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Lotta “New”
by Citizen Critic | Apr 3, 2006 12:47 pm
Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author
Posted to: Arts
Hot off the musical presses, original works by local composers were on display at Woolsey Hall at a “New Music/ New Haven” performance—and they spanned a world of different musical modes. And one of the Independent’s “citizen critics” was there. Read on to see what he thought. (And if you’d like to be an Independent citizen critic and submit reviews of concerts or gallery shows or plays, click here.)
Few concerts could have matched Friday evening’s “New Music New Haven” at Woolsey Hall for sheer musical variety. Too often the emphasis is on a glitzy (usually uninteresting) virtuoso, or a handful of well-worn composers. Not so with NMNH’s annual collaboration with the Yale Philharmonia. Here the focus was on music and the incredible spectrum of expressive possibility that it offers.
First up was New Era Dance, written by Professor Aaron Jay Kernis as a response to the L.A. riots of 1992. Opening with a series of jolting gunshots, Kernis shies away from reflection and immediately adopts a thoroughly extroverted and hopeful tone, with bright brass colors, easy rhythmic grooves and even a section with the entire orchestra chanting New Era. Whether Kernis’ optimistic New Era is possible without any introspection is perhaps a question best left to the listener.
Kernis was followed by a sharply contrasting untitled composition by Ryan Vigil. This was an extremely quiet piece, opening with the soft rush of rainsticks and occasionally utilizing the shuffling of feet. Favoring delicacy and subtle variations of timbre, the work created a more objective atmosphere that rewarded careful listening.
Finishing out the first half were Missy Mazzoli’s introspective and angst-filled These Worlds In Us and Jennifer Fontana Graham’s Endurance, which was more or less what its title said.
Professor Martin Bresnick’s (at right in photo) double marimba concerto Grace followed intermission and featured the excellent Robert van Sice and Eduardo Leandro as soloists. Drawing his inspiration from Heinrich von Kleist’s essay The Puppet Theatre, Bresnick’s careful orchestration left plenty of space for the mellow timbre of the marimbas, and this paid off, especially in the bittersweet second movement.
Robinson McClellan’s subsequent Gone Today played out as a highly personal statement on death and the passing of loved ones.
The final piece on the program, Jacob Cooper’s Odradek may well have been the most successful of the student pieces. Taking Franz Kafka’s The Cares of the Family Man as its cue, Odradek is a depiction of an unintelligible creature that is “in its own way perfectly finished.” In other words, Cooper’s goal was to create something intelligible out of seemingly random elements, and in this he succeeded admirably.
As with any concert, some pieces were more successful than others, but one left Woolsey Hall marveling at the richness of the musical art-form, and that is an experience worth having.
New Music New Haven presents concerts throughout the year, usually two weeks after Philharmonia concerts. The series’ highlight occurs once a year, when NMNH combines with Philharmonia to present orchestral works by students and faculty of the Yale School of Music.
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