Redirection

Hey folks!

I don’t know if there’s a way to just link the two up, but I’ve directed my personal thought-vomiting, or blogging to my own website, so you can find more up-to-date musings there.

Thanks for visiting!

Justin

Pictorial Proof

Actual blogging will show up someday soon. But for now, play the percentages.

Quiet Company FTW

 

Wet Ink, It’s Not All Wet

So — this is a review of the first concert in the 2008-2009 Wet Ink series at the University of Texas, at Austin. It is not in full detail, but it is aimed at providing a loose reaction to the performance, mainly so there exists in some public space a written commentary on student works. It is difficult to get any sort of coverage, so I figure better slightly unprofessional and incomplete than nothing at all.

If I’m wrong, let me know.

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The University of Texas’ Wet Ink concert series offers a venue for the performance of recently completed works by student in the music composition program at the newly christened Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music. With any “new music” concert, the listener may feel a fair bit of trepidation about walking into a performance of unfamiliar music that, on account of its unknown content, runs the very real risk of disappointing. Even a genius like Mozart has works (such as the lesser known “Bagel Symphony”) that don’t find their way onto many programs because they have been determined to lack the sort of compelling musical thought that one finds in his masterpieces. When a concert is presenting music that has not yet been passed through that filter, and worse yet, music by — *gaspshockhorror* — students, the perils of potential disappointment are greatly amplified. Despite this danger, the first Wet Ink program of the 2008-2009 academic year largely managed to champion the consequences of newness and pupility, thusly demonstrating that something definitively worthwhile is happening in the $55 million wonderland.

Under the Radar, by Steve Snowden, began the evening. The piece is a one-movement amusement for viola quartet, punctuated by humorous gestures like the group’s unison throwing of some of the music onto the stage, but it deftly avoids limiting itself to hack parody. Formally, the music is very well balanced, and the alternation of sections emphasizing the use of pizzicato and sections emphasizing the bow offer an enjoyable variation of what could quite easily have been an overly monotonous texture. The Bartokian chaos of the coda is shattered and ended with a single pluck of the string, I believe there may be instructions in the part to perform the last note with the tongue in the cheek.

After the delightful opening gambit, the evening’s lone undergraduate work, Brass Quintet, by Rebecca Jensen, was a sharp left turn. The piece lends the impression that Ms. Jensen has a deep affection for the ensemble, and at times it is quite charming, but the performance was plagued by intonation problems. In a medium like the brass quintet (two trumpets, French horn, trombone, and tuba), which depends heavily upon the clarity of sound obtained by playing in tune, it becomes difficult to overcome, and it steals power from the few inspired harmonic choices that Jensen made. It holds together, but only just, and that’s unfortunate, because a more apt performance may have lent the piece the sort of breezy nostalgic flavor that it so sincerely aims to possess.

Tim Rogers’, Remember Me, a setting of a poem by e.e. cummings for flute, harp, and mezzo-soprano, very clearly established the lush, warm sound world that the composer wanted, but at times the singer was difficult to hear, and it came across as though she was unsure about whether she was singing the correct pitches. Such insecurity introduces an undesirable tension into what is intended to be a relaxing, quasi-meditative work, and it robs the thoughtfully chosen timbral colors. If taken in parts, Remember Me is an impressive, subtle work, but the performance on this evening was too uneven and the piece is perhaps a bit too long. But as the only work involving a singer, it was a welcome addition.

The final piece before intermission was a work for solo piano entitled Drei Stucke, compose by Zack Stanton. Performed — thanks to the gods of segue — by Tim Rogers, the work is full of life and a pleasant blend of enthusiasm and skill. Too often, one or the other of those two traits becomes the crutch upon which a composer leans for a particular piece, but that wasn’t the case here. The opening movement is a Grusin-esque, blues influenced roll about in the hay, and it gives way to a beautiful Americana lullaby dedicated to the composer’s son. Stanton infuses the lullaby with just the right amount of unexpected motion and Ivesian persuasion to prevent it from becoming too maudlin, and he does so without sacrificing the genuineness of his expression – a difficult task for any composer, and a sure sign that the label of “student music” isn’t cause to fear the worst. The only contention I had with the piece is that after the lullaby, the third movement’s dancing was a bit too thickly written at times, and it may have been better served if the piano writing were more closely drawn from the austerity of the previous movement. But, an excellent ending to the first half of the concert.

After intermission, the audience was welcomed by Travis Jeffords’ guitar trio, Something In the Way She Moves, a pedagogical work that was enjoyable and light without being overrun by the nature of its conception as a piece with technical limitations. Jeffords worked very well within his parameters and the end result is an entertainment that was tightly executed and valuable for its character. By this time, one hallmark of the composition output on display here is made clear – these composers, or students, or student composers, are more interested in creating music that has breath and individuality than in music that illustrates by rote the teachings of the academic juggernaut. And that, dear reader (the one person who will read this), is a very good thing.

Ian Dicke’s White Parasol, performed by pianist/composer Franklin Gross is framed as a political piece inspired by a documentary on global warming, and it imparts the sort of anxiety and dread that are apropos of such a response without eschewing brightness of color or caution of composition. The pacing of the work is remarkable and the materials are developed with acute attention to detail. It begins with slowly evolving elaborations around a single pitch, and the first section fully elaborates on this idea before shifting to a section built on rapid arpeggiations that shift over time. To my ear, this may have been the polished gem of the night.

The penultimate performance was of two movements from Absolute, a string quartet by Kwangsun Hwang. While technically brilliant and performed with unimpeachable quality, the work seemed to be missing some of the individuality that made so many of the other pieces memorable and noteworthy. That isn’t to say that I was unimpressed, but a work so rich with promise could be a stratospheric success with just a bit more idiosyncrasy and less effort to make it sound like so many other excellent string quartets. Perhaps the missing movements would alleviate this concern, and maybe it’s just that, a concern. But, it was only the second piece of the evening that reminded me that I was listening to pieces composed by students of the craft.

Hermes Camacho was commissioned to compose Suite Bennington for the 2008 edition of the Chamber Music Conference and Composer’s Forum of the East and was to be for skilled amateur performers in the instrumentation of Stravinsky’s Septet (clarinet, bassoon, French horn, piano, violin, viola, and violoncello). The first movement was playful and vibrant, utilizing asymmetric metrical pulses to create a sense of being off-kilter without falling into the trap of being a slave to the downbeat patterns. Afterward, the second movement’s funereal quality was sobering, but Camacho’s decisions about the distribution of materials allowed for that dignity to seem like an earned counterpart to the first movement’s flippancy. The French horn bears the plaintive melody very well, and at no time does the composer lapse into lazy and clichéd lament writing. The piece and concert concluded with a joyous ragtime movement that both literally quoted Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag and tore the same piece to shreds. It was obvious that the performers enjoyed playing it (even the pianist, whose part strains the definition of “amateur”) and the audience couldn’t help but enjoy listening to such musical wit.

So, what lesson did I learn from the University of Texas’ Wet Ink concert? Despite the name, it’s not all wet.