Maybe, Einhorn suggests, what would feel new to an audience today is something immediate and human — a story told with clarity and sincerity.
Kevin Patterson, managing director at Austin Lyric Opera, says he invited Einhorn to direct “Dialogues” because Einhorn’s background and fresh approach would give a very 21st-century perspective to Poulenc’s psychologically charged opera about nuns during the French Revolution.
“I (also) asked him to direct this opera because he’s not Christian. He is Jewish,” Patterson says. “I wanted to not get caught up in all of the Catholic trappings of cloistered nuns. On a very basic level (‘Dialogues of the Carmelites’) is a story of nuns, but I wanted to challenge Eric to go beyond that initial story line as both he and I agreed that this opera has a strong universal statement. Beliefs are universal. They do not know the bounds of religion.”
Written in the mid-1950s, “Dialogues” musically typifies Poulenc’s lush harmonies, striking melodic lines and arresting orchestrations. And it also speaks of Poulenc’s own lifelong struggle with his Roman Catholic beliefs.
Based on historical events, “Dialogues” is set during the French Revolution and subsequent Reign of Terror. The opera tells the story of a nervous young woman of nobility, Blanche de la Force, who chooses to abandon her rank, and the violence of the secular world, for the safety and sanctity of a Carmelite convent. But once at the convent, Blanche realizes the convent is hardly a place that will protect her from the revolutionary terror that is ripping through the country. The anti-religious revolutionary forces are out to seize the convent and arrest the nuns. Blanche runs away, but once she learns that the nuns are condemned to death by guillotine, she realizes she might have saved her own life but not her soul. She joins her sisters on the march to the guillotine.
“(The story) is not really about nuns,” Einhorn says. “It’s about the choices we make and the conviction we have — or don’t have — to follow through on them.” And so, Einhorn conceived of the characters not as anonymous women in matching black and white habits, but rather as separate individuals.
“This is not some homogenous group of dour women,” he says. “This a microcosm of society. All of the women are there for very different reasons. All make their decisions to die for their beliefs for very different reasons.”
And all, he says, have their own fears as they approach the guillotine.
“Everybody fears death,” Einhorn says. And there’s no glossing over that fear. And as a good storyteller, he’s striving to make sure that emotion feels palpable to the audience.
“The story has to feel real, has to be told to you immediately and directly,” he says. “That’s my job.”
‘Dialogues of the Carmelites’ plays 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Wednesday and Friday, 3 p.m. April 26. Dell Hall, Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Drive. www.austinlyricopera.org
Photos by Laura Skelding/A-AS.
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Review: New percussion music beats in
Tom Burritt and the UT Percussion Ensemble charmed Tuesday night with premieres of new works by Austin composers Graham Reynolds and Dan Welcher.
Reynold joined the 12-piece student ensemble on piano for his ’ ‘Whale Drum.’ Rollicking minor chords pumped through decidedly groovy riffs that were alternated with more lyrical heartfelt moments. If anyone denies that a gathering of a dozen percussion instruments can’t be melodic, Reynolds proved otherwise, unleashing a funky harmonius frenzy.
“Whale Drum” is just first of three pieces UT’s music faculty have commissioned from Reynolds that will be premiered this spring. That inclusive gesture to a non-UT musician is welcomed bridge over the town-gown divide that keeps UT music efforts so often disconnected from the Austin community.
Welcher’s “You Can Fool” was a smart musical reflection on the recent presidential election. Written by the request of ensemble students Matthew Teodori and Philip Welder - the first commission Welcher said he’s ever received from students - “You Can Fool” flashed by as intense musical postcards of wildly different mood and color. The quartet of players paired off in duos, then rejoined at times in a dance of musical cooperation and opposition. Finally, a brief moment of peaceful world music soothed before the piece finished with rolling military snare drums. So much for a visionary getting through the layers of history, Welcher’s composition seemed to say.
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This weekend, it's crazy choral confluences
It never fails to happen at least several times during the arts season: Everybody’s event lands at the same time. This weekend, it seems like it’s all choral concerts all the time. I wonder, how can any hope to attract a full audience? And never mind that Austin Lyric Opera is opening “The Dialogues of the Carmelites” this weekend too along with UT’s production of Duke Ellington’s opera “Queenie Pie.” Tough choices, all around.
While you make your choices, listen to “We Remember Them” by Austin composer Donald Grantham, performed by the UT Chamber Singers.
SATURDAY
‘Harmonie and Thyme.’ Austin Singers take on John Rutter’s ‘The Sprig of Thyme’ along with Hayden’s ‘Harmoniemesse’. 8 p.m. Hope Presbyterian Church, 11512 Olson Drive. $5-$15. 314-5532 www.austinsingers.org.
‘Invitation to the Voyage.’ Madrigals and spirituals including Lauridsen’s ‘Lux Aeterna’, Brahms’ ‘Zigeunerlieder’ and Rachmaninov’s ‘Bogoroditse Devo’. 8 p.m. First Presbyterian Church, 8001 Mesa Drive. $15-$20. 372-3233 www.txconsort.org.
SUNDAY
Texas State University Singers, Women’s Chorus, & Men’s Chorus Concert.* Music by Eric Whitacre along with Britten’s ‘Rejoice in the Lamb’ and Rutter’s ‘Gloria.’ 2 p.m. Covenant Presbyterian Church, 3003 Northland Dr. Free. 512-245-2851. www.music.txstate.edu.
‘Invitation to the Voyage.’ (see above.) 3 p.m. First Presbyterian Church, 8001 Mesa Dr.
UT Chamber Singers and Concert Chorale. Music from several centuries from Brahms to Bernstein. 4 p.m. Bates Hall, Music Building, $10, www.music.utexas.edu.
‘Harmonie and Thyme.’ (see above) 4 p.m. University Presbyterian Church, 2203 San Antonio St. $5-$15. 314-5532 www.austinsingers.org.
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April 16, 2009
Q-and-A with Lois Ferrari, conductor
For their next program on April 25, Austin Civic Orchestra is joined by the noted violinist Brian Lewis and violist Roger Myers. We caught up with conductor Lois Ferrari.
Here we are in the year 2009, yet we still don’t see too many female orchestra conductors.
Women in leadership positions are few and far between in many fields. I don’t know for sure why this is but it seems to me that, as in any profession dominated mostly by men, it takes a few generations of women breaking into the field before their presence is not considered revolutionary or odd. I hope for the day when people don’t think of me first as a woman conductor, but rather just a conductor.
I think it’s very important for women in traditionally male professions not to set themselves apart purposefully as special and then expect to be treated equally. I have made a point throughout my career to not place a name tag on myself or make my choice of profession any kind of mission or statement. I think making strides via the mainstream makes a more lasting impression.
Can you tell us a little bit about your experience as a conductor?
My first experience as a bona fide conductor was teaching middle school band and orchestra on Long Island in the mid 1980s. It was there that I realized that conducting was my preferred niche in the music education field and decided to pursue this further. I went back to Ithaca College for my masters degree in conducting and was very fortunate to be a part of a program that not only allowed me to study with wonderful conductors but also in all three areas of conducting: band, orchestra, and choir.
In 1989, I took a position as a high school band director in upstate New York, but spent all my spare time traveling back and forth to Rochester to watch Donald Hunsberger rehearse and perform with the renowned Eastman Wind Ensemble. Shortly after that, I knew what I wanted to do, so for two years I studied hard and prepared for the audition into the doctoral conducting program at Eastman. I still remember the exact moment I opened my acceptance letter in the parking lot of my apartment complex.
Two years later, in 1993, I accepted the job offer from Southwestern University, thinking that this New Yorker would spend about three years gaining experience and then off I would go. Sixteen years later, I am still extremely happy at SU and can’t imagine working with better people anywhere.
My musical life and career also improved a great deal in 2002, thanks to my being nominated for and then appointed to the position of music director of the Austin Civic Orchestra. There are not enough superlatives to express my admiration and affection for all the wonderful, selfless people that make this organization work so well. I feel very lucky to be associated with both institutions and look forward to continuing to grow with and learn from them.
Through all these experiences, I don’t recall anyone ever telling me I couldn’t be a conductor because I’m a woman. A few people have remarked over the years that this was something noteworthy and might be difficult to achieve, but I don’t know of anyone who made disparaging or negative comments, at least not to me personally.
You’re a big champion of music by living composers. What’s important about supporting new music?
Until the mid-19th century, nearly all the music that the Western public consumed was new. There was no way to record performances and thus, music had no way to become “standard” or “popular” on a very large scale. There were favorites in small circles, of course, but the idea of new music in live performance was accepted as routine.
The advent of technology really made it difficult for composers in the 20th and now 21st centuries. Today, most Western audiences regard classical music concerts as entertainment and thus, expect to hear their favorite works, which have been preserved and mass distributed via easily available and affordable media.
The interesting thing, though, is that these same audiences, when presented with new material, almost always embrace the experience as at least interesting and rewarding, if not wholly extraordinary. I truly believe that audiences would welcome new music more if it wasn’t treated like a plate full of Brussels sprouts by some of us who are responsible for programming concerts.
Right now, the best or largest audience for new music is in academia and it is there that I feel not only the desire but the responsibility to commission and promote new compositions. Otherwise, the art of music would stagnate and disappear, and sadly we have been experiencing some of the tell-tale signs of that for some time.
On April 25, the ACO will present the third world premiere I have helped give birth to this semester, a work by Jason Hoogerhyde entitled, “Lament,” for string orchestra.
How could Austin’s classical music scene be improved?
That’s a tough question since Austin already has a very rich music scene of which it should be very proud. I guess the thing I would like most to see is the same amount of financial and community support that is given athletics in the public schools be given to Arts programs. In my not so reserved opinion, it is the Arts that defines us as human and evolved beings and it is the Arts that will ultimately save us from our own savagery. As my idol, John Adams once said: “I must study politics and war that my children may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My children ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain”
Spring Concert: Premiere of “Lament” by Jason Hoogerhyde; Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante; Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony
7:30 p.m. April 25
Reagan High School, 7104 Berkman Dr.
Tix: $10 ($8 students, $3 children 12 and under)
www.austincivicorchestra.org
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April 13, 2009
Got Twitter? You should if you want an audience
Hey orchestras and classical music groups, percussionist Thomas Burritt has a message for you.
“@tburritt: Use social and new media if you want to reach today’s new and younger audience that demands transparency, authenticity and accessibility.”
That message is 137 characters, three less than the maximum you can use on Twitter, the social messaging and microblogging service. (Minus tburritt, Burritt’s Twitter name, that is.)
Read more about Burritt’s advocacy of social media.
And don’t forget, Burritt and the UT Percussion Ensemble play a free concert Tuesday night that will feature premieres of new work by Austin composers Graham Reynolds and Dan Welcher as well as Iannis Xenakis monumental work for percussion “Peaux.”
University of Texas Percussion Ensemble
When: 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 14
Where: Bates Recital Hall, Music Building, UT campus
And if you want to follow me and this blog on Twitter, the Twitter name is @artsinaustin.
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April 12, 2009
New Music Co-op: Immersive and in the dark
The always adventurous New Music Co-op staged what was more an intense sound installation than a concert Saturday night at Ceremony Hall, exclusively featuring the work of American experimental composer Alvin Lucier.
The private chapel turned community space, Ceremony Hall was dimly lit when the audience was admitted, folding chairs arranged in a large oval, a xylaphone and some other music equipment in the middle. Also occupying the center were several snare drums standing on their sides. A synthesized sine wave pulsated throughout the room as people filtered in in the dim light.
The snare drums seemed to grab the slow pulsations of the synthesized sine wave emanating what a low buzz.
The sound was immersive, intense, meditative and even frustrating at times. And that amalgam of experience held through the more than 90 minutes of the concert, even after the snare drums were put aside and soloists began to play from different spots in the room.
Or was Saturday night a sound installation? After all the audience was invited to leave their seats and move around the space to listen from different spots. And while the program indicated the discrete pieces performed, the experience was more a continuously fluid experimentation in sound and listening. Solo instrumentalists (flute, French horn, violin, cello, percussion) took turns creating long tones of specific pitch to affect the sine waves. Some sounds soothed. Others provoked. All demanded that you listen.
To end the event, the performers turned out the lights completely and using Sondols (small hand-held echolocation devices conceived of in the 1960s, but never mass-produced), began to sonically map out Ceremony Hall, the Sondols emitting muted tapping sounds that varied in speed and intensity. (Co-op members made the Sondols modeled after original plans).
In the dark, the experience became as much about listening as it was about sound - a chance for personal meditation as much a group experience.
Since it formed in 2001, the New Music Co-op has developed a small but loyal following. After all, most experimental music efforts or electro-acoustic music explorers anywhere typically don’t attract huge audiences.
But New Music Co-op does well by those who are curious and come out to their concerts. No aloof insider attitude here. Thoughtfully written and very thorough program notes explain much. And the ensemble is only too happy to chat with audience members afterwards, which invariably happens with many lingering for a while.
And all that makes for an easy open-ended scene.
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April 9, 2009
The New Music Co-op gets a bit batty
One the most literally inventive music groups in Austin, the New Music Co-op, is once again crafting new and original instruments and sound-making devices for their concert this Saturday.
“Sound in Time” is a tribute to the music of minimalist American composer Alvin Lucier.
Among the pieces performed Saturday is Lucier’s “Vespers,” which the composer dedicated to “all living creatures who inhabit dark places and who, over the years, have developed acuity in the art of echolocation.” The title is taken “vespertilionidae” or “vesper bat” the largest species of North American bats — just like the kind who live under Austin’s Congress Avenue bridge.
According to the Lucier, the piece seeks to “make a picture in sound about the space you’re in.”
To perform the piece, New Music Co-op members Bill Meadows and Travis Weller have crafted replicas of the electronic “Sondol” echo-location devices which were used in Lucier’s original piece. The Sondol was originally conceived as an assistance device for the blind and visually impaired that would allow a person to perceive or read their surroundings based on the echoes that bounced back.
Six Sondols are used as musical instruments in “Vespers.” Prepare for a echo-immersion experience.
Sondols built by Meadows and Weller.
Sound in Time: The Music of Alvin Lucier
8 p.m. Saturday
Ceremony Hall, 4100 Red River St.
$12 students/advance and $15 at the door
www.newmusiccoop.org
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Tango - The original alt, indie classical music?
Perhaps tango is the original alt-classical music. Perhaps, in fact, tango ensembles were the original bar bands.
Here in Austin, the tango bug bit about a decade ago, right along with a general resurgence in the sultry, complicated dance that was rolling across the country. But unlike most other places where tango percolated, Austin had its own tango house band right from the get-go.
This Saturday, Glover Gill and the women of Tosca String Quartet are returning to their monthly gig at Esquina Tango and you can read more about here.
Have a listen here.
Glover Gill and the Tosca String Quartet
When: 10:30 p.m. Saturday (Beginning tango dance lesson at 9 p.m.)
Where: Esquina Tango, 209 Pedernales St.
Cost: $10 (includes dance class)
Information: 524-2772, www.esquinatangoaustin.com
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April 6, 2009
Review: Round Rock Symphony Orchestra, take 2
Saturday night, the Round Rock Symphony Orchestra, in its only second show, gave a much more polished performance than its debut in October.
The first of two performances, Saturday’s concert attracted more than 100 folks. And interestingly, it was in North Austin, at Westover Hills Church of Christ. Sunday, the RRSO played Round Rock.
Music director Silas Nathaniel Huff took an interesting approach for a new, suburban orchestra, presenting a program of two new works bookended by romantic symphonic staples.
Bringing panache to Saturday’s concert was guest soloist, violinist Jessica Mathaes, concertmistress of the Austin Symphony Orchestra. Mathaes played the premiere of Manly Romero’s “Remember Father.” Mathaes wrested a great deal of nuance form Romero’s intricate, repeating layers that built interesting into a tense height before exhaling with a mournful sigh.
Allen Schulz’s “This Day, This Dusk,” employed predictable contrasts between violent, melodies that were then balanced against lighter passages. In the end, the piece felt weary, not exhilarating.
Surrounding the Romero and Schulz were Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet’ Overture and Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird’ suite — both about as markedly un-modern as the two center pieces. Huff has got the orchestra sounding a bit tighter and smoother than its shaky debut even if all the awkward edges are not totally worked out. And confidence and cohesion still needs to grow.
And yet, an orchestra attempts to grow for Round Rock, and that’s just fine.
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April 5, 2009
Review: Itzhak Perlman
To a virtually sold-out house Sunday night at the Bass Concert Hall, violin great Itzhak Perlman played seemingly two concerts.
The first half was ultra-formal, hermetic even, Perlman nodding but not otherwise saying a word to the audience, instead delivering the music in quick succession.
To Handel’s Sonata No. 13 in D, Perlman brought a polished modern feel to the Baroque stylings. To Franck’s Sonata For Violin & Piano in A, Perlman also wrested an ever so slightly contemporary burnish to a piece that lies just on the edge of romanticism and modernism.
But after intermission, the silent, formal virtuoso didn’t appear. Instead, it was Perlman the casual, accessible - yet utterly genius - violin player, the man who, in his breathtaking half-century career, has not only performed with every great orchestra and in every great concert hall, but also played popular movie scores (“Schindler’s List”) and easily joked with muppets on “Sesame Street.”
“The good news is that the piece is not very long,” he deadpanned about Messiaen’s modernist Theme and Variations. “Just pretend you’ve heard ten times before and you’ll like it.”
After that it was seven short pieces.
“This is a computer printout of everything I’ve played here in the last 40 years,” he joked waving a piece of paper. “Maybe I play something you’ve heard before, you can tell me if you like it better now, or then.”
“Here, this is a good one,” he said, before embarking on Kreisler’s transcription for violin of Falla’s “Spanish Dances,” a staple of the classical guitar repertoire full of dramatic flourish.
The pieces grew in virtuosity and technical demands, yet with each, Perlman left micro-seconds of air, even between the most rapid successions of notes for exquisite yet seemingly effortless clarity.
After Bazzini’s rapid-fire “Dance of the Goblins,” the maestro was done. No need for an encore. After all, Perlman had effectively started the encore from the first note he played.
Review: "The Color of Dissonance"
Art about art is tricky territory. And while creative collaborations often result in a rich pluralist end product, sometime too many divergent artistic enthusiasms can clutter.
Clutter seemed to muddle “The Color of Dissonance,” an ambitious new opera with music by Jason Hoogerhyde which premiered Friday for a three-performance run at Southwestern University’s Alma Thomas Theatre.
With a libretto by Hoogerhyde, Sergio Costola and Kimberly Smith, “The Color of Dissonance” turned its lens on a seminal moment of cultural history: the birth of modernism. As this story used the pre-World War I friendship of painters Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Munter and Arnold Schoenberg as means to examine the radical break modernism made, from realism to abstraction, pretty tonal melodies to harsh dissonances.
Unfortunately, such a heady intellectual topic was never quite realized into compelling theater.
To be sure, Southwestern University deserves kudos for commissioning its faculty— of which Hoogerhyde, Costola and Smith belong — to create a such an ambitious production.
And what a production.
Kandinsky, Munter and Schoenberg were each played by a singer, an actor and a dancer, the cast clad in all-white fin-de-siecle period garb. Thousands of images — from Kandinsky’s paintings to Schoenberg’s scores to glorious early cinema and period newsreels — were projected onto the screen backdrop or sometimes cast onto individual canvases or other surface. A chorus sang from offstage after parading through the audience at the start.
More a singspiel, with arias interspersed by spoken monologue, “Dissonance” found the three characters hardly interacting so much as remaining isolated figures addressing the audience in monologues or arias. And that made for a very static, sometimes wooden progression.
iIn and around the singers and actors, the dancers wove. But their presence, and the overly-stylized choreography, distracted.
As Kandinsky, baritone Oliver Worthington was a standout, his tone expressive and colorful. Indeed he seemed poised to bring more dramatic depth to role, if only that had been part of the theatrical direction.
Unfortunately, it was not.
Really, one wanted ultimately much more of Hoogerhyde’s rich yet ethereal music. Hoogerghyde’s delicate, thoughtful tonal dramas was where this opera’s emotional force lay.
Only the media design, by Duncan Alexander, had as much impact and complexity as the score. Far beyond a typical kaleidoscopic montage, the churning story written by the images and footage offered the only true dramatic foil to Hoogerhyde’s music.
After all, just because some collaboration is good, doesn’t always mean more is better.
April 4, 2009
Three questions with P. Kellach Waddle, composer and bassist
Composer and bassist P. Kellach Waddle is a flurry of musical activity. Whether writing new pieces (he’s penned more 300 separate works of music) or concertizing with every group from the Austin Symphony Orchestra to a multitude of chamber groups, Waddle and his bass are perpetually on the go.
Last year his String Quartet #2, commissioned by the Miro Quartemt won the 2008 Austin Critic’s Table award for Outstanding Original Composition.
Through his presenting efforts, PKW Productions, Waddle has also created the wildly popular “Music and a Movie” series at the Alamo Drafthouse cinema. Waddle’s assembled ensembles to play pre- and post-movie concerts for films as diverse as “Amadeus” and “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” always attracting a packed house.
In his more than two decades in Austin, the ever-eclectic Waddle, a major advocate for new approaches to new classical music, sees Austin as a hub for change that nevertheless needs more support.
How could Austin’s classical music scene be improved?
Classical music, much less new classical music, is still the stepchild in the Austin music scene. Classical music is in general totally off the radar here in a city so known for music being in it’s everyday life.
Will anyone ever not ask me when I tell them I am a musician “what band are you in?”
[I have to wonder] if the folks at the Live Music Task Force have any clue who [we classical and indie classical musicians are.] I don’’t think it’s any malicious intent to exclude us, but music that doesn’t get heard in a bar at 1 a.m. on a Saturday night isn’t on Austin’s music scene radar. Do the Austin Music Awards even have a classical category?
This is something that needs to be continually addressed and we all need to do our part to change.
What do you like about Austin’s classical music scene?
I have a gargantuan amount of music performed and premiered here on a regular basis in all of my own series under the PKW Productions umbrella but I also get to have music on so many other of my colleagues’ series and projects and vice versa
Right now Austin has so much new classical music heard in venues that continue to tear down the stereotype of what people consider the “normal ” or perhaps, more bluntly, the “Intimidating or segregated” world of “new classical music.” I now have at least half if not more of my premieres at a book store (Book People on the “Music and Literature” series) and a movie theater (Alamo Drafthouse.)
That is what I think is so beautiful about what we have going in new classical music in Austin. While other cities have people valiantly trying to do these things, they still are seen as anomalies. Yet what so many of us are doing here — giving audiences new classical music - new audiences at that, that that’s something I really don’t think you find anywhere elsewhere. The kind of things we do are now a regular part of Austin’s classical music landscape and I think we are very blessed to have manifested this situation here.
What are you working on right now?
It’s been a busy few months with more than two dozen new pieces being premiered.
For my “Music and Literature” series at Book People, I’m finishing up pieces on books by F. Scott Fitzgerald including a quartet for three cellos and bass, a sonata for two basses, a solo bass piece and a violin/cello/bass trio.
In late May it’s new works for “The Violin According to PKW ” featuring Austin Symphony concertmistress Jessica Mathaes. And to continue the series, in early summer it’s “The Sound of the Bass and Cello According to PKW” and “The Sound of Two Basses According to PKW.”
The Austin Chamber Ensemble commissioned a new major work which will premier in May 14-15. And for the Balcones Chamber Orchestra I am completing work on a short ” symphony” of three intermezzos.
For my own upcoming solo concerts at Central Presbyterian Church, I just finished one set of three nocturnes.
Also for these concerts, I am, as always, practicing Bach solo movements and three pieces that were written for me by other composers
Listen to a sample of Waddle music:
Photo: Benjamin Sklar for the American-Statesman.
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April 3, 2009
Weekend Music Pix
This weekend, we’re overloaded with recommended music offerings, particularly on Sunday, when things
And no, this isn’t just happening on the classical music scene. Austin is dizzy with entertainment offering in April.
Tonight, for me it’s “The Color of Dissonance,” the new opera by Jason Hoogerhyde that’s getting its premiere at Southwestern University. It’s always an occasion when new operas are realized here in Austin. The opera plays tonight, Saturday and Sunday. www.southwestern.edu/boxoffice.
Listen to an excerpt:
Saturday, the Round Rock Symphony had a rocky debut last fall, but Jessica Mathaes, Austin Symphony Orchestra concertmistress is the guest soloist, and she’s not one to miss. Mathas plays the premiere of Manly Romero’s ‘Remember Father.’ 8 p.m. First Presbyterian Church, 8001 Mesa Drive. $15-$30. www.roundrocksymphony.org.
Sunday, Itzhak Perlman dominates the evening choices and I can’t resist that.
The rest of the offerings, which you can see here, are numerous. The Wild Basin Winds has an interesting looking program of new music — read about here — but it conflicts with the Perlman concert. UT’s Great Organ Series and repeated performances of “The Color of Dissonance” and Round Rock Symphony.
Image: “The Color of Dissonance.” Photo by Claire McAdams.
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April 2, 2009
Itzhak Perlman: Carnegie Hall, 'Sesame Street' -- It's all good
He’s played the world’s best symphony halls, won 16 Grammy Awards and also on performed on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and “Sesame Street.”
Of course, now that violinist Itzhak Perlman is celebrating his 50th season of his United States debut there’s little the virtuoso hasn’t done.
Perlman plays the Bass Concert Hall Sunday. On the program is Handel’s Violin Sonata No. 13, Franck’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in A and Messiaen’s Theme and Variations.
What’s perhaps remarkable about Perlman’s lengthy resumé is its democratic range. Yes, he can claim as his own the most exclusive classical gigs. But he’s also been a champion of classical music, taking his message to every pop culture or media platform he can. Besides, once you’ve already had your Carnegie Hall solo debut at 18, why not concertize with muppets if it means exposing a television audience of children to the beauty of classical music? Or why not play the achingly beautiful solo on the soundtrack to movie “Schindler’s List?”
Born in Tel Aviv in 1945, Perlman contracted polio at age four and grew up listening to classical music on the radio. Although he’s been known to eschew the word “prodigy,” that’s what he was: He gave his first solo recital aged 10. After moving with his family to the United States in the late 1950s, Perlman, who now walks with the use of a cane or uses a motorized scooter, soon embarked on a breathtaking career of award-winning recordings and nearly non-stop performing.
Sunday he plays the Bass Concert Hall in a solo recital. “Our society would be incomplete without culture, without music,” Perlman told a recent interviewer. “The world has so many problems these days, but music has proved to be something that can be around for a very long time.”
7 p.m. Sunday
Bass Concert Hall, University of Texas campus
$34-$75
512-477-6060. www.utpac.org.
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Wet Ink: Windy new music
It isn’t always easy getting an audience out to see a woodwind ensemble.
Maybe a little ‘American Idol’ type voting will help.
“Wet Ink,” a pair of concerts on Sunday and Tuesday by five-member Austin ensemble Wild Basins Winds, will feature all new music, including some compositions that have never been heard by an audience before
The audience will be invited to vote on which new piece they like best.
Read more about the program here and find concert information.
And check out this video clip of the Wild Basin Winds:
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March 31, 2009
New music anyone? Fear not
Who attends UT’s New Music Ensemble concerts? Like tonight, it’s usually about 70 or so people, many of whom seem to be music students and faculty.
New music is tough sell, even when it’s free, as UT New Music Ensemble concerts are. And if you’re not familiar with the UT campus, good luck penetrating (or even parking at) the ivory tower.
UT logistics aside, the idea of unfamiliar new classical music puts people off. Of course, there’s a lot of it that’s off-putting. Too much new music is insider stuff, seemingly written for like-minded academic specialists.
Then again, if you don’t take at least a chance at new music, you might miss something that will delight.
Graham Reynolds, arguably Austin’s busiest indie composer, was there tonight. Reynolds is putting the finishing touches on a song cycle and a trio for double reeds, both premiering April 26 at UT, a much welcome connection between town and gown given that Reynolds is in no way affiliated with UT.
But he had the time for a break tonight, as equally interested in hearing some new music as supporting Welcher and his efforts. And Reynolds was scoping out the young instrumental talent on stage. “I’m always looking for musicians,” Reynolds, who also co-directs Golden Hornet Project, a non-profit new music presenting organization.
In the UT New Music Ensemble spotlight tonight — two pieces by visiting composer Gabriela Lena Frank, who draws on her multi-cultural heritage (Peruvian/Chinese/Lithuanian/Jewish).
Frank’s ‘Las Sombras de Los Apus’ for four cellos proved compelling — each cello a jittery, antic voice that rattled and rumbled until they were spent, and then silent. “You can’t go wrong with four cellos,” Reynolds said before the piece began. And he spot on.
Franks ‘New Andean Songs’ — for soprano, mezzo-soprano, two pianos and two percussionists found — evoked the intriguing echoes reverberating sounds in the highlands. But while ‘Las Sombras’ had beautiful moments, a certain amount of unnecessary clutter crowded that beauty.
Student composers get their moment too at every UT New Music Ensemble.
Ian Dicke’s “The Lunatic Fringe” was a smart little piece of agit-prop. Dicke packed plenty into a 15-minute piece for chamber orchestra — chiefly a reflective commentary on the eight years of the Bush administration and the horrors of the Iraqi war. A crashing kaleidoscope of melodies (Bush’s favorite pop songs) imploded into ethereal melancholy. Throughout recorded snippets of Bush’s speeches laced through the music. Then the voices switched to those of grief-stricken families who lost loved ones in the war. Normally, spoken text mixed with music is irksome, even annoying. But Dicke pulled it off with polish.
Would that the live webcasts of UTNME’s and other UT concerts were archived online and readily available for further listening. They’re not, and that’s a shame.
In the meantime, go hear to listen to Welcher’s compositions.
Bach rocks the Blanton
It was standing room only today in the atrium of the Blanton Museum of Art for Bach Cantata Project. About a couple of hundred people turned out for the monthly noontime concert series.
People stood on the stairs, leaned over from mezzanine and listened appreciatively to the 30-minute ‘Palm Sunday Cantata.’
And while I didn’t luck out and get a seat (I stood in the back, hence the long-shot picture), I did score with two of my favorite young singers — mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Petillot and bass Phillip Hill — featured as soloists. Both sang wonderfully, and the soaring Blanton atrium has a bit of a cathedral-like sound.
UT professor James Morrow started the Bach Cantata Project when the Blanton opened three years ago. About 200 of Bach’s cantatas survive today, which scholars estimate is about three-fifths of the total number the Baroque composer is thought to have composed.
Now, Morrow and a changing ensemble of singers and instrumentalists (from UT and beyond), present a different Bach cantata on the last Tuesday at the month. Since it launched, the Project has become incredibly popular, each concert drawing a healthy-sized audience.
What gives? Why is this noontime concert series so popular?
It’s glorious music for one thing, smartly performed in an historically accurate manner.
But the Bach Cantata Project also dovetails into how people want to consume culture in the 21st century.
Although it is a lunchtime series, that actually works well for many working people who have to juggle lots of evening and weekend commitments. The low ticket price (free with museum admission of $3-$7) makes it a bargain. You get a lot of bang — or Bach — for your buck: both a concert and a visit to the museum.
Finally, with just one cantata performed (and most are 25-40 minutes max), these concerts are accessible for people with over-busy schedules. Would that everyone have the two hours plus that’s required for most classical music concerts (really an entire evening is required). Bbut that’s not always the case. And there’s plenty of other culture out there — much of it more flexible in reach — to compete with those evening-long concerts.
Imagine: historically accurate Baroque Bach, re-shaped to fit into the 21t-century.
March 30, 2009
Anton Nel: A luscious Long Center showing
The audience wouldn’t let Anton Nel leave the Long Center stage Sunday afternoon.
That seemed just fine with Nel. The celebrated Austin pianist exudes an elegant joy when he performs. And he clearly preferred to be nowhere else but performing for a hometown audience and on the stellar nine-foot Hamburg Steinway he helped the Long Center select.
The admiration was mutual. And Nel rewarded the audience’s appreciation and ovations with three encores after a particularly rich — and rigorous — program.
Indeed the concert was a bit of Austin arts history in the making. Since opening a year ago, the Long Center — Austin’s first civic performing arts center — hasn’t yet had a solo classical recital grace the stage of the acoustically exquisite Dell Hall. Fitting perhaps then Nel played the first such concert. The South African-born pianist and now proud Austinite has been eager supporter of the Long Center despite his own hectic schedule of teaching at the University of Texas and concertizing around the world. Nel made the Dell Hall and its Steinway shimmer Sunday.
Brilliantly virtuosic in his technical ability, Nel so smartly eschews showiness. He’s far too sophisticated a musician to be aggressive with the flourishes. Emotional tone and color is what he draws out with style and nuance.
Nel drew the intricacies out of Brahms’ Vier Klavierstucke and out of Schubert’s Fantasy in C Major, Nel extracted an ethereal mood. The selections from Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words Nel offered like distinct little jewels, each with its very different shine. And he played Mendellsohn’s Fantasy in F Sharp with a kind of affecting intensity which made the profound and deep moments all the more exquisite.
Nel’s a jewel himself. Would that we could have a Long Center recital by him an annual event. Please?
Tuesday music pix: Busy, with tough choices
Tuesday, March 31, is tough when it comes to classical music choices. The new or the historic? Running up against the evening concert of the always interesting University of Texas New Music Ensemble is the legendary St. John’s College Choir, the UK-based choir with a most notable history dating back centuries. Before that, UT’s Bach Cantata Project, the little noon-time concert series that could.
I plan to attend the Bach Cantata Project. Then in evening, it’s going to be a tough coin toss.
Bach Cantata Project
The Bach Cantata Project has become something of a phenom in the three years since it started. Crowds now show up at noon on the last Tuesday of every month to hear one of Bach’s 200 cantatas presented by UT faculty and staff musicians in the Blanton Museum. This month it’s ‘Himmelskönig, sei willkommen.’ Noon. Blanton Museum of Art, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Brazos Street. Free with museum admission ($3-$7). 471-5401. www.blantonmuseum.org
St. John’s College Choir<br>
With a history dating to the 17th century, Cambridge University’s St. John’s College Choirs is simply one of the finest all-male collegiate choirs in the world. Their current five-state, nine-concert tour brings the 30-member choir to town, a guest of UT’s Butler School of Music, for a concert that includes Byrd’s Four-Part Mass, Howells’ Gloucester Service, Swayne’s Magnificat and Holst’s Nunc Dimittis, among other works, 7 p.m. St. Austin Catholic Church, 2026 Guadalupe St. $20 ($15 seniors, $10 students). 471-5401. www.music.utexas.edu.
St. John’s College Choir has terrific online webcasts for free listening opporturnites.
UT New Music Ensemble
The music of visiting composer Gabriela Lena Frank pulls from indigenous Peruvian music and legends. And a new work by Ian Dicke, ‘Lunatic Fringe,’ uses chamber orchestra and pre-recorded voice to plumb the last decade of American politics. 8 p.m. Bates Recital Hall, Butler School of Music, UT campus. Free. 471-5401. www.music.utexas.edu.
The UT New Music Ensemble concert will be webcast live.
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Monday Music Pix
Tonight: University of Texas Symphony Orchestra.
Since conductor Gerhardt Zimmerman took the baton a few years ago, the University of Texas symphony orchestra has sparkled. Sure, they’ve got youthful vigor and enthusiasm on their side. But Zimmerman burnishes them with plenty of
Monday they play Mendelssohn’s ‘Reformation’ Symphony No. 5, Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri and Dvorak’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra featuring Elizabethe Lee, winnder of the Butler School of Music String Concerto Competition.
8 p.m. Bates Recital Hall, Music Building, UT campus. $10 ($5 students). 471-5401. www.music.utexas.edu.
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March 29, 2009
Opera 101
Opera director, frequent intermission guest panelist of the Saturday afternoon Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts and author of the popular book “Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera,” Fred Plotkin comes to Austin Tuesday to talk about Austin Lyric Opera’s upcoming production of “Dialogues of the Carmelites” — an opera he believes “is arguably the operatic masterpiece of the 20th century.”
But before he gets into specifics, we asked Plotkin for a brief version of his “Opera 101” — five simple rules for any novice opera fan to use:
“Rule 1: Turn off your analytical faculties.
“Don’t analyze. Our training in life makes us think we’re supposed to understand everything, analyze every experience. But I’m a big believer in mystery — that we can experience something, enjoy something without putting a specific definition to it. And that’s part of the excitement.”
Rule 2: Suspend your belief in reality.
“Set aside your conventional ideas of narrative. Opera is theater, it’s not a class in school. And if we treat it like a class and expect it to give us all the answers in neat orderly way, we miss out.”
Rule 3: Listen, don’t just hear
“Use different faculties to listen, not just hear. Use your ears. When we go to an opera, all the sounds are messages.”
Rule 4: A little advanced preparation goes a long way.
“Read the story in advance, you can find all kinds information online. And if you a chance, borrow a recording or listen to the music online if you can. That way you’ll have a sense of the sound world you’re about to enter.”
Rule: 5 Give in to the opera once your there.
“Read the only the synopsis of the first act. Then just listen. Remember, the main narrative to an opera is the music. The second narrative is the theatricality. You’re in a world where the landscape and the story are music.”
“And Then There Were Nuns: Revolution and Religion in Poulenc’s ‘Dialogues of the Carmelites’,” a lecture by Fred Plotkin
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Ducloux Hall, Austin Lyric Opera, 901 Barton Springs Road
Tickets: Free
Information: 472-5927, www.austinlyricopera.org.
Photo courtesy Fred Plotkin.
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March 28, 2009
Today: Free music on a windy Saturday
Today, a typical Texas wind storm is bringing whipping winds to Austin — appropriate perhaps for the gathering of wind ensembles at UT’s Butler School of Music, part of the College Band Directors National Association conference.
Mostly an affair for insiders, there is a line-up of free concerts that are open to the public.
Composers John Adams and John Corigliano, among others, are in town to hear premieres of their work.
Today, three free concerts — mostly of new and contemporary works — fill the bill. And if you can’t be there in person, log in to the live webcasts. All times are Central Standard Time.
At 2:30 p.m. it’s a small concert band playing, among other selections, “Farewell to Gray” by Austin’s Donald Grantham and “Masque” by 40-year-old British composer Kenneth Hesketh.
At 4 p.m. it’s a wind ensemble playing a wide selection from Bach to “Popcopy” a new piece by Waco-based Scott McAllister, a riff on pop culture that’s snatches snippets of sound from “Saturday Night Live” to “Seinfeld.”
At 8 p.m. more wind ensemble brings “Asphalt Cocktail” by Austin-based John Mackey and the premiere of William Bolcom’s First Symphony for Band.
