My review of Wednesday’s concert at the TSO with Emily D’Angelo is now up at Bachtrack.
Photo credit: Allan Cabral
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Tag Archives: mazzoli
Viola+
Not so long ago if one wanted to do interesting electronic music things one needed a studio full of enormously expensive equipment, access to which was likely restricted to a fortunate few. Now with a few relatively inexpensive mikes, a laptop and some speakers one can create all kinds of cool stuff and perform it in almost any venue. The recording ‘m going to talk about here was made a few years ago but it’s good and pretty typical of what I’m talking about.
Ecstatic Science
Ecstatic Science is the fourth album from New York sextet yMusic. They are a young group of really excellent instrumentalists noted for their collaborations with composers who defy easy classification. There is plenty for a composer to work with in terms of palette. The group consists of Alex Sopp – flute, Mark Dover – clarinet, CJ Camerieri – trumpet and horn, Rob Moose – violin and guitar, Nadia Sirota – viola and Gabriel Cabezas – cello. The music on the record is all by young(ish) American composers noted for their eclectic styles. So everybody involved is a first rate classically trained musician who isn’t afraid to go to non-traditional places. Continue reading
Dark with Excessive Bright
I’ve listened to and liked a lot of Missy Mazzoli’s operatic and vocal music but hadn’t had much exposure to her purely instrumental writing so was interested to get hold of a copy of her new SACD release Dark with Excessive Bright.
The title track was originally composed as a concerto for double bass and string orchestra but here it’s given in two reworkings for solo violin; one with string orchestra and the other with string quintet. The soloist is Peter Herresthal and in the orchestral version he’s accompanied by the Bergen Philharmonic conducted by James Gaffigan. I think all the hallmarks of Mazzoli’s music, except perhaps the use of electronics, are present in this piece. There’s a baroque sensibility combined with 20th century minimalism but in the context of the 21st century’s embrace of individual voices rather than dominant fashions. So, largely tonal chords are recycled n different, fairly repetitive rhythmic patterns, but it never gets dull or new agey. I think I like the arrangement for string quintet even more. Here it’s players from the Arctic Philharmonic conducted by Tim Weiss accompanying. The textures are lighter and it seems to have more clarity. Good stuff.
Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres), played by the Arctic Philharmonic and Weiss, is fascinating. There are rococo loops, slow at first, then wilder, playing over a hurdy gurdy like wheezing, droning sound. It gets louder and more insistent and quite ominous before fading away into nothingness. Continue reading
sweet light crude
sweet light crude is a 2010 album by the ensemble Newspeak. It contains six pieces by different composers in a style that has been called “punk classical”. To me, the six pieces are varied enough that I’d be reluctant to put a two word label on the “style” but it’s certainly reflective of a certain kind of New York music making that combines contemporary classical influences with a whole lot of other stuff.
Here are brief, and possibly useful (or not), descriptions of each piece.
- Oscar Bettison’s B&E (with aggravated assault) is a high energy number that sounds like a sort of squeaky minimalist jazz with a drum kit in the background.
- Stefan Weisman’s I Would Prefer Not To, by contrast uses an eyhereal high vocal line over lyrical instrumentals with a rhythm section in the background.
- David T. Little’s sweet light crude is another vocal piece that starts with more ethereal vocals ove a folky violin tune and drone before become something more like synth pop.
- Missy Mazzoli’s In Spite of All This plays off a sort of scooping violin rtiff against a minimalist piano line.
- Pat Muchmore’s Brennschluß goes full on apocalyptic with heavy metal influences. It’s quite chaotic and requires a range of vocal styles including speech.
- Finally, Caleb Burhans Requiem for a General Motors in Janesville is very low key. There’s a slow melody line plus drones before vocals kick in with a kind of post industrial dust bowl feel.
All in all it’s 42 minutes of really varied and intriguing music of a kind I only seem to come across from the New York indie classical scene. It’s well recorded and currently available for download in MP# and CD quality FLAC formats.
For the record Newspeak is Caleb Burhans – violin, Mellissa Hughes – voice, James Johnston – piano, synth, organ, Taylor Levine – guitar, David T. Little – director, drums, Eileen Mack – co-director, clarinets, Brian Snow – cello and Yuri Yamashita – percussion.
Catalogue number: New Amsterdam Records NWAM026
Emily D’Angelo with Sophia Muñoz
There was never a chance that Emily D’Angelo’s solo recital at Koerner Hall was going to be a steady procession of German lieder and French chansons with the odd Broadway number thrown in and it wasn’t. It was what D’Angelo fans would expect and (some of us at least) crave; lots of women composers and lots of contemporary music. There were five sets.
The first linked Hildegard von Bingen, Arnold Schoenberg and Missy Mazzoli. I’m going to focus on the Mazzoli. There was “Hello Lord” from Vespers for a New Dark Age and “You Are the Dust” from Songs from the Uproar. Both of these are stage works scored for chamber ensemble and electronics so they sound very different in piano score. Emily sang the with great purity and clarity and Sophia accompanied beautifully though there’s just no way one can capture the synth pop inflections of Mazzoli on piano. That said, it was a great advert for two works a I really admire. Continue reading
Kronos+
The Kronos Quartet played Mazzoleni Hall last night along with the three young string quartets they have been working with this week. First up was the Dior Quartet (Noa Sarid, Tobias Elser, Caleb Georges and Joanne Yesoi Choi); the Glenn Gould School’s Quartet in Residence, with Soon Yeon Lyuh’s Yessori. They were followed by the Taylor Academy Quartet (Nicholas Vasdilakoupolos-Kostopoulos, Ophit Strumpf, Angelina Sievers and Ethan Jeon) with Yotam Haber’s rather meditative From the Book. The Glenn Gould School Quartet (Tiffasny Tsai, Tiffany Yeung, Tristan Macaggi and Shun-Nin Yand) closed out the student part of the evening with Aleksandra Vrebalov’s semi-improvisatory My Desert, My Rose. The standard of playing by all three groups was really high.
Kronos Quartet perform at the Roskilde Festival.
Alburnum
Alburnum is a record of contemporary American art song from baritone Brian Mulligan (Torontonians may remember him as Enrico in the COC’s 2013 Lucia di Lammermoor) and pianist Timothy Long. There are two substantial pieces; each about 26 minutes long. The first is Walden by Gregory Spears and it sets four prose extracts from Thoreau’s work with an extremely minimalist piano accompaniment. I’m not really sure about turning prose into song and I’m not a huge Thoreau fan. Perhaps if I were I would have found this more interesting. It’s pleasant enough; it’s tonal and somewhat melodic and Mulligan has a pleasant voice but I wasn’t excited.
How do you murder a sound?
Mizzy Mazzoli’s latest opera The Listeners is now available on the OperaVision channel on Youtube. It’s a Den Norske Opera production recorded in Oslo a couple of months ago and it’s very interesting. There are several short trailers etc on the channel that you can use to get an idea of what it’s about and what it sounds like.
Best of 2021
2021 was another year of parts. Pretty much no live indoor performances before September then a few chances to get to the theatre and now, well who knows? So what stood out for me in 2021? Here’s a round up by category.
Live Shows
Not much of course but there were some good shows, though opera didn’t really figure. The Home Project from Native Earth and Soulpepper was a thought provoking look at the the idea of “home”. MixTape at Crow’s Theatre explored the variegated nature of relationships through the medium of the once ubiquitous mix tape. And on a more conventional note there was a rearranged at short notice recital at Koerner hall that showcased the extremely talented Davóne Tines. Continue reading
operaramblings 