Night After Night

Ken Thomson goes bang.

Ken Thomson, by James Hirschfeld

Ken Thomson and I first crossed paths back in 1997, when I was the publicist for the Knitting Factory and its first-annual [sic] Texaco Jazz Festival (formerly What Is Jazz?), and he was part of an intrepid team broadcasting multiple events for Columbia University's invaluable radio station, WKCR-FM.

Since then, I've eagerly and admiringly followed Ken's exploits as the force-of-nature reedist who fronts avant-skronk jazz quartet Gutbucket; in the new-music all-star aggregate Signal; with the composerly chamber-jazz combo slow/fast; and in the riotous Bang on a Can street band Asphalt Orchestra – the last of which you'll see tearing up the pavement anew at Lincoln Center Out of Doors this summer.

All of which makes it a distinct pleasure, if hardly a surprise, to congratulate Ken on his new status as clarinetist for the Bang on a Can All-Stars, announced mere moments ago. No question, Evan Ziporyn is a tough act to follow…but if anyone can do it, Ken can.

Watch Ken in sax-dervish mode, fronting Gutbucket in his "dOg Help Us" at Le Poisson Rouge:

Jon Gillock at the Church of the Ascension, March 5, 2013

Jon Gillock, by Kenneth Dickerman/The New York Times

Jon Gillock at the Church of the Ascension, March 5, 2013
The New York Times, March 7, 2013

A gripping account of Messiaen's awe-inspiring Méditations sur la Mystère de la Sainte Trinité, played by a Messiaen expert on an instrument made to order as part of an ongoing project to record Messiaen's complete organ works on that instrument, the Manton Memorial Organ. Since no photograph accompanied this review, I've posted a photograph of Jon Gillock playing at the Church of the Ascension taken from Vivien Schweitzer's review of the organ's inaugural concert, on May 5, 2011.

I'll add, somewhat sheepishly, that this review initially disappointed me on reflection; I think I might have included too much background and atmosphere at the cost of musical and performative considerations. But from out of the blue came a welcome email from a good friend, who said that this passage in my review…

In thunderous climaxes the sanctuary shook. Eerie intimations hung tremulous in the air. And Messiaen’s bountiful birds — joyful reminders, to him at least, of God’s omnipresent hand in the mundane — warbled high and clear.

…took her right back to her own earlier experience of hearing Gillock play Messiaen on the Manton instrument. That made me feel better – yet I wonder how much of her response was predicated on being able to fill in details I omitted.

Writing remains a continual challenge.

Francesca da Rimini at the Metropolitan Opera House, March 4, 2013

Marcello Giordani, Eva-Maria Westbroek and Mark Delavan, by Ruby Washington/The New York Times

Francesca da Rimini at the Metropolitan Opera House, March 4, 2013
The New York Times, March 7, 2013

I don't often get much direct response to my Times reviews in the form of email; usually that's reserved for social-media channels and the occasional comment here on the blog. In this case, though, two notes I received after this review came out – one on my home address and one via the Times – left me disappointed that I'd failed to clearly convey the real motivation behind the question with which I closed the review: "Still – why?"

So, to be perfectly clear, I wasn't actually questioning why the Met would devote its considerable resources to an also-ran of the operatic repertoire. Fact is, I think the Met could stand to explore such byways more frequently. A diet of nothing but consensus masterpieces, however well done, could grow deadly dull in time, and the Met does tend to trot out its greatest hits and recent reimaginings rather frequently.

The music in Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini is inventive and ravishing, no two ways about it, and I also meant what I wrote about the clever economy of its dramatic pacing. The production is an old-school eye-popper of the sort we see infrequently now, apart from Zeffirelli revivals, and the directing is basically agreeable, though I absolutely agree with John Yohallem's observation regarding one particular scene, well-stated in his astute review on Parterre Box:

David Kneuss, who restaged the production, has the Malatesta army in Act II stand at attention staring up at Francesca and Paolo as they confess their immoral love to each other, which can’t be the ideal way to keep it secret from Gianciotto. At least turn the soldiers around, hey?

The question at the end had everything to do with the two principal performers, both of them honorable artists. Eva-Maria Westbroek's sound could be impressive, but lacked a certain floating quality that her character warranted; more importantly, her enunciation lacked clarity and incisiveness entirely.

As for Marcello Giordani – who, as I've revealed before, was my ur-tenor ages ago at Houston Grand Opera, where he made an indelible impression as my first-ever Duke of Mantua in a Rigoletto that literally changed my life – I wonder if it was his recent troubles in Les Troyens that made him seem so cautious and troubled here? I have immense respect for Giordani, but this was not a comfortable evening for him.

So, to complete the thought I tried to telegraph in that final, lingering question, why did the Met devote such evident resources to this revival without the proper principal artists to bring out what's best about the opera itself?

 

Jennifer Koh at the 92nd Street Y, March 2, 2013

Jennifer Koh, by Jennifer Taylor/The New York Times

Jennifer Koh at the 92nd Street Y, March 2, 2013
The New York Times, March 5, 2013

I specifically remember thinking, as Jennifer Koh managed to give each voice in Bach's fugues its own sound and personality, that the shadows playing on the wall behind her served as perfect illustrations for the sensation I was experiencing. I thought about mentioning this unique shadowplay in my concert review, but ultimately decided against it. Had I known that this particular gorgeous photo by Jennifer Taylor would accompany the review, I certainly would have chosen differently.

Simply put, Koh, who I profiled for the Times earlier this year, is a supremely gifted, extraordinarily focused and motivated artist, and this was a very special concert. If it doesn't end up on some year-end list I'll be compelled to create, it will have been a remarkable year indeed; right now, it's a lock.

Collegiate Chorale at Carnegie Hall, February 27, 2013

Collegiate Chorale, by Richard Termine/The New York Times

Collegiate Chorale at Carnegie Hall, February 27, 2013
The New York Times, March 2, 2013

Here we are at Night After Night post No. 1,000. Feels auspicious, even if it's just a link to the latest of my New York Times reviews. If this particular report comes off as a bit dismissive toward a pair of today's most prominent composers, it's only because I know a lot of music by Philip Glass and Osvaldo Golijov, and compared the two works at hand strictly to their own stronger pieces.

Curious, given the accusations of plagiarism – or at least inopportune borrowing, inappropriately explained – on Golijov's part in recent years, that more wasn't made of it when Glass responded to a major commission with a symphony one-third recycled from his own film score to Powaqqatsi – and really, in my view, recycled to no great effect. Tim Page's Washington Post advance feature contained no mention of the self-borrowing, nor did Jens F. Laurson's customarily keen Ionarts review. Only the Washington Times reviewer noted the reused music with bewilderment.

(An aside: The Washington Times review has no byline on the paper's website. The online journalism archive HighBeam Research credits the article, rightly or not, to Julia Duin, a veteran religion reporter fired in 2010, purportedly for speaking ill of Times management.)

Presumably reporters and reviewers ignored Glass's recycling because the program note provided, written by Richard Freed, didn't acknowledge it. Neither does the liner note included with the CD recording of the symphony issued by Glass's Orange Mountain Music record label. But Richard Guérin, who edits the Glass Note blog, cited Glass's reuse of the film music openly in a 2011 post, and the point was also noted in the Collegiate Chorale's program notes at Carnegie Hall.

To be perfectly clear, "The Unutterable" is very good Glass music. And I don't personally take any issue with a composer reusing his own music; where would Copland's Symphony No. 3 (1946) be without its incorporation of his Fanfare for the Common Man (1942)? But the lack of transparency about it feels shifty.

More important, in the context of the symphony's two previous, very effective movements, a sudden shift to an earlier, starker style seems jarring. And the music, meant as a film cue, ends without any sense of concluding – saddling a heretofore dramatic symphony with a wan, anticlimactic ending that left the Carnegie Hall audience confused and hesitant to respond.

At the Kennedy Center premiere, the symphony's final movement featured more extensive choral parts and a brief, contrasting coda – which included the work's only instance of the archetypal Glass arpeggio. I've heard the complete original version of the symphony in an uncirculated reference recording. I wonder now if the removal of these elements wasn't a mistake, given my impressions of the revised version in this Carnegie Hall performance. (You can hear the original coda in the Richard Guérin blog post I mentioned above.)

Golijov's Oceana, on the other hand, is a fine piece on its own merits, with some positively thrilling choral writing and exciting episodes for its featured jazz singer. (One of the best moments found the Carnegie Hall soloist, Biella Da Costa, with harp, three flutes and percussion.) It's really only in comparison to Golijov's later, extraordinary Pasión según San Marcos, that Oceana falls short.

You can read a detailed alternate take the Collegiate Chorale concert on Oberon's Grove, and still another perspective on Superconductor. Vive les blogs!

Avant Music Festival at the Wild Project, February 16, 2013

Matoaka Little Eagle, Cleek Schrey, Mary MacKenzie and Jessica Schmitz, by Julieta Cervantes/The New York Times

Avant Music Festival at the Wild Project, February 16, 2013
The New York Times, Feb. 20, 2013

Last month I was lucky enough to get to hear a live performance of John Cage's Apartment House 1776 as part of the Avant Music Festival – and a gorgeous, inspired account it was, too. The concert was a matinee on the festival's second day; the biggest reason that it pains me to have fallen behind on blogging is that I ought to have found time to post this review before the festival ended a week later. (True, the review appeared during my self-imposed hiatus from work, but still…)

As my review says, how far we've come from the New York City premiere of this salute to the American Bicentennial, presented by the New York Philharmonic in November 1976. “Hundreds Walk Out of Premiere of John Cage Work at Fisher Hall,” the New York Times headline blared. Still, Allen Hughes was on the whole quite respectful in his review (alas, only available in the premium archive):

"Renga with Apartment House 1776" may not be great musical art (which is not Cage's aim nowadays) but it would be difficult to imagine a lustier celebration of the musical past of a bustling, brawling, sprawling, melting-pot nation than this uninhibited score.

Andrew Porter, in The New Yorker, found the work "tedious," while Richard Dyer, reviewing the world premiere at the Boston Symphony Orchestra premiere for the Boston Globe, called it "fascinating" and "elusive."

One thing I wished I'd noticed before I wrote my review: Matoaka Little Eagle, who sang and chanted the Native Ameican portions of Apartment House 1776 at the Wild Project, is the daughter of Chief Swift Eagle, who performed the same role in the 1976 performances. Fascinating.

Time Out New York interview with Lauren Worsham

Lauren Worsham, by Kristin Hoebermann

Interview with Lauren Worsham
Time Out New York, Feb. 21–27, 2013

An excruciatingly short snippet from a lengthy, wide-ranging and brilliantly fun conversation with Lauren Worsham (full name: Lauren Worsham Jarrow), who plays Flora in New York City Opera's stylishly spooky production of Benjamin Britten's opera The Turn of the Screw.

Worsham caught my eye and ear in Brooklyn Village, a wonderfully creative multimedia concert event staged by the Brooklyn Philharmonic at Roulette (reviewed here), then shook me to the core in a Peak Performances staging of David T. Little's opera Dog Days at Montclair State University (reviewed here).

Since both of those events made my list of Top 10 events for 2012 in Time Out, talking to Worsham about her City Opera assignment was a no-brainer. We covered her Texas roots, her training at Yale University, her early jobs, her relationship with opera and her flamboyantly stagey rock band, Sky-Pony, which she leads with her husband, theater composer Kyle Jarrow.

Someday, I'd love to get around to transcribing and posting the entire interview. Don't hold your breath right now, though. Instead, look out for Worsham as Guadalena and Manuelita in City Opera's production of Offenbach's La Perichole at City Center, April 21, 23, 25 and 27. And watch this video of Sky-Pony in action at Joe's Pub, then see the band's schedule for your next chance to witness it live… as of this writing, it's March 30 at Pianos on Ludlow Street.

Powder Her Face at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, February 15, 2013

Allison Cook and William Ferguson in Powder Her Face, by Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Powder Her Face at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, February 15, 2013
The New York Times, Feb. 18, 2013

New York City Opera opened its latest season with a brash, intelligent and sexy staging of English composer Thomas Adès's notorious debut opera, Powder Her Face, which struck me as a finer, deeper and more nuanced work on stage than it had previously on record.

Having missed City Opera's 2011-12 season entirely due to the company offering so few performances – four of each production seems to be the new norm, certain lackluster celebrity events aside – I was glad to catch up here, and even gladder to see the fine results the company managed to pull off despite its considerable financial woes and other concerns.

The present season's second offering, Britten's The Turn of the Screw, was just as good, maybe better. (My Time Out New York interview with Lauren Worsham, who played Flora, will be in the next post here.) Two more presentations of worthy curiosities – Rossini's Moses in Egypt and Offenbach's La Perichole – arrive in April, both at City Center in midtown Manhattan.

Much has been written about City Opera's travails and wrong moves, a lot of it warranted. But on this kind of evidence – and on a few choice whisperings about future plans – I refuse to give up hope for this diminished but still vital institution.

Brentano String Quartet at Zankel Hall, February 12, 2013

Brentano String Quartet, by Karsten Moran/The New York Times

Brentano String Quartet at Zankel Hall, February 12, 2013
The New York Times, Feb. 15, 2013

The world premiere of Steven Mackey's thoughtful, engaging One Red Rose, a fascinating reflection on the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, shared a program with cheery Haydn and grandiloquently interpreted Beethoven. Good stuff.

Pianist R. Andrew Lee: new album now, New York City concert March 16

 

Pianist R. Andrew Lee, whose previous recordings for the Irritable Hedgehog label have featured illuminating performances of works by Tom Johnson, Ann Southam, William Duckworth and Jürg Frey, has just released a new album that brings to light a long-lost milestone of early minimalism: November, by California composer Dennis Johnson, winds through a set of pitches, motifs and improvisatory webbing with blissful leisure.

Reconstructed by the invaluable composer, musicologist, writer and advocate Kyle Gann, November now extends to roughly five hours in duration. Evidently it was once closer to six hours; La Monte Young, a friend and associate of Johnson's, has cited it as a crucial influence on his own solo-piano milestone, The Well-Tuned Piano. Gann's story about rebuilding November from a wobbly cassette – eventually augmented by a cryptic score and Johnson's fading memories – makes for a fascinating read.

Lee's set is available via Bandcamp as a four-CD set or as a download in a variety of formats, including lossless files. You can find out more about Lee on his website, follow him on Twitter and, if you plan to be in New York City on Saturday, March 16, hear him perform November live in its entirety at Issue Project Room.