Berio-ed by the Mob

Mobtown Modern: Sequenzathon (almost) the complete Seqenzas (1958 - 2002) @ The Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Luciano Berio's Sequenzas

Sequenza I (1958)

Marcia Kamper: flute

Sequenza II (1963)

Jacqueline Pollauf: harp

Sequenza III (1965)

Julieanne Klein: soprano

Sequenza V (1965)

Daniel Blacksburg: trombone

Sequenza VI (1967)

Wendy Richman: viola

Sequenza VIIa (1969)

Emily Madsen: oboe

Sequenza VIII (1976)

Gabriela Diaz: violin

Sequenza IXb (1981)

Brian Sacawa: alto saxophone

Sequenza X (1984)

Dolf Kamper: trumpet in C

Sequenza XI (1987 - 88)

Benjamin Beirs: guitar

Sequenza XIII (1995)

Lidia Kaminska: accordion

Sequenza XIV (2002)

Nathan Bontrager: cello

Down in the main gallery space of the Contemporary Museum the chairs were set, the blank wall cleared for the video machinations of Guy Werner as music stands held copious amounts of white pages for a multi-course feast of Berio's solo works.  Performer after performer bringing their most intense stare upon pages as the eyes consumed virtuosic scores from start to finish with music that often strained the limits of instrument and virtuosity.  What emerged from the saturation of rich and dissonant works was an odd mix of unwavering intensity against a maturing compositional force.  The characteristic voice of this fascinating Italian composer became clearer as each work charted his chronological progress as an artist.  The overlap of ideas steadily becoming more apparent against the contrasting textures found in the long string of pieces.  The endurance run through the dense thickness of difficult works offering many rewards.  The appeal drawing Mobtown Modern to take an extended presentation of this music becoming clear with each soloist.

The consistency of performances was striking.  Each meeting the challenges presented on the score while bringing out the impressive musicality Berio invested in these compositions.  The stark, ferociously plucked harp strings and pedal work of Sequenza II offered an early glimpse into the physicality, and near aerobic feats later realized in Sequenza XIII for accordion.  The dramatic gestures and theater of Sequenza III for soprano voice setting up nicely for Dan Blacksburg's colorful clown attire in Sequenza V for trombone.

Following up her outstanding performance of Giacinto Scelsi's Mantos III from last January Wendy Richman presented a spellbinding interpretation of Sequenza VI with an aggressive performance of a piece that nearly saws the neck off of the viola with thrilling sonic results.  Brian Sacawa made the demands of Sequenza IXb into a passionate - at times plaintive - voice for a sound that carves moments of sustained human frailty within a jagged, forceful sonic language.  And there were still more moments of impressively virtuosic feats that reinforced that sense of passion and grit in all the late Sequenzas.

The final Sequenza XIV for cello made a sharp turn toward realizing snippets of softly realized grooves as Nathan Bontrager's fingers struck the body of the cello to vibrate the fingered strings.  Moments of softness sliced by a piece that stripped several strands from the bow over the course of this performance of Berio's final installment of a lifelong body of solo works.  The phrases clearly echoing ideas explored earlier in the evening on guitar, trumpet or violin.  Berio's sensibilities having crystallized into something recognizable by the end of this experience.

Mob Testimony

Mobtown Modern: More Than Words
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD

Lipstick by Jacob ter Veldhuis
Katayoon Hodjati: flute

Manto III by Giacinto Scelsi
Wendy Richman: viola, voice

Les Corps A Corps by Georges Aperghis
Tim Feeney: percussion, voice

Zansetsu by Ken Ueno
Ken Ueno: voice, electronic processing, pop rocks

Shy Girl Shouting Music by Missy Mazzoli
Julieanne Klein: soprano
Steve Lesche: guitar
Joel Ciaccio: bass
Devin Hurd: piano

The reclusive Italian baron Giacinto Scelsi reportedly prefered having his music performed by women. The plaintive, aching beauty of Wendy Richman's performance of Manto III held many of the haunting, spiritually taut and breathlessly intense qualities that bear the distinct mark of Scelsi's music. The one-person interplay between voice and viola held the moments in suspended animation as the tension and frailty mined the singularity of focus that Scelsi's music accomplishes in the expansive, other worldly way of his own devising. Not just "more than words," this was a fleeting glimpse into a sounding universe drawn out by Richman's attentive focus to the subtle dynamic terrain and intuitive feel that bears out Scelsi's expressed preference for performances by her gender.

The "masculine" contrast to the brittle, reserved textures of Scelsi came in the form of composer/performer Ken Ueno's forceful amplification of his own extended voice techniques in Zansetsu. Here the texture is built up from an unflinching exploration of the biological components of the human voice, culminating in the chemical fizzure of dissovling Pop Rocks candy brought into close proximity to the microphone. The theatrical gesture of tearing open the bag of candy, consuming its contents and tossing away the emptied wrapper provided a punctuated moment of bravado and swagger before drawing the ears back into a sound thick with both process and processing.

With Lipstick, Jacob ter Veldhuis takes a pre-rendered track of voice samples as an accompanying rhythm track that the flute meets with percussive finger pads and swirling runs (beautifully executed by Katayoon Hodjati) that develop an expressive tension between pre-rendered source and live performance. The fractured language becomes the basis of jagged groove.

Les Corpse A Corpse builds upon the sound of percussion. Tim Feeney began by performing with a vocal sol fege of drum-like syllables to accompany his own physical drumming. The punctuating impacts of hand upon membrane triggering a clear change in the simple light structure sitting directly behind him as an added visual corollary. The composition then slowly weaves in the heavy concrete of words that form sentences over time. These were introduced deliberately, without warning, before returning with increasing development over regular intervals.

It is difficult to imagine how one perceives Shy Girl Shouting Music without having approached it through study, rehearsal and the perspective of playing it from behind the piano. What began as a rhythmic study, at times demanding in its independence between the four performers, unfolded into a surprising gem that supports the oddly reserved vocal part through a persistent thrashing in the instrumental parts. The jagged sense of groove, bordering on the funky side of Conlon Nancarrow, has piqued my curiosity for Missy Mazzoli's bandsemble Victoire.

With a focus on voice, and occasionally words, "More Than Words" unfolded layers of contrast along the soft tissue of a connecting theme. With the visual component of Guy Werner's lighting and video accompaniment the Mobtown Modern have again created a new music experience that draws in ears and minds with a mix of cohesion and music that is challenging without hostility. Reveling in the variety found on the creative fringe.

Doing Hard Time with the Mob

Mobtown Modern: Hard as F#@!
Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD
December 15, 2008
(featuring video by Guy Werner)

Mnemosyne (1986) - Brian Ferneyhough
Katayoon Hodjati: bass flute

Dances of Earth and Fire (1987) - Peter Klatzow
Wojciech Herzyk: marimba

Still (2007) - Jason Eckart
Brian Sacawa: baritone saxophone

Gra (1993) - Elliott Carter
Jennifer Everhart: clarinet

Scrivo in Vento (1991) - Elliott Carter
Sarah Eckman McIver: flute

Esprit Rude/Esprit Duox (1985) - Elliott Carter
Jennifer Everhart: clarinet
Sarah Eckman McIver: flute

All Set (1957) - Milton Babbitt
Brian Sacawa: alto saxophone
Christopher Blossom: tenor saxophone
Philip Johnson: trumpet
Todd Sturniolo: trombone
Wojciech Herzyk: vibraphone
Devin Hurd: piano
Joel Ciaccio: double bass
Todd Harrison: drum set

Music with its roots in serialism, "new complexity," set theory or academic pan-tonalism has a reputation for being dry, acerbic stuff.  A movement that has inspired dense and visually beautiful scores that can admittedly tax the cognitive abilities of the listener.  So when Katayoon Hodjati dove into the deep end of Brian Ferneyhough's lush textures of bass flutes there was the unexpected awe of talent, ability and musical extremes forming a compelling answer to why listen to this body of music.  This is compelling material.

Over the span of solo performances that followed came the reinforcement of how this music thrives in presentation.  Guy Werner's video accompaniment - realized in real time in response to the dynamic contours of each performance - added surprising depth to a music more often presented in drier settings.  The juxtaposition and association of video image set against the brutal focus these pieces demand from the performers made for an inviting mix of media that was attractive on multiple levels.

The tension of Jason Eckart's Still, a study of multiphonic technique for the baritone saxophone, made particular demands of Brian Sacawa's abilities to control sustained tones right on the brink of slipping into a chaos beyond control.  A tension that was a beautiful mix of tranquility and complexity.

Milton Babbitt's swinging nod to set theory All Set closed out the evening.  A piece I experienced from behind the piano and over a sequence of rehearsals leading up to the performance.  The final performance achieved a loose, relaxed quality as one finds their way through this high-tempo, atonal work of pre-bop.  The big band timbres of the instruments and the feel of the rhythm section brings an off kilter energy to the angular licks and serial lines that make up the harmonic and melodic material.  While Babbitt and his associates have formed an aesthetic with a reputation for being "serious" and "daunting" it is works like this, and performances such as those featured by the Mobtown Modern, that reveal "fun" and "compelling" to a body of music that spans as full a spectrum as any movement.  And there are many reasons to listen to it.

Mob Infiltration

Mobtown Modern: Sound Ecology @ Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD
October 1, 2008
The Light Within by John Luther Adams
Katayoon Hodjati: alto flute
Brian Sacawa: baritone saxophone
Ruby Fulton: violin
Nathan Bontrager: cello
Devin Hurd: piano
Wojciech Herzyk: percussion

Abime de oiseaux by Olivier Messiaen
Jennifer Everhart: clarinet

Night Chatter by Stephen Vitiellomulti-channel electronic media

Tourmaline by Alexandra Gardner
Brian Sacawa: soprano saxophone

Sea Tropes by Ingram Marshall
Katayoon Hodjati: flute
Jennifer Everhart: bass clarinet
Ruby Fulton: violin
Nathan Bontrager: cello
Wojciech Herzyk: percussion

Playing from within the "Abyss of the Birds" - the solo clarinet movement from Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time - the hushed spaces between Jennifer Everhart's phrases pulled the ears deeper within the unhurried melancholy of that work.  Composed during Messiaen's time as a prisoner of war during the second world war using bird song heard just ou

tside his confined quarters the profound introspection and solitude continues to resonate with contemporary performances.  In this case bringing a stillness into the midst of the well attended space at Baltimore's Contemporary Museum for a concert of works inspired by nature.  Abime de oiseaux was the solitary work from the twentieth century on the program - and the only piece that did not incorporate electronics into the sonic texture as early voices of the twenty-first century offered their aural ecology.

Alexandra Gardner's Tourmaline offered a dialogue between live and electronically manipulated soprano saxophone.  Named after a crystal known for it's layering of colors this piece carefully crafted an interaction between the two parts.  Gestures performed by Brian Sacawa would seamlessly blur into a timbral variant in the electronic part while sounds emanating from the speakers would transfer to the soprano saxophone as a singular phrase between two 

parts.  This allowed the electronic part to feel less like an accompaniment and more of an expressive component of the overall sound.  It also contributed to the geological sense of layering and vivid colors of its namesake.

Mobtown Modern concerts present music with a sense of single, tight sets presented without intermission.  This allows the palindromic logic of the set list to unfold.  At the center of this concert was Stephen Vitiello's Night Chatter - an electronic work for 5.1 surround speakers.  Without performers on stage, this was the contrast point within a program that moved from ensemble to soloist to empty stage to soloist and back to ensemble.  A cyclical sequence that reinforced an expansive sensibility of environment that may or may not include human presence.  But always offers sonic presence.  With Night Music the focus was on orchestration of environmental materials that imposed a beginning and an end upon excerpts from the larger world.

Ingram Marshall's Sea Tropes is a delicate, lush piece made up of lyrical threads that chart a course with a sea faring sense of rolling waves.  Having heard this piece come together from rehearsal to concert performance the sense of fragility was a wonder to behold.  The mix of modal materials, improvised sections and an electronic part of startling dynamic extremes comes together to form an attractive and unified piece.  

The Light Within by John Luther Adams forms a stasis of slowly moving harmonies made up of sustained parts.  Harmonies that transcend cadence and resolution by giving equal weight to severe consonance and rich dissonance.  Harmonies that sat under my own fingers as a performer on the piano part.  From the stage the click track from the headphones allows for the illusion of timelessness from the perspective of the audience.  As a performer, time takes on an interesting quality as one tracks it while playing outside of it.  Needing only to coordinate harmonic changes with the larger ensemble while sustaining a sense of stasis within the immediate texture.  The long durations of slowly evolving parts conveys a sense of vast, expansive landscapes of desolate extremes.  A beautiful work that finds a balance between human and geological scale.

Mob Mentality

Mobtown Modern: Too Cool for School @ The Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD
Tuesday, September 9, 2008

pastlife laptops and attic instruments (2004) - Erik Spangler
Brian Sacawa: alto saxophone
DJ Dubble8: turntables

The Anvil Chorus (1990) - David Lang
Steve Owen: percussion

Lick (1994) (remix by Hybrid Groove Project) - Julia Wolfe
Brian Sacawa: soprano saxophone
Matthew Everhart: electric guitar
Nathan Bontrager: cello
Joel Ciaccio: bass
DJ Dubble8: turntables, laptop

paint box (2006) - Anna Clyne
Jody Redhage: cello

Grab It! (1999) (remix by Hybrid Groove Project) - Jacob ter Veldhuis
Brian Sacawa: tenor saxophone
DJ Dubble8: turntables, laptop

Spinnin’ wax, playin’ sax and makin’ music with poise,
we’re the best, oh so fresh, and all the rest is noise!

- from the chorus of the HGP Anthem

Mobtown Modern brings chamber music to the street, and with it comes a mix of poise and credibility that leaves both the music and one's perception of it altered in its remixed wake. The ears are challenged and left a little more open after a good dose of schooling from a selection of works by composers just outside comfortably scholastic confines. The willingness to re-arrange - partially out of necessity and partially through a creative impulse to include turntablism as a viable part of the chamber ensemble - recasts this body of this music while remaining true to the sonic intent of these works.

pastlife laptops and attic instruments is a piece I've had the fortune of hearing evolve over a span of recordings and live performances. The collaborative duo of Brian Sacawa and Erik Spangler has continued to mold this framework into a vehicle for stretching out with improvised details. The addition of a digital delay to the saxophone pulls the live acoustic instrument even deeper into the pool of samples, beats and electronic textures. It also highlights the healthy expansion of materials as Hybrid Groove Project has grown into this piece. The inclusion of the chorus from the HGP Anthem as one of the samples added a tag of identity into the sound that clearly states the ambition and personality behind Mobtown Modern.

With Lick the remix transforms the funk-driven can banging into a canvas for the Dubble8 treatment of the percussion and piano parts. Samples snake through as the multiple pulse lines of live and electronic parts propel toward Nancarrow-esque precision. It's a different Lick as the cut-up video images completes a transformation that takes the Downtown sound a little further downtown.

Grab It! applies the remix aesthetic to a work already steeped in sampled accompaniment. The rhythmic voice part taken from the video that accompanies the live tenor saxophone falls into a bed of bass and drum lines molded along the mixed meters of this composition. A melding so tight, and so natural that the original version feels stripped down in comparison.

Programmed between the Hybrid Groove treatments was a pair of solo pieces. The Anvil Chorus offering a feast of metallic percussion and human-driven groove while paint box presented the theater of Jody Redhage cradling her cello on stage using the body of the instrument to augment the sound of a music box as accompaniment to an electronic track thick with cello.

In an evening marked by ear-driven textures the presentation added a cohesive layer of audience friendly atmosphere. The informal nod toward back-to-school nostalgia included video footage of '80s era Saturday morning cartoons and a table of complimentary snacks of fruit roll-ups and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on cut triangles of white bread. New music worth staying up late for on a school night.

The Mob Hit

Mobtown Modern @ The Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD
Friday, May 9, 2008

Not so Much: Minimalish Music

Music In Similar Motion (1969) - Philip Glass
Katayoon Hodjati: flute
Jennifer Everhart: bass clarinet
Brian Sacawa: soprano saxophone
Phil Kiamie: marimba
Erik Spangler: laptop, KP3

Vermont Counterpoint (1982) - Steve Reich
Katayoon Hodjati: piccolo, flute, alto flute

The Low Quartet (1985) - Michael Gordon
Brian Sacawa: baritone saxophone
Christopher Blossom: baritone saxophone
Jacob Chmara: baritone saxophone
Michelle Acton: baritone saxophone

Honest Music (2002) - Nico Muhly
Lisa Liu: violin

In C (1964) - Terry Riley
Lisa Liu: violin
Katayoon Hodjati: flute
Jennifer Everhart: bass clarinet
Brian Sacawa: alto saxophone
Phil Kiamie: marimba
Shodekeh: beatboxer
Erik Spangler: KP3

The additive, unison lines of Music In Similar Motion with a twist. A new arrangement with a Kaoss Pad in the mix. Video accompaniment. A performance space dressed up with candles and a modest bar. At the core of the sound is the familiar minimalist classic by Philip Glass at his most essential, static self. But there is this thoughtful, attentive re-interpretation added to the experience. It is an attractive sound that has evolved from the loft spaces of Greenwich Village of the late 1960's and found a new shape at the Contemporary Museum of Baltimore's Mount Vernon neighborhood.

At one time the Minimalist movement was regarded as a revolt against the academic serialist composers that dominated the academic institutions as they fiercely guarded and promoted their vision of the "music of the future." But the future proved too slippery to be neatly transitioned into its "logical" post-tonal era. The minimalists never claimed to hold the mantle of the "future of music" even as the steady pulse and clear tonal centers eventually eroded the core tenants of that fabled post-tonal era. Change and transition became more precious as a scarce commodity within this music. The beauty of audible process - of phasing and layering - became a focal point for a generation of composers learning to trust their ear and instinct.

Now the minimalist works of Glass and Reich are proving to be resilient as details emerge with renewed interpretations. The battle for the "future of music" has been fought to a draw and the aesthetic landscape is now marked with several minimalist masterpieces worth revisiting. The understanding and passion applied to this music by Mobtown Modern shows off its strength in re-arranging and re-shaping classic contemporary works. With a smart sequence of pieces making up the "minimalish" program the evening proved to be a heady mash-up of familiar works recast to startling effect.

Possibly the most resilient, and most re-interpreted minimalist work is Terry Riley's In C. The unspecified instrumentation, the blissful embrace of static tonal harmony and steady pulse combined with the expansive freedom of 53 short cells sequentially and individually explored by the performers has allowed this piece to thrive in many contexts. The Mobtown Modern eschewed the temptation to pile on thick layers of sound in favor of a balanced, multi-textured take that allowed the individual layers to evolve with sharp clarity. The addition of Shodekeh's human beatboxing proved to be a fresh update on the pulsing high piano C's that typically serve as the ensemble's metronome for this piece. The Mobtown Modern also chose to unfold In C with a tight forward momentum as opposed to lingering for long stretches within the trance-inducing innards of this piece.

Katayoon Hodjati's performance of Vermont Counterpoint hit upon the electric qualities of this piece as a live work as she negotiated multiple changes between piccolo, flute and alto flute while playing against a prerecorded backdrop of multi-tracked flutes. This is the first re-interpretation of this work I've heard since encountering the original Ransom Wilson recording and I was pleasantly surprised by the differences in dynamics and tempo used for this performance.

The one piece on the program unfamiliar to me was Honest Music by Nico Muhly. A beautiful work performed by Lisa Liu on violin against a prerecorded track. As my first exposure to the music of Muhly I was left intrigued. The recorded accompaniment was relatively sparse and consisted of short gestures that melded with or helped punctuate the live violin sound.

Michael Gordon takes the attractive textures of minimalism and puts a decidedly more dissonant edge to it. With the Low Quartet he brings this music to a satisfyingly primal level that comes through in this all baritone saxophone arrangement. With equal attention to sonic color and groove the Mobtown made their hit and allowed the rich detail of this piece speak for itself.

Running with the Mob

Mobtown Modern's "State of the Union" @ Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD
Tuesday, January 29, 2008

program:
Frederic Rzewski: Coming Together
Vinko Globokar: ?Corporel
Steve Reich: Come Out
Erik Spangler: Iraq Mix
Louis Andriessen: Workers Union

With video footage remixed from that "other" State of the Union delivered just the night before as a backdrop and an ensemble in combat boots the fine young subversives of Mobtown Modern launched their first performance with a focus on politically themed pieces. Any organization that kicks off with Rzewski's classic "Coming Together" has my full attention.

The sequencing of pieces was brilliant. With an edge toward radical posture balanced against progressive optimism this was a perfect context to absorb the timeless urgency of "Coming Together" or "Come Out" compared to Spangler's contemporary statement on Iraq. It was the transition from one piece into another that was especially powerful. As the final words from the Attica prison inmate in "Coming Together" was hanging in the air the room fell dark for Tim Feeney's performance of ?Corprel. Illuminated by a single flashlight, the sense of madness and isolation took on an abruptly human and disturbing form as Feeney performed percussive and vocal feats upon his own body. The video ambiance of an administration that has brought "waterboarding" into common vernacular set against the unsettling violence of Globokar's performance-art composition made for an unflinching statement.

Louis Andriessen's Workers Union is one of the most revered works in the HurdAudio pantheon. The way that piece demands an aggressive unity and rhythmic cohesion from a large ensemble makes for a beautifully loud expression of solidarity that feels substantial. In the hands of the Mobtown Modern that noise was expanded as the reasons why that masterpiece from 1975 endures filled the air.