Saturday evening, at Redeemer Lutheran, the Happenstancers offered up a palindromic tribute to Pascal Dusapin.  As it was a palindrome I shall review it from the middle outwards.  Let us take the interval as t=0.  Then at t=+/-1 we heard Two Walkings from singers Danika Lorèn and Hilary Jean Young.  Two songs; “How Many Little Wings” and “Kiss My Lips She Did” came before the break and the rest; “May June”, “A Scene in Singing” and “It Seems To Be Turning Music” after.  And, of course the singers swapped positions at the break!  This is extremely interesting but fiendishly difficult music with the unaccompanied singers trading snatches of phrases and half thoughts in a complex atonal musical language.  I’m actually in awe that anybody can actually perform a work like this but they did, and very well.

At t=+/-2 we got works for clarinet (Brad Cherwin of course), cello (Peter Eom) and singer.  At t=-2 it was Danika with the evocative Canto and at t=+2 an equally effective account of Now the Fields from Hilary.  It’s always interesting to hear art song with something other than piano especially when the works are as complex and challenging as these.

t=+/-3 was music for cello and clarinet.  In the first half we got Laps and in the second a double bill of Ohé and Imago.  These are short, intense microtonal pieces that are interesting but demanding and once more one could not but be impressed by the musicianship.  t=+/-4 saw very short pieces by other composers for cello and percussion (Louis Pino).  Sammy Moussa’s tribute to Dusapin Six Notes for Pascal lasts less than a minute and Kaija Saariaho’s Six Notes: Long Live Love is about the same.

As you might have guessed the positions of the musicians were all reversed from t=-n to t=+n but there was a minor piece of symmetry breaking.  We got Entering Music and Exiting Music from Louis at the beginning and end of the concert but Turning Music only after the interval; as opposed to before and after.  But then without symmetry breaking the Universe as we know it wouldn’t exist.  Just to round things off there was also a little bit of symmetrical staging with the highly efficient Hoi Tong Keung draping a ladder about eight times her size with cloth at the beginning and undraping it at the end.  As always with the Happenstancers proceedings were much enhanced by Billy Wong’s atmospheric lighting.

It was a challenging but enjoyable evening; long enough to be satisfying but not outstaying its welcome.  All in all a good example of what the Happenstancers do.