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Monday, shortly after noon, Ann Chang-Barnes was the featured
pianist in Preston Bradley Hall at the Cultural Center.

Her program began with a Bach transcription from the Andante
from his Sonata #2 for violin. As you might’ve picked up from
past postings, I enjoy Bach on the keyboard.

Because there was a microphone beside the piano, Ann spoke
about all the remaining pieces she played. There were two Chopin
classics, the Ballade Op 23 in G minor and the Nocturne in C#
minor.

Between the Chopin was the Beethoven Moonlight Sonata.
Ann spent great length explaining the differences between
the forte-piano upon which Beethoven composed this sonata
and the modern Steinway. She was going to do her best
on the pedals to make the performance semi-authentic.
Hey, it worked for me.

Bruce Oltman

I’ve been delayed in posting this week by various Holiday activities.
But there’s been a lot happening, so I’ll try to keep it brief.

Sunday 12/13 CSO/AIC Salon Series -

Sunday in Fullerton Hall at the Art Institute the CSO presented the initial
chamber music concert of the season. I began with a slide show
and very informative short talk by James Cuno about the works of Degas depicting the Paris Opera Ballet. Did you know young, poor prospective dancers auditioned for the ballet in hopes of being discovered and finding “sugar daddies” from Paris’s elite gentlemen?

Going under the name of the Atlantic Piano Trio, Nathan Cole, Brandt Taylor and John Novacek, violin, cello and piano respectively, performed trios by Beethoven, Schoenfield and Dvorak. Being biased towards new music, I was delighted to hear the Schoenfield “Cafe Music” sandwiched between two solid piano trios. More about sandwiches* later.

(BTW, on Friday afternoon I got a phone message from James himself wishing me holiday greetings and reminding me to keep supporting the AIC.
He must’ve been very busy that day

Sunday 12/13 Un-Silent Night in Chicago -

Later Sunday evening I participated in a what got’s to be called a “happening”
by 21th century standards. Phil Kline composed a piece to be played on
multiple boomboxes during the Christmas season called “Unsilent Night”.
So at the invitation of dal niente pianist Mabel Kwan, I joined the throng of
20 to 30 others who strolled down North Michigan Ave to the Bean and
finally the Daley Center Christmas tree. The atmospheric music, slightly
different on each boombox, included chimes, chant, bells and general
“space music”. It was fun and the weather was fine. Watch out for it next year.

Sunday 12/13 ICE turns Bach -

Even later Sunday night ICE guitarist Daniel Lippel played three Bach
transcriptions for guitar. They were beautifully rendered with the most
delicate touch on the stings. Claire Chase, playing with Daniel in the
Flute Sonata in E Major was “*sandwiched” between Partita in B Minor
and Lute Suite #3 in A Minor. The folks at St Paul’s Chapel in Lincoln
Park hosted a great reception after the concert

Tuesday 12/15 Third Coast at The Chopin Theater -

Third Coast Percussion’s concert at the Chopin began with the recent
version of Arvo Pärt’s “Fratres” for percussion ensemble. To those familiar
with the Fratres series for various combos, his latest one (2006) hasn’t
been performed in Chicago until now. Marimbas, vibes, glockenspiel,
bass drum, auto spring and woodblock were all in-sync to refrain
the familiar Fratres themes. (It inspired me to find and play my CD with
the other Fratres versions: NAXOS 8.553750)

Two other marimba/vibe pieces by Alejandro Viñao and Fredrik Andersson
completed the 1st half. They both complemented the Pärt by being
somewhat moody and mysterious.

The second half was all Matt Barnson. 3rd Coast commissioned a
percussion quartet from him in 2008. In four movements it covered a
range of musical moods from quiet to bombastic. In the last movement,
I was especially impressed by David Skidmore’s playing of the
brake drum. You don’t get to hear much prominent brake drum at regular
new music concerts

There was an added element at this concert too. 3rd Coast arranged
with the Chopin’s lighting director, Lee Keenan, to do lighting effects
for the show. The concert was held on the set of Chopin’s current
production “All the Fame of Lofty Deeds”. Lights came up and went down
in sync with the pieces being played. Although some of the peripheral
lighting was superfluous to my attentions to the players, it was
very effective in determining when these pieces (unknown to me)
ended.

Friday 12/18 Chicago Ensemble at the PianoForte Salon Series -

Friday at lunchtime I usually walk up to hear piano recitals at the
Sherwood School. This week there was a piano quartet, the Chicago
Ensemble. The program was to include Mozart’s Quartet #1 in
G Major and a new work by Jan Swafford. But the 45min time limit
didn’t allow both. So Gerald Rizzer, Artistic Director, decided to
substitute Mozart’s scherzo movement with the Swafford. He called
it a Swafford *sandwich. It worked for me.

PianoForte is in need of funding to support The Salon Series at
Sherwood for the 2nd half of the season. Pass the hat…

Friday 12/18 Fused Muse at Epiphany Church -

Out in the West Loop at Ashland & Adams is the Romanesque
church of the Epiphany. It was the venue for a new ensemble
for new music, dance and visuals called “Fused Muse”.
It’s inspired by cellist Sophie Webber and including pianist Phyllis
Chen, composer/pianist Zvonimir Nagy, dancer Ben Delony,
artist Haley Nagy and lighting designer Baltazaar Pena-Rios.

The program started with Sophie playing a solo of Benjamin
Britten’s Suite for Cello #1 (1964) accompanied by Ben doing
interpretive dancing. I haven’t heard such recent Britten, so
it was new music for me, and brilliantly performed by both.

The second piece, composed by Zvonimir Nagy, with projections
of art by his wife Haley missed the mark for me. I’ve seen
many more multi-media presentations in the past seasons
that have the same problem. The projections just don’t jive
with the music.

The 2nd half, after wine and munchies, was going to be interesting.
Phyllis Chen, of Toy Piano fame, played the Shostakovich Sonata
for Piano and Cello in D Minor with Sophie. Phyllis put her all
into it and Sophie played from memory. I love the Shostakovich
chamber works, and was in the zone

The last “Pärt” of this concert was by Arvo himself. It was
“Spiegel im Spiegel” (Mirrors within Mirrors) for piano and cello.
“Mirrors” was the theme of the evening’s concert, and this was
a fitting finale. Except the excellent urban traffic visuals projected
on the scrim were interrupted by a computer glitch 3/4s from the
end. (Oh well, even Macs aren’t perfect.)

I’m inclined to say the lighting designer should be designated
the “darking” designer, because so much of the performance
was in the dark and there should’ve been at least cameo lights
for performers taking their bows.

Sorry it wasn’t so short. But as Joe E Brown once said: Nobody’s Perfect.
–
Bruce Oltman

Saturday night, 12/19 at either 7pm or 8pm depending on the sources you depend on, the Maverick Ensemble performed at the Flat Iron Arts Building. I was in the crowd who thought
8pm was the starting time, but walked into the tail-end of the concert. Fortunately Jason acknowledged the publicity problem and volunteered to re-play any requests by late comers after the wine/pizza/brownie reception.

The replays were followed by an interesting jazz trio with Jason
on cello. He said he didn’t have an electric cello like Katinka Kleijn,
but he sure dug into it with verve!

A similar concert-time disconnect happened at the U of C Renaissance
Society two seasons ago. At that time the ensemble re-played the whole first half of the program for those who arrived at the later published time. I don’t think the musicians minded the re-do.

Bruce Oltman

At least that’ s what Thomas Zoells said after I showed up for
the third consecutive performance sponsored by PianoForte
Friday at noon for Laura Fenster, Friday Night for Phyllis Chen
and this afternoon for Italian pianist Alessandro Taverna.

Alessandro introduced all the pieces in a charming Italian
accent. He turned out to be the best pianist I’ve seen this
season. He performed Bach’s English Suite #5 in E minor which was
so wonderful I wished we could resurrect Glenn Gould. Bach’s
keyboard pieces transcribed for piano always send me to the
“zone”.

Alissanro concluded the 1st half with a very animated
Tarantella by Liszt. After a short intermission, we heard a Fantasy in F-sharp by Mendelssohn, and then a great rendition of three tableau from
Stravinsky”s Petrushka ballet. It was piano pounding at it’s best
The whole recital was done from memory, which always impresses
me.

Bruce Oltman

Instead of going the normal course to hear ICE’s great duos of flute & flute (Wired) and bass clarinet & sax (Lowfirm), I went up to the Fine Arts Building to hear Phyllis Chen play toy piano in PianoForte’s experimental piano series.

Phyllis played three pieces for solo toy piano by Karlheinz Essl, Fabian Svennson and Andrian Pertout. I doubt any readers of this would be familiar with these pieces. But by toy piano standards, they were very good.

The fourth piece was by Phyllis herself. She ’s mastered the art of hand-punching music-box paper to play along with the toy piano. “Carousel” was fascinating because it demonstrated that a good musician can crank a music box with her left hand while playing melody with her right.

For the last two pieces of toy piano, Phyllis was joined by her friend of many years, Alex Peh. They played pieces by Takuji Kawai and David Smooke. Wow, four hands banging on toy pianos! Very cool.

Phyllis is playing real piano December 18th & 19th 8pm at Epiphany
Episcopal Church, 201 S Ashland with cellist Sophie Webber and a multi-media show with dancer Ben Delaney. The music will be by Britten, Shostakovich, Part and Nagy.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR.

As is the custom, the second half of the Experimental Series is jazz.

Steve Cohn improvised on the piano for about 10 minutes then was joined by Christopher Preissing on Flute, Guillermo Gregorio on clarinets, and Dan Godston on trumpet. There were two long sets.

During the second set Steve played a couple of miscellaneous instruments like bamboo flutes and an autoharp. Meanwhile the flutist was playing a chopped-off flute with his finger up the tube to make sounds like a tin-whistle. That was new to me, and the jazz set wasn’t too shabby.

I’d say it was a worthwhile substitute for ICE. I stopped by MoCP on my way home to say hello the the ICE Crew. They were very gracious and knew about the double booking. So it’s live-and-let-live in the new music circle.

Bruce Oltman

As is my usual weekly habit, I walk up to the Sherwood School for the Pianoforte Salon Recitals then to Jewel and/or Harris on Wabash to get food or money.

Today I was all wrapped in a scarf and Russian Army hat, so I thought
I’d sit in the balcony so nobody could see my bad hair. As it turned out,
there were at least a dozen other concert go-ers up there to see my bad hair.

But the music was wonderful. Laura began the program with two of the
Preludes and Fugues Opus 87 #7 & #8 by Shostakovich that I’d never
heard before. They were very different from other Shostakovich piece’s
I’m familiar with. She said during the interview with Scott Thomas
that were many more in this Opus to chose from. I should look into them.

She finished with Beethoven’s last piano sonata Opus 111. Again, this isn’t one we don’t hear very often. It tickled my inner music bone though.

Hey, get to Sherwood for lunchtime on Friday before it goes away,
(which it might). Or tune into WFMT Friday at 12:15 (which might go
away too).
–
Bruce Oltman

Tuesday night at the Harris Theater eighth blackbird took on the challenge of presenting a 97 year old work by Arnold Schoenberg: Pierrot lunaire.

It was staged and choreographed for dancer Elyssa Dole and other members of eighth blackbird. Lucy Shelton, a well versed Schoenberg interpreter did the singing and Sprechstimme. There were supertitles which I chose to ignore, because I was totally wrapped up in the music and movement on stage. It’s hard to imagine how an audience in 1912 would have accepted this work, because even today it’s challenging, but none the less rewarding.

In the first half of the concert, eighth blackbird and Lucy Shelton performed some Weill/Brecht songs of that I’m familiar with, but not in these specific arrangements.

Another ear opener for me in the first half was Alban Berg’s Adagio from
“Kammerkonzert” arranged for violin, clarinet & piano, circa 1925. I’ve
never been a fan of serialists, but this wasn’t half bad. Probably because
the performers treated it with such nuance and delicacy.

Bruce Oltman

http://www.laphil.com/tickets/festival-wclc.cfm

LAPhil / John Adams, Conductor: Saturday, 5 Dec 2009 8:00pm
WDCH:Ron Burkle / Ralph’s Food 4 Less Foundation Auditorium

The hall is 70% full.

The final Festival event for me and it was a winner, concluding with one of my favorite pieces of the decade: Adams’ “The Dharma at Big Sur” , Leila Josefowicz playing a true electric violin. Dazzling

The other three pieces were new to me:

1) Paul Dresher (1951 -): “Glimpsed from Afar” – a duo for Quadrachord and Marimba Lumina” (2006). Paul played Quadrachord and Joel Davel played Marimba Lumina. Both are newly invented instruments. Together, they came make some big statements in this room. Quite an interesting piece. You will challenged to get a Quadrachord into your living room – it is nearly 14 feet long.

2) William Kraft (1923 -): Timpani Concerto No 1 (1983). How many ways can you strike a timpani? Hands with gloves. Hands without gloves. Sticks and mallets. Joseph Pereira, was the soloists. He had 5 drums and Kraft gave a lot of ways to show off.

3) Leonard Rosenman (1924 – 2008) . Selected music from the score for the film “Rebel Without a Cause” (1955) . Before they play the music, John honors Leonard, who died last year.

Very clever program

Teddy D. Boys

http://www.laphil.com/tickets/festival-wclc.cfm

Saturday: UpBeat Up!: Los Angeles Philharmonic
5 Dec 2009 – 7:00pm
WDCH:BP Hall

Molly Sheridan , American Music Center, NewMusicBox, moderator;
John Adams & William Kraft , guests

Full House again

John apologizes for leaving so many composers out of the Festival. He joins William Kraft in honoring LA audiences for supporting contemporary music in big ways. Kraft founded the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group – he can take a lot of the credit for developing audiences for new music here.

UpBeat Live! is available for your listening pleasure:

http://www.laphil.com/education/upbeat-live-2009.cfm?past=1#schedule

Teddy D. Boys