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This afternoon at the Cultural Center Amy Briggs played some selections by Kurtag, Ligeti and Pärt. One of the Kurtag chunks was “The Crazy Girl with the Flaxen Hair” that suited Amy perfectly. Debussy should’ve gone to copyright court, but I guess he was dead. Following the Kurtag, were three Etudes by Ligeti separated by the calming “Variationen zur gesundung von Arinuschka” by Pärt before four more by Ligeti, finishing up with “L’escalier du diable”. which was a devil to play, as I saw in Amy’s eyes.

–
Bruce

Sunday night, 3/28, I drove down to Rockefeller Chapel on the
U of C campus (one of my favorite places on Earth) to hear
Bella Voce and the Callipygian Players perform Monteverdi’s
“Vespro della Beata Virgine – 1610″

It’s the 400th aqnniversary of this wonderful piece, and Rockefeller
Chapel, only 80 or so years old was a magnificent place to hear it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Chapel.

The highlights for me were the amazing duets for either sopranos
or tenors. Monteverdi sure had a mastery of that form, not to
mention the polyphonal full chorus.

I had a talk with the theorbo player during intermission and she
showed me how the approximately 5-ft strings were played.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theorbo.

I gave music director Andrew Lewis a big handshake for
attempting such an auspicious work,
–
Bruce

–
Bruce

Late last night after attending “Les Liaison Dangereuses” put on by
Remy Bumppo at the Greenhouse Theater near Lincoln & Belden
(BTW, well worth seeing), I heard a performance on WFMT of the
Shostakovich string quartet #8, which is now my most revered
sting quartet.

It all started with Isabel Castellvi’s performance at the Hide Out a
few years ago in Ensemble Akasha, when she programmed a motet
by Machaut transcribed for strings and the Shostakovich 8th
quartet. It was so transforming for me to be sitting a bar with a
beer and hearing such amazing classical music.

I recognized the “very sad” theme from a Masterpiece Theater
production of “Traffic” about heroin trade from Afghanistan to
Germany to England (quite a powerful drama). It was very suitable
for a funeral.

But the saddest part is Dimitry claiming there would be no one
to write his elegy, so he’d do it himself. My God, he’s Dimitry
Fricken’ Shostakovich! One of the 20th century’s most creative
geniuses. There’s no way I hear a piece and not know it came
from Dimitry. He and Sergei Prokofiev must be dancing in the
daisies now.
–
Bruce

Wednesday evening, 3/24, eighth blackbird and two collaborators,
Steven Mackey and Rinde Eckert performed “Slide”, a multi-media
show created by Mackey/Eckert based on a lab experiment where
subjects were shown un-focused slides of common objects and
were asked to guess what they were seeing. Then when the slide
was brought into focus, they were graded on their success rate.

The music wasn’t programmatic according to the study, but the lyrics
sung by Rinde made references to the theme.

I can’t adequately describe the whole event, but I’ll say the highlights
for me were the blowing on wine bottles and the ceremonial banging
of the bass drum by 8bb members.

Steve Mackey backed the whole piece on the electric guitar on stage
right, with occasional deep bass guitar by cellist Matt Photinos.
(I always knew those two instruments were simpatico.)

Just like last night for Fulcrum Point, the audience was sparse,
about 150 by my estimate. But for 8bb the few attendees got
a real experience to remember.

Tuesday, 3/23, at the Harris Theater, Fulcrum Point played
one of their most disappointing programs in memory. Somehow
the concert-going public must have sensed this in advance as the attendance was paltry; at most 200 by my estimate.
Here’s what the few devotees heard:

“Wintu Dream Song” by David Dzubay for two violins, viola, cello
and flugelhorn, played respectively by Rika Seko, Kathleen
Brauer, Claudia Lazereff-Minaroff, Marc Bandfronbrener &
Stephen Burns.

Well performed, but not memorable (and it’s only two days
since I’ve heard it).

“Kukulkan II” by David Dzubay for Janic McDonald on flute,
Wagner Campos on clarinet, Kathleen B on violin, Mark B
on cello & Kuang-Hao Huang on piano. The one is base
on a visit to Chichen Itza in Yucatán, Mexico.

I recognized all of the Chichen Itza monuments sited in this
piece, but I was only partially convinced that the music
matched their character.

“Sulvastra” by Evan Ziporyn for Rika Seko & Kathleen B on
violins, Claudia L-M on viola, Mark B on cello, Yang Wei
on Chinese Pipa & Kalyan Pathak on Indian tabla.

I thought the tabla and pipa added some entertaining
value to this piece. Although the program notes depict
some high mystical order for this music, it only reached
level 1 of nirvana for me.

“Óox p’eel ikil t’aan” by Hilda Paredes. Stephen
collaborated with the Luna Negra Dance Theater to
present this work based on ancient Mayan folklore.
(You already knew this by the title, didn’t you?)

I liked the percussive effect in this piece but Luna Negra
didn’t add much by running, moon-walking,
and flailing across stage. The only poignant moment
was the flower girl, with a sack of big (let’s say) dahlias
which were thrown at the feet of the dancers and musicians.

“Urban Legends” by Randall Woolf featuring the a whole
group of performers including percussion, sax, flute/piccolo,
oboe/english horn, french horn. Woolf attempted to bring
his knowledge of rap to the stage by capturing four rap artists
on tape and writing a chamber piece to accompany them.

The rappers were represented on-screen by B&W posterized
slides. I’d would have preferred to see them in-person lending
some reality to the words. Otherwise I would’ve shortened the
program by a few minutes and get to the wine & cheese
earlier.
–
Bruce

On Saturday 3/20, after a Matinee of the 2nd installment of
The Brother/Sister Plays at Steppenwolf I went to Wicker Park’s
Blue Line Lounge & Grill to burn some time before that night’s
MAVerick concert at the Flat Iron Arts Building.

BTW, The Brother/Sister Plays are worth seeing, but
I recommend doing them in chronological order, i.e.,
The Red and Brown Water first.

At Flat Iron Arts Building gallery 222, occupied by Kevin
Lahvic, who was a wonderful host, Jason R programmed
six pieces for the evening.

WZJB in drone by Jason Raynovich

This piece for Two-channel playback was a throwback to the squeaks
and synth-sounds you might’ve heard accompanying a video on
WTTW’s Image Union 20 years ago. Cute. And a good opener.

Scherzo by Anastasya Pavlyuk

Andrea DiOrio, clarinet and Jason R cello played this work
commissioned for the Ukrainian Museum and MAVerick by a
native Ukrainian. Although Jason declared it “not very MAVerick-y”,
I thought it quite acceptable in this context. It had the ring of
some of the pieces Seth Boustead played at his recent Sound
of Silent Film.

Capricci #4 and #5 by Salvatore Scarrino

Jennifer Lecke, soloed on violin for two of the six Capricci by
Sal Scarrino. The dexterity by Jen amazed me. There were
high-register harmonics punctuated by jabs with the bow
down low and rapid glissandi. Jennifer is back with MAVerick
from a hiatus and that’s a good thing.

Kaval Imaginario by Pablo Chin

Pablo being in attendance, how could Andrea DiOrio playing
solo clarinet not give it her all? She did, after laying out three
(or was it four?) stands for the music. The story behind this
piece was a Bulgarian tale about a shepherd out-playing the
devil, so trills and rapid scales were in order.

Juggernaut by Paul Oehlers

Jason R moved two big speakers on stage for this one. It
was a “steamroller” (or juggernaut) of a piece for solo cello
and electronics. I give this the “Best-of-Show” award because:
1) Jason wrecked his bow; 2) there was so much rosin on his
fingerboard, I thought I was in Nashville; 3) it was so much
like a classic concerto, with electronics as the “orchestra”
and the cello answering back; 4) an overall good soundtrack
with organ-bass-guitar-like synthesis.

Music for Three by John Cage

The players above on violin, clarinet and cello conclude with
a totally dry and uneventful rendition by Cage. Andrea showed
me the score with nominal timings and all. She had a Blackberry
with a stopwatch app running on her music stand.

Street Noise by the Great City of Chicago

Just Kidding. Gallery 222 faces Milwaukee Ave just about 100 feet
from the 6-way intersection with Damen and North Ave. Jason’s
WZJB piece was seriously impacted by a rumbling #56 bus.
A few other buses were noticeable, but not too distracting. And
a couple of horn honks were timed so they might actually
have been written into the composition. After the concert
Jason asked for some audience feedback on the “ambiance”.
I think it comes with the territory and can live with it in order
to enjoy new-music-in-galleries.
–
Bruce

Two French musicians, Ancuse Aprodu, piano and
Theirry Miroglio, percussion, performed at the Monday
lunch-time concert at the Chicago Cultural Center on 3/22.
It sounds like a strange combo, but it worked for me.

Ancuse began with a 30 minute solo of the Brahms
Variations on a theme by G. F. Handel. She played
a very intense performance that sent me into the “piano zone”,
if you know what I mean. That’s where you forget about
the world around you and let the sound seep in.

Theirry then went solo on drums for Xenakis’ Rebonds.
It was in two parts, the first on skins only, bongo, tom-tom,
conga and bass drum. The second part drew in wood blocks.
Theirry’s hands were flying so fast I couldn’t determine whether
the collisions of sticks was intended by Xenakas or not.

The last piece was Etude d’Interpretation XII by Maurice Ohana.
With piano and drums, tambourine, maracas, cymbal and gong
going for him, it couldn’t be uninteresting. Piano and percussion
went tit-for-tat, with the drums “tuned” to echo the piano in some
cases. Too bad it was the shortest piece on the bill that this
interesting duo actually got to play together.

BTW, I see Amy Briggs is up next week, 3/29 “Under the Dome”
at Preston Bradley Hall at the CCC.

Wednesday, March 3rd, as usual the Chicago Cultural Center hosted
a Dame Myra Hess concert under the Tiffany dome.

This week it was played by Noah Turner Rogoff, cello and Nathan Bruckner,
piano. Both are from the University of Nebraska, Kearny.

The first work, Scherzetto by Frank Bridge, was a foreshadowing of things to
come. I.e. not very exciting.

Then followed a rather dull piece by Schubert, Sonata in A minor for Piano
and Arpeggione made even duller by Noah not keeping up with his fingering
on the cello.

But the bright spot was the final Ginastera Pompeana #2 for cello and piano.
Noah and Nathan got into it, but that was only eight minutes of a forty-five
minute sit-down.

On the up side, it was a very sunny day for the walk up to the CCC
and sirens on Michigan Ave only disturbed the concert once.
–
Bruce