SEATTLE MODERN ORCHESTRA: REVIEWS & PREVIEWS

Posted on June 9, 2014 by maestrobeats

Seattle Modern Orchestra.

In just a few years, Seattle Modern Orchestra has transformed from a dream of co-Artistic Directors Julia Tai and Jeremy Jolley into a thriving, professional organization fulfilling its mission – to provide Seattle audiences with live performances of the best in contemporary chamber and orchestral music, music seldom if ever performed in Seattle until now. Attend an SMO concert and you’ll undoubtedly discover new music with unusual sounds, textures, forms, notation, and always with guidance and curation from Jeremy and Julia.

Seattle Modern Orchestra’s fourth season finale, Musical Commentaries, is this Friday, June 13, 8pm at the Good Shepherd Center Chapel Performance Space. Earle Brown’s Tracking Pierrot, Joël-François Durand’s Le Tombeau de Rameau II (featuring pianist Cristina Valdes), and Franco Donatoni’s Tema are all on the bill, all following theme “Music on Music” – compositions that were written in tribute to compositions and composers of the past.

An encore (outreach!) performance of the Donatoni, accompanied by music of John Cage and solo violin works by Durand will be performed at St. Columba’s Episcopal Church in Kent, WA on Sunday, June 15 at 2pm.

As we look ahead to Friday’s concert, let’s actually take a listen back at their February 21 performance, including music of Rebecca Saunders, Jonathan Harvey, Kaija Saariaho, and Jeremy Jolley, all featuring guest cellist Séverine Ballon.

Séverine also shared some insights about her love of music (new and old!), collaborating with composers on new works, searching for new sounds and experimenting and with the cello. She also filled us in on her experience premiering works and working with students in master classes at Harvard University (where she was composer-in-residence in March 2013), Stuttgart Hochschule, Huddersfield University, UC Berkeley University, National University Singapore.

Tickets for the performance on June 13 are available through Brown Paper Tickets. Don’t miss it!

ROOMFUL OF TEETH

Posted on May 19, 2014 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Stapleton

Founded in 2009 by Brad Wells, cutting-edge vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth‘s stated mission is to “mine the expressive potential of the human voice,” and that they do. They’re extremely versatile, excelling in styles ranging from renaissance polyphony to vocal techniques from around the world, such as yodels, grunts, audible exhalations, and drones, all heard on their self-titled debut album (which, by the way, won the 2014 Grammy for “Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance”).

Roomful of Teeth is dedicated to new music and composers of today, they’ve commissioned works by Rinde Eckert, Judd Greenstein, Caleb Burhans, Merrill Garbus (of tUnE-yArDs), Sarah Kirkland Snider and Missy Mazzoli, and William Brittelle, who says his melodic sensibility tends more toward the pop side than classical or experimental side, resulting in some very fun music.

Roomful of Teeth was the first all vocal program presented by TownMusic in September 2013. We have some selections from this concert for your listening pleasure, including a couple of movements from Caroline Shaw’s 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning piece, Partita for 8 voices!

There’s one more concert on the 2013-14 TownMusic Series on June 24, featuring four world premieres and soprano Mary Mackenzie to sing Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire.

RAMBUNCTIOUS! SPECTRUM DANCE THEATRE AND SIMPLE MEASURES

Posted on May 12, 2014 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Stapleton

Spectrum Dance Theatre & Simple Measures

Image by Nate Waters.

Spectrum Dance Theatre and Simple Measures are two envelope-pushing arts organizations in Seattle – Spectrum strives to “bring dance of the highest merit to a diverse audience composed of people from different social, cultural, ethnic and economic backgrounds,” with a principal objective “to make the art form of dance accessible through contemporary dance performances and high-quality training in a variety of dance styles,” while Simple Measures aims to bring chamber music into unusual venues, 98% hoity-toity free, and encouraging people to “Come, and Have Fun. That’s what we’re about. You can even clap between movements if you feel like it. Tap your foot. Bob your head. Heck, even dance in the aisles! We. Don’t. Care.”

May 15-17 and May 22-42, you can catch these two organizations in tandem for Rambunctious: A Festival of American Composers and Dance. Some of the performers previewed the show on KING-TV’s New Day Northwest.

The word choice of “Rambunctious” is a particular effort to reach a broader audience, with implications of energy, youthfulness, and exuberance. With live music by all 20^th century American composers and world premiere choreography by Donald Byrd, you can be sure the shows will live up to that!

Thanks to a designated fund for live music, Spectrum turns the stereo off and brings live musicians in for a couple of shows per year. When asked why this is valuable, Donald Byrd says they’re attempting to bring new audiences to dance by reaching the classical music crowd. Additionally, the intimacy of chamber music (vs. full orchestral forces) adds an appropriate element to the world of dance, keying in on solo instrumentalists and small groups. Donald finds it rewarding to be in Seattle where there are so many top notch quality chamber musicians and utilizing them ensures the “best of the best” in presentation. It’s also a challenging stretch for the dancers, causing them to think and react much differently and on a deeper level – and most so with music that is NOT straightforward (Wuorinen’s String Quartet No.2, for example!)

The two weekends actually have different programs, offering TWO exciting shows at two great venues. The composers are presented chronologically, but each show opens with the Ives Scherzo serves as a fanfare opening for both concert cycles.

May 15-17 at Fremont Abbey

Charles Ives: Scherzo
Aaron Copland: Two Pieces for String Quartet
George Gershwin: Lullaby for String Quartet
Vincent Persichetti: String Quartet #2

May 22-24 at Washington Hall

Charles Ives: Scherzo
Don Krishnaswami: Trumpet Quintet (world premiere by Rajan’s brother!)
J. Zorn: Kol Nidrei for string quartet
C. Wuorinen: String Quartet #2

Musicians:

Michael Jinsoo Lim, violin
Liza Zurlinden, violin
Laura Renz, viola
Rajan Krishnaswami, cello
Brian Chin, trumpet

With combined forces, from these two organizations, the potential innovation and fusion between live chamber music and dance has boundless limitations. Don’t miss these shows!

A WORLD PREMIERE FROM WHATEVERANDEVERAMEN.

Posted on May 5, 2014 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Stapleton

whateverandeveramen. is a project-based ensemble dedicated to the performance of high quality choral literature of varied styles from all musical eras (check out some examples!). They recently gave a world premiere performance of “Songs of Fatherhood.” This set of five pieces represents a collaboration between Southern California based composer David Montoya, poet William Wallis, and visual artist Lorato Mastebroek. The five songs in the set trace the relationship between a father and son over the course of their lives. This performance is from Friday, February 7 at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle. Follow along with the poetry and imagery as you listen.

Brad Pierson, Founder and Artistic Director, was kind enough to give us some insight into the piece and premiere experience:

“Interacting with our community in ways outside of the traditional performer/audience dichotomy is one of the main goals of whateverandeveramen. While past events have led us to sing in bars, art galleries, restaurants, and parks, the “Songs of Fatherhood” lend themselves to the more traditional performance setting. With that said, I wanted to avoid presenting the music in a way that allowed for strictly passive listening. William Wallis’s text is so vivid and filled with imagery. The first two poems in particular filled my mind with pictures that reminded me of children’s story books. The idea to present the concert program in a poster form allowed us to connect artwork to the project in the hope that we could engage our audience to an even greater extent with the imagination behind the music.

It was a unique and fantastic experience for me as a conductor to collaborate on a project with this many levels. Emails flew between myself, David, William, and Lorato as details for the project began to take shape. We took the pieces into rehearsal and heard the music lifted from the page and sprung to life and found joy in the many subtleties that David connected to the text. I would then email David to discuss how things worked or were challenging. Small changes were made, and over the span of just five short rehearsals, we went through many drafts of music. David, meanwhile, was working diligently to capture the essence of William’s heartfelt and beautiful words. Meanwhile, Lorato was in London creating sketches that captured the “innocence and joy” found throughout the works.”

It’s a great collaborative project between the three disciplines. We look forward to hearing what’s next from whateverandeveramen.!

THE BEST OF THE NORTHWEST AT A NATIONAL CONFERENCE

Posted on April 29, 2014 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Stapleton

The Seattle Youth Symphony will be the kickoff performers for the League of American Orchestras Conference in June, right here in Seattle! With this HUGE performance opportunity was also the special request of a 20^th or 21^st century piece, and immediately SYSO Music Director Stephen Rogers Radcliffe thought of Aaron Jay Kernis’ Dreamsongs and cellist Joshua Roman.

Cellist Joshua Roman.

To date, SYSO is only the fourth orchestra in the world to perform Dreamsongs with Joshua. The world premiere was last April with the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra followed by performances with the Bellingham Festival of Music (West Coast Premiere) and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, all of whom were part of the commissioning project.

The genesis of Dreamsongs is personal and heartwarming, as it was written specifically for Joshua. Aaron and Joshua came to know each other several years ago when Joshua was principal cellist of the Seattle Symphony. Together, for a donor event, they performed Kernis’ “Air” for cello and piano. Joshua also recorded his “Ballad,” a piece for 8 cellos, all eight parts recorded by Joshua himself! These projects paved the way for a bigger composer-performer collaboration, which took shape as a cello concerto.

Here’s a special sneak preview of Dreamsongs, with excerpts courtesy of the West Coast Premiere with the Bellingham Festival of Music under the direction of Michael Palmer:

Joshua says it was an “eye opening experience” working with Aaron – “he’s very good at finding what his voice wants to say and articulating that with notes.” Living on the same block in New York City made the process all the more personal and fun – Aaron would e-mail PDFs of the concerto or send Joshua a text when new edits were ready, and if he was in town they’d get together and play/talk through it, maybe make some small adjustments.

Is SYSO excited about the opportunity to work on this piece? Absolutely! However, with the excitement, the students recognize the difficulty of the piece (it’s “grown-up music,” says Radcliffe!), but also see the rewards of being part of the creative process, not just reproducing music that’s been around for generations. Stephen says the students are responsible for being champions of the music of their own time and they’re the ones that will be setting the roles for future orchestras.

Performances of this piece will take place:

Sunday, May 11, 3pm at Benaroya Hall (SYSO concert)
Wednesday, June 4, 3:45 pm at Benaroya Hall (League of American Orchestras conference opener)

To hear the full conversation with Joshua Roman and Stephen Rogers Radcliffe, listen below!