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Arts & Entertainment, Music

What We’re Hearing This Month: Classical Music Picks for September

The Byrd Ensemble (Photo: Charleen Cadelina)

As the summer sun sets and fall begins, Seattle’s musicians are returning to the city’s halls and auditoriums for the start of a new concert season. The Seattle Symphony is always one of the first to kick things off with their annual opening night concert and gala in mid-September. Several other early-bird ensembles will follow suit, though many local groups don’t begin their concert season until next month.

Still, September might be one of the best months to catch a concert in Seattle. Crowds are smaller, programming is adventurous, and there’s a palpable sense of excitement in the air about the season ahead.

Sep. 13 — You’ve heard of Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Rachmaninoff, but do you know Frolov, Shchedrin, and Zapolsky? Experience works for violin and piano by both beloved masters and lesser known talents at the Russian Chamber Music Foundation of Seattle‘s first concert of the season, “Russian Kaleidoscope”.

Sep. 15 — Lang Lang returns to Benaroya Hall for the Seattle Symphony‘s opening night concert and gala. The ebullient pianist performs Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3, a masterpiece full of keyboard fireworks. The orchestra gets plenty of time in the spotlight as well with a colorful medley of folk dances by Brahms, Dvořák, and Bartók.

Sep. 19 — Town Hall Seattle celebrates composers of the 20th and 21st centuries with the ever-popular TownMusic series. The 2013-14 season kicks off with a concert by vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth. The 8-person group received a lot of press earlier this year when member Caroline Shaw won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Join TownMusic artistic director Joshua Roman before the show for a happy hour and season preview.

Sep. 20 – 22 — Hear three brand-new works for a cappella chorus performed by contemporary choral ensemble The Esoterics. These choral pieces were winners of the ensemble’s annual Polyphonos composition competition. This year’s winning composers hail from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and British Columbia and will all be on hand for the premiere of their works.

Sep. 22 — Eclectic performances! Interactive music classes! Food trucks! The Seattle Symphony‘s free Day of Music packs Benaroya Hall with music and art for all ages. Watch music director Ludovic Morlot conduct the orchestra, then wander through the building to catch a variety of local chamber musicians, rockers, rappers, and jazz cats in action.

Sep. 27 – Oct. 6 — Pacific Northwest Ballet honors Twyla Tharp with Air Twyla, a set of three works celebrating the renowned choreographer. The production spans thirty years of Tharp’s career, ranging from 1982’s ballroom-flavored Nine Sinatra Songs to the world premiere performance of Waiting at the Station.

Sep. 28 — Travel back in time to the English Renaissance with the Byrd Ensemble. They’ll sing music by Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and other famous Renaissance Brits. The program culminates in a performance of Alessandro Striggio’s Agnus dei, which contains 60 independent vocal parts.

 

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Arts & Entertainment, Music

JACK Quartet Blazes Through Seattle With Adventurous New Music

JACK Quartet (Photo: Rachel Papo)

In the spring of 2011, the JACK Quartet arrived in Seattle for the first time, treating the city to two very different performances. For the first, an intimate, sold-out event at the Sorrento Hotel’s Top of the Town ballroom, the quartet performed Austrian composer Georg Friedrich Haas’ improvisational String Quartet No. 3 in complete darkness. The next day, on the stage at Town Hall, the four New York-based musicians brought the crowd to its feet with blistering renditions of works by Ligeti, Xenakis, and other modern composers, all performed passionately with hair-raising technical precision.

Last week, Seattle audiences returned for JACK Quartet’s second visit to Town Hall. A sizable crowd filled the Great Hall’s pews for the Tuesday evening performance, the final concert in Town Hall’s 2012-13 TownMusic series. In keeping with the TownMusic tradition of commissioning works from emerging composers, the program featured a new piece by composer Jefferson Friedman, who traveled from his home in Los Angeles for the premiere of his Quintet, written for two violins, viola, and two cellos. Acclaimed cellist and TownMusic artistic director Joshua Roman joined the members of JACK Quartet onstage for the performance.

Composer Jefferson Friedman (Photo: Liz Linder)

Full of emotional intensity, Friedman’s Quintet tackles the subject of grief head on. Written both “about the grieving process, and at the same time (as) part of it,” the work maintains a strong focus on expressing emotion while subtly traversing melodic, rhythmic, and timbral ideas. The addition of an extra cello to the traditional string quartet instrumentation beefed up the bass range considerably, bringing a sense of weight to the music and contributing additional momentum and energy that propelled the piece along.

The work zips between moods with transitions as sudden as a summer rainstorm. At the start of the piece, a singing viola solo is framed by humming — both high-pitched and low — from the other strings, as well as warm cello harmonies. Later, sharp stabbing bow strokes create angry lightning bolts of sound while fervent melodies are passed around the ensemble. An experienced chamber musician, Roman blended effortlessly with the quartet, especially in duet sections with JACK’s cellist, Kevin McFarland.

Polish composer Witold Lutosławski’s dazzlingly difficult String Quartet dominated the second half of the program. Born in 1913, Lutosławski was a major proponent of 20th century aleatoric composition techniques, which utilize chance and randomness to determine melodic, rhythmic, and timbral elements. Unlike traditional classical compositions, the String Quartet doesn’t specify how the four musicians’ parts fit together. Instead, the work is broken up into “mobiles.” Transitions between mobiles are made as an ensemble, but within each mobile the musicians are free to interpret how the parts should intersect.

For JACK Quartet, Lutosławski’s work provided an opportunity to showcase the well-oiled machine that is their ensemble dynamics. Every nuance in timbre and timing was perfectly coordinated between each of the four musicians — no small feat given the large number of musical ideas that the piece tosses around. At the cliff-hanging climax, the performers traded vehement bow strokes, building up tension like a glass about to overflow. Teetering on the brink, the musicians began to back down one by one, in a painstakingly gradual release. A single, resigned note from cellist McFarland finally pulled the plug, releasing the web of tension and causing a near-audible sigh of relief to sweep across the room.

The concert began with two works representing rhythmic complexity from opposite ends of the musical timeline — one from 1400, and the other from 2008. Composed at the turn of the 15th century, Rodericus’ Angelorum Psalat contains some of the most complex examples of rhythm and vocal harmony of its time. JACK Quartet violinist Christopher Otto’s arrangement of the work for string quartet sounded surprisingly fresh and modern. After a meditative introduction by first violin and viola, pizzicato harmonies in the second violin and cello added an element of buoyancy, accentuating the piece’s lilting rhythms.

In contrast, Brian Ferneyhough’s Exordium exemplifies 21st century rhythmic exploration. Written in 2008 to commemorate composer Elliott Carter’s 100th birthday, the nine-minute piece is comprised of 43 tiny movements full of scratches, screeches, and glissandos, many performed in unison. The piece poses a bevy of challenges, particularly of the technical variety. Ever heard a string quartet squeak in unison, while staying perfectly in tune and varying dynamics at exactly the same rate? JACK Quartet delivered on this promise.

In his introductory speech, Roman revealed concert details for the 2013-14 TownMusic season, including an appearance by composer Caroline Shaw, winner of the 2013 Pulizer Prize for Music. She’ll be performing with the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth. Other highlights include performances of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, and three new TownMusic commissions. Stay tuned for the full season announcement from Town Hall.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

It’s All Fun and Games With the Talea Ensemble

The Talea Ensemble (Photo: Beowulf Sheehan)

From a musical tennis match to a sonic re-creation of the video game Pong, games were the theme of the evening at Town Hall last Thursday. Behind the playful blend of modern and contemporary music were the members of the New York-based Talea Ensemble, joined by cellist Joshua Roman.

Through his TownMusic concert series, Roman has given Seattle a taste of the latest trends in classical music. TownMusic performances have brought a host of up-and-coming musicians to Seattle to perform new works by today’s hottest composers. With two premieres on the program, Thursday’s concert was no exception. The ensemble also gave a nod to the 20th century with pieces by Milton Babbitt and John Zorn that were composed in the 1970s and ’80s.

The word “talea” means “cutting” in Latin, a reference to the constantly looping and evolving patterns that have been a feature of many musical traditions throughout history. Known for their devotion to contemporary sounds, the Talea Ensemble has a long history of collaboration with composers seeking to push the boundaries of classical music. So far, 2013 has been a busy year for these energetic musicians. In addition to performances in New York, Canada, Austria, and their appearance at Town Hall, the ensemble has planned a month-long collaboration in May with composer Beat Furrer. The project includes a performance of Furrer’s Fama, an intriguing work that combines opera and art installation.

The Talea Ensemble’s penchant for blending genres was certainly on display at Thursday’s concert. Several pieces mixed musical and theatrical elements to tell a story or depict a scene. Composed in 1964, Mauricio Kagel’s Match required a great deal of acting from the musicians. The piece portrays a tennis-like game between two cellists. Seated on opposite ends of the stage, cellists Christopher Gross and Joshua Roman exchanged volleys of sound back and forth, plucking, tapping, strumming, and bowing their instruments. Meanwhile, percussionist Alex Lipowski played the role of vigilant referee, moderating the cellists with an enormous collection of instruments and noisemakers. Lipowski’s exaggerated gesticulations and facial expressions added a lot of character to the performance, which felt more like a comedic vignette than a musical work.

The theme of theatrical performance continued with the world premiere of Moritz Eggert’s Pong, a clever homage to the classic video game. Like Match, Pong relies on a specific stage setup. Six musicians sit in a row on the stage, with a woodwind player on either end of the row. A sonic “volley” initiated by flutist Barry Crawford made its way down the line, passing through violin, cello, percussion, and piano before being intercepted and returned by clarinetist Rane Moore, seated at the other end of the row. The “play” proceeded back and forth for a few minutes before evolving into a series of dynamic musical themes that capture the motion and momentum of the video game. Eggert’s short work covers a lot of ground, exploring a wide range of sounds, colors, and expression. Though playful and fun, there’s some serious meat on this musical bone.

John Zorn’s Rugby involved the entire ensemble in a musical game. Instead of reading from a score, the musicians followed directions from clarinetist Moore, who directed them with gestures and placards that provided instructions to the group. Musicians could veto the directions or propose suggestions of their own by signaling to Moore. The ensuing flurry of frantic gestures generated improvisations that ran the gamut from lyricism to cacophony.

After the theatrics and gameplay of the other pieces, Milton Babbitt’s Fourplay and Vito Zuraj’s Deuce felt almost serious. Deuce, which received its U.S. premiere on Thursday, blends splatters of sound from bass clarinet and percussion — an unusual instrumental pairing. Written for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, Fourplay alternates between short lyrical phrases and bursts of staccato notes. It’s a tricky piece full of difficult technical passages and rhythmic complexity. The Talea musicians created an ideal balance between ensemble and solo playing, weaving an intricate sonic carpet that emphasized both interlocking parts and individual voices.

Seattle audiences will get another peek into the New York contemporary music scene with the next installment of the TownMusic series, coming up in June. Roman is bringing back the JACK Quartet, who wowed Seattle audiences in 2011 with their performance of Ligeti’s String Quartet No. 2. The quartet returns to the Town Hall stage with a fresh program of 21st century music, including a newly-commissioned piece by Jefferson Friedman, a composer whose work draws upon classical, rock, and electronica.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Igudesman & Joo Bring Madcap Mozartian Comedy to Town Hall

Apparently, there’s nothing that tickles this city’s funny bone more than Mozart. In their first Seattle appearance, classical music comedy duo Igudesman & Joo reduced a packed Town Hall to guffaws and giggles. Full of slapstick, musical hijinks, and general silliness, the pair’s popular show “A Little Nightmare Music” easily won over the enthusiastic Monday-night crowd. No “Seattle freeze” here! Igudesman & Joo had the audience singing, clapping along, and even mooing like cows. Victor Borge would have been proud.

Violinist Aleksey Igudesman and pianist Richard Hyung-ki Joo met as youngsters while studying at the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin School in England. Groomed for careers as professional classical musicians, the pair discovered a mutual interest in creating comedic skits. “A Little Nightmare Music”, their first comedy show, debuted in 2004. In the following years, the pair garnered worldwide fame through their numerous YouTube video clips, which have been viewed over 28 million times. The duo has also collaborated with many classical music luminaries, creating comedy skits featuring Gidon Kremer, Emanuel Ax, Janine Jensen, and Mischa Maisky.

Igudesman & Joo (Photo: Julia Wesely)

Like classical music itself, Igudesman & Joo’s comedic style combines physical, intellectual, and emotional elements into a single package. Much of “A Little Nightmare Music” is pure physical comedy at its best. It’s clear that these two musicians love clowning around, whether it involves dancing an Irish jig while playing the violin or pretending to fall asleep while playing Beethoven’s “Für Elise” on the piano.

But there’s a lot more to “A Little Nightmare Music” than just slapstick. As a fan of wordplay and wit, I enjoyed Igudesman & Joo’s clever puns and music-related jokes. In my favorite skit of the evening, Joo pretended that the piano had turned into an ATM-like device. After “swiping” a credit card, he was instructed to enter his PIN and guided through the menu of options: “For beginner level, please play ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ or press ‘C’. For professional level, please play the first five measures of the Grieg Piano Concerto”.

In addition to their careers as performers and comedians, Igudesman and Joo are both professional composers and arrangers. In their comedy skits, their musical arrangements blend jazz and classical, Piazzolla tango and Schubert’s “Ave Maria”, and just about everything else. “A Little Nightmare Music” features many humorous musical juxtapositions, cleverly sneaking the James Bond theme, “The Final Countdown”, and countless other familiar tunes into popular works by Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, and other classical greats.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of “A Little Nightmare Music” is the sheer musicianship on display. Despite all their silliness, it’s apparent that Igudesman & Joo are high-caliber classical musicians. The flashy musical material in “A Little Nightmare Music” isn’t easy stuff by any means, and the duo performs it with flair and impeccable timing. They’re also versatile. Several skits show off their jazz improvisation chops, while others give them the opportunity to serenade the audience with a couple of songs.

Following in Borge’s footsteps, Igudesman & Joo has created a winning formula of musical comedy that’s clever, entertaining, educational, and (mostly) appropriate for all ages. At Monday’s performance, I heard several children’s voices screaming with laughter, especially at the slapstick routines. Today, many classical music organizations are realizing that they must change popular perceptions of the art form in order to survive. Musicians like Igudesman & Joo, with their unique approach and refreshing sense of humor, are a critical part of this movement to re-package and re-brand classical music as a vibrant and relevant cultural element of the 21st century. Besides, sometimes we all need to be reminded not to take ourselves too seriously.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

What We’re Hearing This Month: Classical Music Picks for November

Seattle’s classical calendar is full of intriguing events in November, from musical comedy to Mahler 4. Experience recent developments in microtonality, celebrate the 100th anniversary of John Cage’s birth, and revel in the ethereal sounds of medieval chants. Explore something new this month!

Classical music comedy duo Igudesman & Joo (Photo: BR Public Relations)

Nov. 5 — In 2006, comedy duo Igudesman & Joo became an Internet sensation with their YouTube hit “Rachmaninoff Had Big Hands“. Next week, they’re bringing their signature blend of classical music and hilarious hijinks to Seattle for the first time. Catch this pair of world-class musicians at Town Hall, where they’ll perform their musical comedy show A Little Nightmare Music.

Nov. 7 — New Jersey-based Newband presents a program of microtonal works by composer Henry Partch at the University of Washington’s Meany Hall. The ensemble will perform on a collection of instruments invented by Partch, including the 31-tone zoomoozophone.

Nov. 8, 10-11 — Renowned composer John Adams conducts the Seattle Symphony in a performance of his Harmonielehre. Also on the program is Beethoven’s “Emperor” Piano Concerto, performed by notable young pianist Jonathan Biss.

Nov. 9 — Seattle Modern Orchestra presents a tribute to John Cage at the Good Shepherd Center’s Chapel Performance Space. The program features performances by SMO, Seattle Percussion Collective, and Cage specialist Stephen Drury. The evening will also include a multimedia presentation and documentary on Cage’s life.

Nov. 13 — Explore contemporary electro-acoustic chamber music at Cornish College of the Arts. Visiting ensembles the Living Earth Show and the Mobius Trio present a program of newly commissioned works.

Newband and the Harry Partch Instrument Collection (Photo: Newband)

Nov. 16 & 18 — Now in its fifteenth season, Music of Remembrance presents concerts and outreach events devoted to the memory of Holocaust musicians and composers. This month, they’ll perform Viktor Ullmann’s opera The Emperor of Atlantis, composed in 1943 at the Terezín concentration camp.

Nov. 17 — Dedicated to the performance of vocal music from the Byzantine and Slavic regions, Portland-based ensemble Cappella Romana presents a concert of medieval Latin hymns at the atmospheric St. James Cathedral. Famed French choral director Marcel Pérès will conduct the ensemble.

Nov. 29 & Dec. 1 — Seattle Symphony Music Director Ludovic Morlot takes on Mahler’s momentous Symphony No. 4, featuring soprano soloist Donatienne Michel-Dansac. Also on the program is Berg’s Violin Concerto, performed by up-and-coming young German violinist Veronika Eberle.

 

 

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Bach to the Future With Author Paul Elie

Bach is everywhere these days. Good ol’ Johann Sebastian’s music can be found in concert halls, films, ringtones, and even in outer space. How did a 17th century German composer become such a ubiquitous cultural figure in our 21st century world? In his new book Reinventing Bach, author Paul Elie discusses the many ways Bach’s music has influenced modern society and the many ways technology has impacted our experience of Bach’s works. On Monday, Elie, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, visited Town Hall to speak about these ideas, interweaving passages from his book with musical examples and anecdotes from his personal odyssey with Bach.

Paul Elie

The story of Bach’s music in the 20th century is the story of audio technology and how it has changed the way we experience music. Elie explained these technological developments and their effects through the stories of key musical figures and their relationship with Bach. Much of his presentation was devoted to illuminating the lives of legendary musicians Pablo Casals, Glenn Gould, and Leopold Stokowski while examining how each used the technology of the day to experience Bach’s music.

One of the greatest cellists of the 20th century, Casals was one of the first musical pioneers to experiment with recording technology in the 1920s and 30s. Pianist Gould, born a generation after Casals, grew up surrounded by musical recordings and actually preferred them to live performances. Thanks to Stokowski, a renowned conductor in the classical music world and in Hollywood, Bach’s music became a staple in film soundtracks.

Elie’s stories and musical examples paint a picture of technology as a friendly, helpful force that’s rescued the music of Bach from obscurity by making it available to a much wider audience. He argues that musicians throughout the 20th century have consistently found a way to utilize the latest technological advances while remaining true to the spirit of Bach and his music.

Despite today’s debates about illegal music downloading, crowd-sourcing back-up bands, and the CD versus mp3 battle, it’s nice to take a step back and appreciate Elie’s big picture ideas. Thanks to recording technology, millions of people around the world have access to a wealth of different interpretations of Bach’s music. Whereas Bach could only hear his own compositions when he could muster the musicians to perform them, today’s listeners can take the composer’s music with them everywhere they go.

Elie may have been preaching to the choir on Monday — the majority of the Town Hall audience seemed to be classical music fans. Yet his talk still presented plenty of obscure facts that even the most seasoned Bach aficionado could appreciate. Meanwhile, Elie’s emphasis on storytelling and anecdotes made his lecture engaging and appealing to a wider audience. Based on the passages read from the book during his talk, Elie’s Reinventing Bach seems to have something for everyone, whether you’ve heard Bach’s Cello Suites one time or one hundred times.