Night After Night

Goings On About Town, January 7, 2019.

My contributions to the Goings On About Town section in the January 7, 2019 issue of The New Yorker, covering the dates January 2-8. (Click on any listing to enlarge it.)

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Playlist (Tremors of Bliss).

A weekly tally of memorable things Steve Smith has stuck in his ears.

Bent Knee - Land Animal (Inside Out/Sony; 2017)

Derek Bailey - Solo - London 1985 (YouTube; 1985)

Derek Bailey - Playing for Friends on 5th Street (Straw2Gold Pictures/YouTube; 2004)

Ekin Fil - Windblow (Longform Editions; 2018)

Cham - Pocco (Longform Editions; 2018)

Steam Vent - * Swells (Longform Editions; 2018)

Marha Ahti - Entering a Cloud (Longform Editions; 2018)

Charlotte Hug - Son-Icon Music: Orchestral and Choral Works (Fundacja Słuchaj; 2018)
> Nachtplasmen - Lucerne Festival Academy Ensemble/Charlotte Hug; Inn Camino - Via-Nova-Chor Munich

Gérard Pesson – Musique de chambre, Cantates – Marion Tassou, EXAUDI, L’Instant Donné (NoMadMusic; 2018)
> La lumière n’a pas de bras pour nous porter; Cassation; Rébus; Cinq chansons; Bruissant divisé; La vita è come l’albero di Natale; Etant l’arrière-son; John Taverner – In nomine (arr. Gérard Pesson); Instant Tonné; La lumière n’a pas de bras pour nous porter (arr. Frédéric Pattar); Cantate égale pays No. 1; Cantate égale pays No. 2; Cantate égale pays No. 3

Banabila & Machinefabriek - Entropia (Eilean; due Jan. 3, 2019)

Christian Wolff/Antoine Beuger - Where Are We Going, Today (Erstwhile; 2018)

Kevin Drumm - June Spill (self-released; 2018)

Kepla & DeForrest Brown Jr. - The Wages of Being Black Is Death (PTP; 2018)

Robert Honstein - An Economy of Means (New Focus; 2018)
> An Economy of Means - Doug Perkins; Grand Tour - Karl Larson

Olivia de Prato - Streya (New Focus; 2018)
> Samson Young - Ageha, Tokyo; Victor Lowrie - Streya; Ned Rothenberg - Percorso Insolito; Taylor Brook - Wane; Reiko Füting - Tanz Tanz; Missy Mazzoli - Vespers for Violin

Tyshawn Sorey - Verisimilitude (Pi Recordings; 2017)

Mary Halvorson - Code Girl (Firehouse 12; 2018)

Jeff Snyder – Concerning the Nature of Things (Carrier; 2018)
> Concerning the Nature of Things - Caroline Shaw, Gabriel Crouch, Wet Ink Ensemble; Fictitious Forces - Jason Treuting, Yumi Tamashiro, Eric Cha-Beach; Substratum - Susan Alcorn, Mivos Quartet/Mike Mulshine; Undeciphered Writing - Sideband/Jascha Narveson; Ghostline - Sideband/Jeff Snyder

Natalie Braginsky - 2018 (self-released; 2018)

Natalie Braginsky - the harvest is past, the summer is ended (self-released; 2018)

Natalie Braginsky - erupt in silence (self-released; 2018)

Anthony Braxton - 3 Compositions (EEMHM) 2011 (Firehouse 12; 2016)

Anthony Braxton - GTM (Syntax) 2017 - Tri-Centric Choir (New Braxton House; due Jan. 25, 2019)

Playlist (quite simply melting).

A weekly tally of memorable things Steve Smith has stuck in his ears.

Medeski Martin & Wood/Alarm Will Sound - Omnisphere (Indirecto; 2018)

Eartheater - Irisiri (PAN; 2018)

Black Eagle Child - Sleeping/Walking (self-released; 2018)

Sam Sfirri - J. Pastorius for Solo and Ensemble (Madacy Jazz; 2018)

James Newton - The Manual of Light (Orenda; 2018)
> Amazing Grace (version 1) - string orchestra/Grant Gershon; Looking Above the Faith of Joseph - Yegor Shevstov; Elisha's Gift - Eric Shetzen, Lyris String Quartet/Grant Gershon; The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness - Daniel Rosenboom; Gethsemane - Yegor Shevstov; Dos Danzas para Arpa - Alison Bjorkedal; Multicolored Reflections Within the Orion Nebula - Yegor Shevstov; Amazing Grace (version 2) - string orchestra/Grant Gershon

Kevin Drumm - Hello! (self-released; 2018)

John McCowen - Mundanas I-V - John McCowen, Madison Greenstone (Edition Wandelweiser; 2018. Audio samples here.)

Mark R. Taylor - Aftermaths - Teodora Stepančić (Another Timbre; 2018)
> For Alex Schady; from Moments Musicaux Book 1; Aftermaths Set One; from Moments Musicaux Book 4; Aftermaths Set Two; Lijn; from Preludes Nos. I-VIII; For Marc Hulson V; Second Nocturne; final music

Rebecca Saunders - Skin - Juliet Fraser, Klangforum Wien/Titus Engel (YouTube; 2018)

Rebecca Saunders - Fletch - Arditti Quartet (5:4/YouTube; 2012)

Rebecca Saunders - Alba - Marco Blaauw, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Ilan Volkov (5:4/YouTube; 2015)

Rebecca Saunders - still - Carolin Widmann, BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sylvain Cambreling (5:4/YouTube; 2011)

Rebecca Saunders - Stirrings - London Sinfonietta/Baldur Brönnimann (5:4/YouTube; 2013)

Rebecca Saunders - murmurs - Ensemble Recherche (5:4/YouTube; 2010)

Erik Satie - Socrate - Olalla Alemán, Guy Vandromme (Edition Wandelweiser; 2018. Audio sample here.)

Frank Denyer - Music for Shakuhachi - Yoshikazu Iwamoto, Paul Hiley, Frank Denyer (Another Timbre; 2007)
> On, on - it must be so; Quite White; Wheat; Unnamed

Viola Torros - Augmentations II - Johnny Chang, Catherine Lamb, Bryan Eubanks, Antoine Beuger, Yannick Guedon, Deborah Walker; Augmentations III - Johnny Chang, Catherine Lamb, Bryan Eubanks, Rebecca Lane, Annie Garlid, Margareth Kammerer; Johnny Chang - Citaric Melodies III - Suidobashi Chamber Orchestra; Catherine Lamb - Prisma Interius VI for v.t. - Johnny Chang, Catherine Lamb, Andrea Neumann, Derek Shirley

Ferran Fages - Un lloc entre dos records (Another Timbre; 2018)

Morgan Evans-Weiler & Michael Pisaro - lines and tracings (Another Timbre; 2018)
> Michael Pisaro - Helligkeit, die Tiefe hatte, nicht keine Fläche - Ordinary Affects; Morgan Evans-Weiler - lines and tracings - Morgan Evans-Weiler, Kyle Adam Blair, Justin Murphy-Mancini, Madison Greenstone, Tyler J. Borden

John Lely - All About The Piano - Tape Artifacts - LCollective (Love Records; 2018)

Kali Malone - Cast of Mind (Hallow Ground; 2018)

Kate Carr - the thing itself and not the myth (Glistening Examples; 2018)

Josh Mason - L+ (dauw; 2018)

Ensemble Grizzana - Early to Late (Another Timbre; 2018)
> Magnus Granberg - How Vain Are All Our Frail Delights?; Jürg Frey - Late Silence

Eli Keszler - Stadium (Shelter Press; 2018)

Alden Jenks - Drones (Other Minds; 1968-72/2018)

Erica Dicker - Taking Auspices (Tubapede; 2018)

Ornette Coleman - Free Jazz (Atlantic/Rhino; 1961/1998)

Dave Douglas - Witness (RCA; 2001)

Alex Mincek - Images of Duration (in Homage to Ellsworth Kelly) - Yarn/Wire (Northern Spy; 2018)

Review: panSonus, St. John’s in the Village, New York, NY, Dec. 15, 2018.

Among the seven composers represented on a new-music concert program mounted at St. John’s in the Village on Dec. 15, the two that caught my eye – Sarah Hennies and Kate Soper – are known best for performing their own works. Of the remaining composers on the bill, I was familiar with Bethany Younge and Kayleigh Butcher—the latter strictly as a member of the excellent Quince Vocal Ensemble. The others – Alessandro Perini, Andrea L. Scartazzini, and Daniel Tacke – I’ll admit to not knowing, despite their impressive credentials.

Kudos, then, to panSonus – the duo of vocalist, conductor, and composer Amber Evans and percussionist-sound artist Jon Clancy – for making an impression before a single note had been sounded. As New York City debut concerts go, this was a gutsy first date.

Admittedly, it was a lot of unfamiliar fare to take in at once, particularly from a new group whose chemistry remained to be demonstrated. But the performers offered a concise statement in their program, explaining just what they had in mind.

This program focuses on different ways in which the human voice (and its primary resonant cavity, the mouth) and the perception thereof can be altered and obscured, and how resonant objects, spaces, and varying degrees of dramaturgy can contribute to these alterations. The program is bookended with works by Sarah Hennies, which serve to focus collective attention on how sounds move and change in space, and how the collective sense of the passage of time can be heightened and/or altered.

Stated simply, the works panSonus assembled for this thoughtful program had to do with sound, its production, and its distribution. The duo also played fast and loose with expectations of what a singer and a percussionist might be expected to do in a program together, mixing up roles and blurring conventional borders.

Jon Clancy and Amber Evans performing ‘Three Studies for Two Voices’ by Alessandro Perini (Photograph: Steve Smith)

Psalm 3, a 2009 Hennies composition, set the stage dramatically. The piece is a thing of elemental simplicity: a player strikes a woodblock, steadily and repeatedly, for around five minutes. In a 2017 National Sawdust Log interview, Hennies had this to say about the piece:

I don’t feel that music is a great tool for political protest, but I do think it’s a great tool for getting people to see that the world is a different place than they thought it was. In some sense, everything that I’ve been doing in the last 10 years is about having that experience.

True enough: Striking the woodblock steadily across all of its surfaces and edges unleashes an unanticipated flurry of impact tones, overtones, and resonances that echo throughout whatever room it’s being played in. As much as Psalm 3 is about sound, it’s also about expectation being confronted; Clancy’s steady hand and the church’s intimate yet lively acoustic combined to produce not simplicity, but sublimity.

Her Disappearance, jointly composed in 2015 by Butcher and Younge, was more a thing of distance, dislocation, and distortion. Stationed facing one another on opposite sides of the church, Clancy and Evans huffed, hissed, warbled, and intoned a brief poetic text written by the composers, directing their sounds into and around the mouths of two five-foot lengths of PVC pipe. Delivering confrontational verses about silence denied, a voice stilled, and breath giving out, the vocalists were rendered eerie, unearthly, flamboyant, at times deliberately unlovely.

Two further pieces relied on sly visual disconnects. Performing Perini’s Three Studies for Two Voices (2017), Evans and Clancy took seats at a table in a darkened room, their faces dimly illuminated from below. As they opened and closed their mouths, tiny speakers hidden within produced genial bleeps, windy hisses, buzzes, and ticks. Beyond the considerable initial whimsy – here I’ll note that Perini’s score specifies vowels shaped as if in Swedish – you still could appreciate sounds shaped by obviously well-trained apertures and cavities.

Aura (2000), by Scartazzini, flipped the script, obscuring not the sound-producing implements but their performers. Seated out of view behind a tam-tam and a bass drum draped with a black cloth skirt, Evans intoned dark-hued wordless melodic lines, accompanied by both musicians with rumbles, crashes, and shimmering bell tones. You heard a ritualistic drama unfolding in the air, while having no gestures or expressions with which to contextualize the sounds. Yet here, paradoxically, was where Evans’s prowess as a vocalist, in the traditional sense of beauty, finesse, and power, finally was revealed.

Jon Clancy and Amber Evans performing ‘The Crito’ by Kate Soper (Photograph: Steve Smith)

Beauty and finesse were also abundant in Tacke’s Abend (2012), but wedded less to power than to delicacy and restraint. A setting of a text by Rainer Maria Rilke, the 12-minute piece is filled with potent silences, each gesture – whether tender or brusque – deployed with the deliberation of Zen brushwork. Yet despite its measured surface affect, the music teems with arresting detail: the gorgeously floating sensation that accompanied the words “bald begrenzt und bald begriefend” (“now delimited, now encompassing”); the percussionist vocalizing to give the word “Stein” (“stone”) a hard edge and weight; the seemingly endless A-flat Evans held on the final word, “Gestirn” (“star”); the pause, still longer, before Clancy played the work’s brittle coda alone. Despite merry choral sounds wafting in from a celebration down a nearby hallway, Evans and Clancy performed with complete clarity and focus.

Crossing the stage, Clancy moved without pause into “The Crito” (2013), a section of Soper’s ingenious chamber-theater cycle Ipsa Dixit. Joining him, Evans sang the work’s dreamy introduction gorgeously. The piece is treacherously difficult, calling not just for a singer with ample skill on a variety of percussion instruments, but also for a percussionist who can declaim lines with an actor’s clarity and commitment. This panSonus account was the first I’d encountered apart from that of Soper and her Wet Ink colleague, Ian Antonio, and the experience was illuminating. Evans was equal to Soper the composer’s considerable demands, making certain florid phrases and passages sound even more lovely than their creator does, but as yet lacks something of Soper the performer’s imperious edge. Likewise, Clancy skillfully navigated tangled thickets of disparate techniques and effects Soper tailored to Antonio’s abilities, and narrated clearly, but fell somewhat short of Antonio’s physical ease, verbal forcefulness, and boyish characterization. No doubt this worthy interpretation will continue to grow and deepen; as it is, this still was a courageous achievement and a marvel to witness.

The concert ended, as it had begun, with sonic apparitions conjured by Hennies—now in Flourish, a 2013 vibraphone duet. A quiet prelude, played by Clancy, calls for each note to be struck with one mallet while another mallet slides along the same bar to dampen it, creating the illusion of metal flexing. From there, Clancy and Evans played the same instrument from opposite sides, tapping out simple, steady patterns from which wafted clouds of overtones, interference patterns, and wobbly rhythmic slippage. As in Psalm 3, sonic phenomena caused by natural forces, or by performance variations too subtle to register clearly in the moment, yielded hypnotic results. Concluding with a magical passage of gently brushed strokes, Flourish ended a heady program on a note of enigma, rather than bravura—one more bold stroke in a concert that already had offered so many.

Steve Smith is director of publications for National Sawdust and editor of National Sawdust Log. He previously worked as a freelance contributor to The New York Times, and as a staff writer and editor for the Boston Globe and Time Out New York. www.nightafternight.com

 

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Goings On About Town, December 24 & 31, 2018.

My contributions to the Goings On About Town section in the December 24/December 31, 2018 issue of The New Yorker, covering the dates December 19-January 1. (Click on any listing to enlarge it.)

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Playlist (Yankin' at the Chain).

A weekly tally of memorable things Steve Smith has stuck in his ears.

Mark R. Taylor - Aftermaths - Teodora Stepančić (Another Timbre; 2018)
> For Alex Schady; from Moments Musicaux Book 1; Aftermaths Set One; from Moments Musicaux Book 4; Aftermaths Set Two; Lijn; from Preludes Nos. I-VIII; For Marc Hulson V; Second Nocturne; final music

Puce Mary - The Drought (PAN; 2018)

Matthew Revert/Vanessa Rosetto - Everyone Needs a Plan (Erstwhile; 2018)

Áine O'Dwyer/Graham Lambkin - Green Ways (Erstwhile; 2018)

Mary Jane Leach - (f)lutesongs - Manuel Zurria (Modern Love; 2018)
> Trio for Duo; Dowland's Tears; Semper Dolens; Bruckstück

Wang Lu - Urban Inventory (New Focus; 2018)
> Urban Inventory - Third Sound Ensemble/Patrick Castillo; Wailing - Holland Symfonia/Hans Leedners; Backstory - Alarm Will Sound/Alan Pierson; Cross-Around - Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne/Lorraine Vaillancourt; Cloud Intimacy - International Contemporary Ensemble/Ross Karre; past beyond - Ensemble Intercontemporain/Susanna Mälkki

Jürg Frey - 120 Pieces of Sound (Elsewhere; 2018)
> 60 Pieces of Sound - Jürg Frey, Ordinary Affects; L’âme est sans retenue II

Clara de Asís - Without - Erik Carlson, Greg Stuart (Elsewhere; 2018)

Stefan Thut - about - Ryoko Akama, Stephen Chase, Eleanor Cully, Patrick Farmer, lo wie, Stefan Thut (Elsewhere; 2018)

Philip White and Chris Pitsiokos - Collapse (Anticausal Systems; 2018)

Oliver Thurley - Network for string quartet - Alice Dawkins, Hannah Packman, Katherine Lambeth, Claudia Chapman (Soundcloud; 2013)

Eartheater - Irisiri (PAN; 2018)

Sarah Davachi - Let Night Come On Bells End the Day (Recital; 2018)

Sarah Davachi - Gave In Rest (Ba Da Bing; 2018)

Jennifer Koh - Saariaho x Koh (Cedille; 2018)
> Tocar - Jennifer Koh, Nicholas Hodges; Cloud Trio - Jennifer Koh, Hsin-Yun Huang, Wilhelmina Smith; Light and Matter - Jennifer Koh, Anssi Karttunen, Nicolas Hodges; Aure - Jennifer Koh, Anssi Karttunen; Graal théâtre - Jennifer Koh, Curtis 20/21 Ensemble/Conner Gray Covington

Kaj Duncan David & Assaf Gidron - Kjam (Love Records; 2018)

Teodora Stepančić - trio duo solo (self-released; 2018)
> for pianist and helperformer - Teodora Stepančić, Assaf Gidron; The Trio - Nataša Blagojević, Dejan Božić, Milana Zarić; #4 the guitar - Eliott Simpson, James Moore, Teodora Stepančić

Tomb Mold - Manor of Infinite Forms (20 Buck Spin; 2018)

Christopher Fox – Topophony – John Butcher, Thomas Lehn, Axel Dörner, Paul Lovens, WDR Sinfonieorchester/Ilan Volkov (hat(now)ART)

Robert Ashley - Improvement (Nonesuch; 1982)

Melaine Dalibert - Musique pour le lever du jour (Elsewhere; 2018)

Monty Adkins - A Year at Usher's Hill (EIlean; 2017)

John Cage - number pieces (piano) - Guy Vandromme (Edition Wandelweiser; 2018. Audio sample here.)
> One (version 1); One (version 2); One5

Tom Johnson - spaces . an hour for piano - Keiko Shichijo (Edition Wandelweiser; 2018. Audio sample here.)
> Spaces; An Hour for Piano

Ferran Fages - detuning series for guitar - Ferran Fages, Didier Aschour (Edition Wandelweiser; 2018. Audio samples here.)

Rutger Zuydervelt - sileen II - Gareth Davis, Rutger Zuydervelt (Edition Wandelweiser; 2018. Audio sample here.)

Thrainn Hjalmarsson - Influence of buildings on musical tone (Carrier; due Sept. 7, 2018) > Influence of buildings on musical tone - Caput Ensemble/Guðni Franzson; Grisaille - Icelandic Flute Ensemble/Hallfríður Ólafsdóttir; Persona - Kristín Þóra Haraldsdóttir; Mise en scène - Ensemble Adapter; Lucid/Opaque - Nordic Affect

King Crimson - Orpheum Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts, Sept. 23, 1973 (DGMLive; 2018. Audio samples here.)

Making a list, checking it twice.

Digging in deep, really deep, to compile year-end lists is both exhilarating and exhausting, illuminating and intimidating. Crucial challenge: Recall the impact of things that happened many months ago, then balance against impact of things that just happened.

— Steve Smith (@nightafternight) December 12, 2018

And you also want to try to ignore the plethora of other lists that already have appeared… while being incredibly curious about what colleagues & peers selected.

— Steve Smith (@nightafternight) December 12, 2018

One thing's clear: This is as good an excuse as any for the weekly playlists I post on @thelogjournal – they certainly provide a decent overview of how and where I spent my time.

— Steve Smith (@nightafternight) December 12, 2018

If anyone's curious, I'll be posting my year-end lists for @thelogjournal on Dec. 26 (conflict-of-interest citations), 27 (live events), and 28 (recordings). None of which are meant to represent "BEST" of anything, just what impacted me most over the last 12 months.

— Steve Smith (@nightafternight) December 12, 2018

Last thing I'll say is that I've rarely found it so easy to select my favorite albums of the year – one for so-called "classical music" and one for "everything else." My choices felt unusually clear this year, and haven't wavered.

— Steve Smith (@nightafternight) December 12, 2018

One more observation, on further reflection: Hardest thing about year-end process might be accepting that you sometimes are utterly unmoved by certain things lauded seemingly universally by friends, peers, colleagues. It's happened a few times during my process… and it's fine.

— Steve Smith (@nightafternight) December 12, 2018

An obvious point that still bears repeating: There is NO SUCH THING as an objective assessment of the year's best anything—even in some conglomerated poll selected by committee and scienced to the nth degree.

— Steve Smith (@nightafternight) December 12, 2018

Wandelwatching: Antoine Beuger and Jürg Frey performances in New York City

Seth Parker Woods. Photograph: Michael Yu

Four years ago, I started a weekly series on this blog titled Wandelwatching, devoted to news and essays about composers of the Wandelweiser Group, a loosely knit global collective inspired by post-Cagean ideas concerning sound, space, silence, place, contemplativeness, and collaboration, among other things. If you're just catching up with the term and its adherents, the best starting point remains the essay simply titled "Wandelweiser," published in 2009 by Michael Pisaro, a composer in the group.

Honestly, I'm wincing now at the sheer earnest stiffness of those initial posts from 2014. In starting anew, I don't plan to be overly formal at all. The idea now is pretty simple: While performances of Wandelweiser compositions have grown more common, you still don't see much coverage of such events in the mainstream media. So, here I am to help spread the news.

There are (to the best of my knowledge) two concerts that include at least one Wandelweiser composition happening this week in New York City. Both are eminently recommendable.

Talea Ensemble: "Imagined Time"
Dec. 12 at 7pm
The Flea, 20 Thomas St.; theflea.org

First, on Wednesday, Dec. 12 – yes, I mean this evening, members of the Talea Ensemble present an hour-long program titled "Imagined Time," part of a new intimate series called "Inside Out" that Talea is presenting at the Flea Theater. The present program is made up of pieces concerned with notions of musical time, and includes ô monde sur deux tiges, a 2011 duet for viola and cello by Antoine Beuger, alongside pieces by Victoria Cheah, Iancu Dumitrescu, and Alex Mincek.

Convergences III: Jen Shyu + Seth Parker Woods
Dec. 13 at 8pm
Areté Venue & Gallery, 67 West St #103, Brooklyn; aretegallery.com

Convergences, a truly impressive-looking cross-disciplinary series curated by pianist-composer Eric Wubbels and saxophonist-composer Anna Webber, presents a double bill of soloists working in very different forms, but with a similar focus and intensity. Jen Shyu, an improvising vocalist whose musical rituals dig deeply into Asian musical and cultural traditions, offers a preview of a work-in-progress, provisionally titled Zero Grasses. 

The set of interest to Wandelwatchers is that of cellist Seth Parker Woods, a superb instrumentalist with patience, discipline, and tenacity well suited to works that challenge through expansive stillness and slowness, and infinitesimal gradations of tone. Here, in addition to pieces by Giacinto Scelsi, Oliver Thurley, Nathalie Joachim, and Monty Adkins, Woods plays the world premiere of Music of Unknown Gardens, newly composed for him by Jürg Frey.

Listen here to get a sense of what Woods can do.

Goings On About Town, December 17, 2018.

My contributions to the Goings On About Town section in the December 17, 2018 issue of The New Yorker, covering the dates December 12-18. (Click on any listing to enlarge it.)

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Fun fact: Editors excised two words from the very end of the above listing: "(Mine did.)"

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For whatever reason, as I'm typing this, the date is missing for the MATA event. It's on Dec. 17 at 8pm; details here.