ALBUM REVIEW: Strung Out in Heaven: A Bowie String Quartet Tribute

Posted on February 10, 2016 by maestrobeats

The Starman sent shock waves across the universe when he died last month after a courageous 18-month battle with cancer—and while we continue to mourn the loss of this talented artist and creative visionary, we find comfort in knowing that his sparkling light will never burn out.

David Bowie’s bold vision, fierce courage, and revolutionary music continue to live on in the lives and art of his family, friends, fans, and collaborators. A true artist, he continued creating all the way up until his death—and his musical influence will continue to live on long after.

Within days of Bowie’s death, punk-rock pianist and cabaret songstress Amanda Palmer teamed up with pop polymath Jherek Bischoff to create “Strung Out in Heaven: A Bowie String Quartet Tribute.”

Arranged, recorded, mixed, and released within just two weeks, the six-song EP also includes six Bowie-inspired works of visual art. The album also features musical contributions from singer-songwriter Anna Calvi and actor, writer, and director John Cameron Mitchell.

The EP was financed by Palmer’s Patreon supporters, and is being sold for $1 on Bandcamp. Part of the money will go to Bowie’s publisher, and the remaining proceeds from the first month of sales will be donated to the cancer research wing of the Tufts Medical Center in memory of Bowie.

“I was on the phone with Jherek [Bischoff], discussing another project, and I was feeling a bit trapped in the non-productive new-mother cave—so we joked that we should do a flash Bowie tribute,” Palmer wrote in a statement. “And suddenly, we weren’t joking. I had funding from my 7,000 fans on Patreon to ‘make stuff.’ What better ‘stuff’? We started that night, giving ourselves a deadline of two weeks to release it as a surprise.”

And so in the spirit of surprise Bowie tributes, Second Inversion decided to write a surprise album review. Here are all the things we love about this shimmering Starman string tribute:

Cassandra Long: “Blackstar”

BLACKSTAR: The album begins with the end: a cover of the title track from Bowie’s final studio album. Palmer and Bischoff turn Bowie’s surreal musical dreamscape into a soulful string lament, with Palmer’s and Calvi’s vocals echoing from opposite ears above layered string melodies. It’s one part mystic hymnal, one part cult cabaret, one part pop poetry, and all parts transcendent.

Sarah Beetson: “Space Oddity”

SPACE ODDITY: Palmer’s husband, author Neil Gaiman, provides the countdown to “Space Oddity,” Bowie’s 1969 interstellar single. Weightless string melodies and pizzicato backdrops sparkle like the stars beneath Palmer’s airy vocals in this nebulous outer-space adventure.

David Mack: “Ashes to Ashes”

ASHES TO ASHES: Palmer and Bischoff strip out the synth from this New Romantic 1980s nursery rhyme and focus instead on its melancholic vocal melodies. Palmer’s theatrical voice floats softly through layers of angular string melodies and deadpan backup vocals—wistful, nostalgic, and “strung out in Heaven’s high.”

Bill Sienkiewicz:”Heroes”

HEROES: Of course, the album just wouldn’t be Bowie if it didn’t have a rendition of his 1970s synth-laden serenade, “Heroes.” Effervescent strings propel Palmer’s fervent vocals forward in this heartfelt tribute, with John Cameron Mitchell providing the background vocals for its impassioned climax.

HA-HA: “Helden”

HELDEN: Palmer and Mitchell also team up for an abridged cover of the German version of “Heroes.” Their fiery duet soars triumphantly over a textured string backdrop, paying tribute to a Bowie classic that truly transcends language.

Félix Marqués: “Life on Mars?”

LIFE ON MARS?: Bischoff turns Bowie’s surrealist sci-fi anthem into a lively instrumental string serenade, taking the original heartrending melody and transforming it into a happy and hopeful reminder of Bowie’s boundless musical imagination.

Because that’s the beauty of Bowie: his creative vision extended beyond genre, geography, or language. Throughout his chameleonic career, he created music that could connect and inspire people from all over the globe, and perhaps even beyond it.

“Music is the binding agent of our mundane lives,” Palmer wrote. “It cements the moments in which we wash the dishes, type the resumes, go to the funerals, have the babies. The stronger the agent, the tougher the memory, and Bowie was NASA-grade epoxy to a sprawling span of freaked-out kids over three generations. He bonded us to our weird selves. We can be us, he said. Just for one day.”

In the end, Bowie’s contributions to the world of music extend far past the confines of rock, glam, pop, or classical genres, reminding us that when it comes to art, the sky is the limit—and a creative spirit like his belongs right up alongside the stars. Rest in peace, Starman.

“The man, the artist, exits,” Palmer wrote. “But the music, the glue; it stays. It never stops binding us together.”

ALBUM REVIEW: Spektral Quartet’s “Serious Business”

Posted on February 8, 2016 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Molloy

Photo Credit: Drew Reynolds

In Medieval times musicians were essentially court jesters—entertainers who performed music, told jokes, and did tricks to entertain the nobility or to make money at fairs and markets. But somewhere along the long and winding road of the Western music tradition, music became much more serious.

Fast forward to the 21^st century, where opera houses and concert halls protect and preserve a canon of “serious” classical works. Audience members dress in suits and gowns, sit quietly in their seats, read expertly-crafted program notes, stick their noses in the air and, most importantly, never clap between movements.

Or at least, that’s how it feels sometimes. But the Spektral Quartet is here to dispel that classical concert-going stereotype and inject a little much-needed comic relief into the classical music realm.

Spektral’s new album, titled “Serious Business,” is anything but serious. The album comprises four different perspectives on humor through the lens of classical music, featuring three new works by living composers and one classic from that late, great father of the string quartet, Joseph Haydn.

But don’t let the lighthearted humor fool you—these guys are no classical music newbies. Comprised of violinists Clara Lyon and Austin Wulliman, violist Doyle Armbrust, and cellist Russell Rolen, the Spektral Quartet performs music from across the classical music spectrum. The group is committed to creating connections across the centuries and providing a discourse between the traditional classical canon and the, well, not-so-traditional contemporary classical canon.

“THIS ALBUM IS NOT FUNNY,” reads the first page of the album’s liner notes, in bold black and all caps. True, the music is not ha-ha funny per se—it’s not going to get you on the floor laughing, crying, or rolling around gut-busted and teary-eyed. But the music is, however, full of humor, tricks, subtle charm, and clever wit.

The first piece of “Serious Business,” composed by Sky Macklay, is not-so-subtly titled “Many, Many Cadences.” Suffice it to say, the piece has a lot, A LOT of cadences. Each instrument pings rapid-fire back and forth between the stratosphere and the lowest note in its pitch range, creating a twitchy, glitchy sound mass of tonal cadences clangoring up, down, sideways, and across like a pinball machine.

“Heaping nothing but cadences on top of one another is a little like an America’s Funniest Home Videos highlight reel of dads getting head-butted by waist-high toddlers,” violist Doyle Armbrust writes in the liner notes, “Which is to say, it’s all payoff.”

But that payoff doesn’t come easy—it takes a seriously talented group of string players to perform a tangled nine-minute mess of interwoven and overlapping melodic fragments, brain-frying base-jumps, and constant cadences.

Five short movements and some existential poetry comprise the next piece on the album, David Reminick’s “The Ancestral Mousetrap.” An absurdist macabre text by poet Russell Edson serves as the libretto for this musical phantasmagoria—and the string players themselves are the singers.

“The five-movement timbral kaleidoscope opens with a preposterous slide and ends with a scurry up the fingerboard,” Armbrust writes, “But for what happens in between, you are on your own.”

Yes, in between you are on your own in a thrilling and nightmarish hallucination of operatic horror, deranged pitch collections, melodic dissonance, asymmetrical meter, and the occasional four-part vocal harmony. In fact, it’s so unapologetically macabre that it borders on pulp—and therein lies the humor. But in all seriousness, the sheer skill it takes to perform a kaleidoscopic string quartet while also singing four-part harmonies is pretty incredible—and it’s on full display in this macabre musical mashup.

Spektral reels it back in with a performance of Haydn’s String Quartet Op. 33 No. 2, “The Joke.” From toying with key signatures to tongue-in-cheek codas and trap-door endings, this classic crowd favorite is filled with musical subversions to charm and amuse audiences—and Spektral doesn’t miss a beat. It’s a lighthearted homage to one of the greats, a charismatic and jovial joke reminding us classical music buffs never to take ourselves too seriously.

The album ends with a performance of Chris Fisher-Lochhead’s “Hack,” a sprawling 22-part piece composed on the transcribed vocal deliveries of standup comics. The source materials for each part vary in length from four seconds to three minutes, and the comics featured encompass a wide range of comedic styles and historical periods.

(Second Inversion was thrilled to present the video premiere of this gem a few weeks ago)

“Some are truculent, some are reflective,” Fisher-Lochhead said of the comedians. “Some use the stage as an arena for withering social critique, some for personal confession, some for ritualized transgression. Each section treats a single comedic bit by a single comedian; the source material is not always clearly foregrounded—it is often submerged, dissected, amplified, deconstructed, or otherwise transformed.”

The piece features impeccably nuanced string quartet transcriptions of 16 comedians ranging from Robin Williams to Sarah Silverman, Robert Pryor to Kumail Nanjiani, Dick Gregory to Sam Kinison. But here’s the funny thing: the piece removes the words from the formula of the joke, leaving us with just the humor of the comedic cadences.

It is sonic anarchy. “Hack” is an obstacle course of screeches, swoops, and sputters, breakneck tempos and unison outbursts, gauzy glissandi and meter changes. But for being a piece about comedy, it’s actually quite serious in scope and subject matter: it is an exploration into the music of American speech and the way that language, laughter, and music connects us all.

Because in the end, that’s what the entire album is about: finding the humor and charm in classical music, making a joke, sharing a smile, and maybe, just maybe, accidentally clapping between movements.

ALBUM REVIEW: “The Fiction Issue” by Gabriel Kahane

Posted on February 1, 2016 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Molloy

Editor’s Note: Classical KING FM and Second Inversion present Gabriel Kahane and Brooklyn Rider at Seattle’s Tractor Tavern Monday, Feb. 1 at 8 p.m. For tickets and more information, click here.
GK3PhotoCreditJoshGoleman

Singer-songwriter Gabriel Kahane’s got a new set of strings—an entire string quartet, actually. He recently joined forces with ever-eclectic string quartet Brooklyn Rider to record a new album titled “The Fiction Issue.”

Over the course of the past decade, Kahane has crafted quite a resume. He’s toured, performed, and collaborated with some of the biggest names in contemporary classical. He’s served academic and artistic residencies around the country, received commissions from the likes of Carnegie Hall, composed for chamber ensemble, orchestra, musical theatre—heck, the man once made music out of Craigslist ads, for heaven’s sake.

He’s a pianist, a composer, a singer-songwriter, a poet—the list goes on and on. But one thing Kahane had not done yet was compose a full-length album of chamber music—that is, until now.

“The Fiction Issue” is Kahane’s first chamber album, but it’s not your standard collection of string quartets and piano trios. Featuring the inimitable talents of Brooklyn Rider and vocalist/composer/songstress-extraordinaire Shara Worden (of My Brightest Diamond), the album is something of a mashup between classical chamber music, creative musings, pop music, and poetry.

How it all came about is a bit of a long story—or rather, it’s really more of a series of short stories. The album features two modern-day song cycles and a single-movement string quartet.

(full album is released on Friday, February 5)

“I’ve often thought of a three minute song as a close relative of the short story, as far as narrative economy is concerned,” Kahane said. “In both cases, the writer has to be judicious about what details to include or exclude, because there simply isn’t enough real estate to include everything.”

Kahane explores this challenge in the album’s title track, which was commissioned by Carnegie Hall for his recital debut there in 2012. Written in six parts, the 25-minute piece features both Kahane and Worden singing above Brooklyn Rider’s gorgeously textured string backdrop. Piano, electric guitar, and reed organ (naturally) add both timbral and narrative interest.

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“While the title is a bit of a cheeky nod to The New Yorker’s annual collection of short stories,” Kahane said, “It’s more earnestly a reference to the challenges of narrativity in music: the issue of fiction.”

The piece is equal parts nostalgia, whimsy, word painting, and poetry—with just a dash of humor and satire for good measure. Worden’s crystalline vocals dance effortlessly through the work’s pop, folk, hymnal, and operatic threads, with Kahane’s warm, velvety vocals adding a bit of an art-rock aesthetic. Together the two very different vocalists craft a fascinating and, at times, dissonant dreamscape, each one drifting through their own abstracted story. And while the musical and poetic lines between the two often blur, mysteriously enough the two characters never directly interact.

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“Because the narrative of ‘The Fiction Issue’ is perhaps willfully ambiguous, the music itself does more of the heavy lifting in creating architectural rigor for the piece, as opposed to say, a clearly etched plot,” Kahane said. “For the most part, the entire piece is derived in one way or another from the first three notes that Shara [Worden] sings—a leitmotif that is continually transformed over the course of the work. I hope that this formal discipline, whether or not it’s perceived by the listener, creates license for the more stream-of-consciousness approach to the text.”

The work is followed by a chamber deconstruction of Kahane’s brooding, cinematic pop song “Bradbury (304 Broadway)” off his 2014 album, “The Ambassador.” In his new string quartet adaptation, aptly titled “Bradbury Studies,” Kahane uses shards of motivic and melodic material from the original song to craft an entirely new sound world. Brooklyn Rider brings Kahane’s vision to life with palpable energy and skilled execution of extended string techniques and textural interplay—each player completely in control amidst the chaotic soundscape.

The final piece on the album is Kahane’s three-part song cycle, “Come on All You Ghosts,” which he composed on texts by poet Matthew Zapruder. Animated strings weave in and out of Kahane’s tender yet poised vocals in this short collection of modern art songs. Drawing from a wide palette of textural and timbral colors in the strings, Kahane crafts a sound world somewhere between the realms of contemporary classical, pop, musical theatre, and art rock with a tinge of fringe.

After all, it is in these margins between musical genres that we often find the strongest sense of collaboration and community—and each piece on “The Fiction Issue” harnesses a warmth and intimacy reflective of that bond.

“We often call albums ‘records’ in the sense that they are documents,” Kahane said. “This album is not only a document of the time and place in which it was recorded, but also a document of a series of relationships that have deepened and evolved over the last half dozen years; it’s a great honor and privilege to call Shara Worden, and the members of Brooklyn Rider some of my dearest musical friends, and to be able to share this album with the world as evidence of those friendships.”

ALBUM REVIEW: Mason Bates’ Mothership featuring Gil Rose/Boston Modern Orchestra Project

Posted on January 25, 2016 by maestrobeats

by Geoffrey Larson

BMOP throws down orchestral music of Composer-DJ Mason Bates

Sydney Exterior

Ever since the extravaganza of the YouTube Symphony’s premiere of Mason Bates’ Mothership at the Sydney Opera House in 2011, the piece has taken off (sorry), popping up in the programs of major orchestras across the US and abroad. Mothership is perhaps the most direct and largest-scale representation of Bates’ style as an ensemble composer, which blends contemporary American classical composition with jazz and electronic sounds. Its driving, grooving feel is positively addictive, like Short Ride in a Fast Machine seen through a smoky jazz/electronic kaleidoscope. A slightly more introspective middle section relies on the talents of improvisers, making no two performances the same – and some borderline EDM-style beats and electronics provided by a laptop-driven synth setup or the keypad-operating composer himself drive the pace of the music. It’s totally fun, and totally infectious.

I was already hooked after seeing the YouTube performance of Mothership, but after witnessing excellent performances by the Pittsburgh Symphony of this work and others such as Desert Transport during Mason’s time as PSO Composer in Residence, I was a full-blown addict. Where’s the recording??, I muttered to myself through sleepless nights. So, a very heartfelt thank-you goes out to Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project for satisfying (and abetting) my addiction with a full album of Mason’s orchestral music.

(available now from BMOP/sound)

For the listener, this release pulls no punches. We are first launched into space with Mothership, then glide along the gossamer textures of Sea-Blue Circuitry, are blasted by the orchestral fanfares of Attack Decay Sustain Release, and are then enchanted by the humid, electronic-cicada-filled ambience of Rusty Air in Carolina before being flung across the desert in a helicopter in Desert Transport. Modern classical albums that feature only one composer are rarely listenable all the way through; not so with this one. It’s unmistakably Bates throughout, but the deep variety of orchestral sounds, augmented with electronic wizardry from the composer’s club DJ side, never succeed in exhausting the ear.

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As for the performance, BMOP is in their usual excellent form, with ensemble playing that is tightly coordinated in the midst of rapid-fire passages and a brass section that is strikingly powerful in its attacks and beautifully in tune. In the midst of synthesized textures, the orchestral layers come through crystal-clear. In Mothership, we even get an improvisation from Su Chang, the virtuoso guzheng player from the work’s premiere performance, together with Jason Moran on FM Rhodes synth. Rose’s highly accurate treatment of dynamics takes the ensemble to a beautifully evocative place in Rusty Air in Carolina, and adds appropriate shaping and punch in the other works. We should be very relieved that Rose and BMOP aren’t afraid to really let it rip in this music’s most powerful moments.

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Part of what makes this music great is its versatility: it’s at home in so many different settings, from the venerated orchestral concert hall, to the sweaty dance club, to your living room on a Tuesday night. This album is a keeper, then, but not without a major drawback: The B-Sides, Bates’ moody set of orchestral vignettes, is disappointingly absent. Did they run out of room? Is there a follow-up? It’s ok, I’ll wait.

ALBUM REVIEW: “Strum” by Jessie Montgomery

Posted on January 18, 2016 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Molloy

New York-based violinist and composer Jessie Montgomery looks confidently over her shoulder in the cover art for her debut album “Strum: Music for Strings.” Surrounded by the black and white rubble of a broken and buried city, she emerges with strength and poise, her chin held high and her hand on her hip—a golden light amidst the dust and debris.

In some ways, the image evokes the artwork of the Harlem Renaissance—the use of color, the stylized portraiture, the message of strength and, above all, hope.

For nearly two decades, Montgomery has been affiliated with the Sphinx Organization, a group which supports the accomplishments of young African-American, Latino, and minority string players. Since 2012 she has held a post as Composer-in-Residence with the Sphinx Virtuosi, a conductor-less string orchestra, and she has also been a two-time laureate in the annual Sphinx Competition.

“Strum” is the first album dedicated solely to Montgomery’s music, and marks her debut as a leading composer and performer. The album features performances by the Sphinx Virtuosi, PUBLIQuartet (of which Montgomery is a co-founder), and of course, the Catalyst Quartet—Montgomery’s own chamber music group.

The album combines classical chamber music with elements of folk music, spirituals, improvisation, poetry, and politics, crafting a unique and insightful new–music perspective on the cross-cultural intersections of American history.

The first piece, “Starburst,” serves as a one-movement introduction to the colorful album, highlighting the dynamic energy and multilayered soundscapes to come. Premiered by the Sphinx Virtuosi, the piece is performed with grace, precision, and explosive verve.

What follows is a markedly more soulful and melancholy requiem titled “Source Code,” performed by the Catalyst Quartet. The one-movement work echoes with the rich musical history of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, with many of its melodies and musical textures inspired by African–American artists of that era.

“I experimented by re-interpreting gestures, sentences, and musical syntax (the bare bones of rhythm and inflection) by choreographer Alvin Ailey, poets Langston Hughes and Rita Dove, and the great jazz songstress Ella Fitzgerald into musical sentences and tone paintings,” Montgomery said of her inspiration for the piece. “Ultimately, this exercise of listening, re-imagining, and transcribing led me back to the black spiritual as a common musical source across all three genres.”

Ripe with poignancy, the piece tells a countless tales as its haunting melodies and slow glissandos ruminate through the gorgeous, blues-inspired harmonies.

Photo credit: Jiyang Chen

Montgomery goes on to explore a wide range of musical textures in “Break Away,” a work comprised of five short movements with added improvisational elements. Written for the PUBLIQuartet in 2013, the piece moves from musical abstractions to songlike melodies, airy glissandos to jazz improvisations. Technically demanding and skillfully performed, the piece explores a vast terrain of musical textures in under 10 minutes and ends with a wildly dissonant bang.

Montgomery then breaks away from chamber music for “Rhapsody No. 1,” an unaccompanied violin solo which serves as the first in a series of six rhapsodies which she plans to write in tribute to the tradition of J.S. Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas.

Photo credit: Jiyang Chen

“In paying tribute to this archetypal tradition, I have chosen to elaborate by writing for a variety of solo voices across instrument families—violin, viola, flute, bassoon, and double bass—so that the final rhapsody in the cycle is a five part chamber work for all of the instruments in the collection,” she said of the cycle.

Here Montgomery showcases her passion and artistry as a soloist, balancing sensitivity and intimate expression with technical proficiency and fiery passion, crafting a compelling and unforgettable introduction to what’s sure to be a rapturous suite.

But in the case of this album, what follows is another type of rhapsody: Montgomery’s tribute to the 200th anniversary of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Scored for solo string quartet and string orchestra, Montgomery’s “Banner” begins as a simple variation on the theme of the U.S. national anthem, but quickly expands into an exploration of world anthems and patriotic songs, begging the question: “What does a 21st century anthem sound like in today’s multicultural environment?”

For Montgomery, a 21st century anthem pays tribute to all of America’s wide-ranging cultures, while also allowing space for the possibilities of new and ever-changing folk and popular idioms. She explores as many as she can in just under 10 minutes, drawing from both classical and folk traditions while also incorporating the high energy and rhythmic verve of marching bands, drumline choruses, multilayered fanfare, and more.

The album comes to a close with the title track, “Strum,” performed by the Catalyst Quartet. Strummed pizzicato lines serve as a texture motive across all four instruments, creating a rhythmic vitality which propels the piece forward from its nostalgic first moments all the way through to its ecstatic and dramatic ending. Layered rhythms and harmonic ostinati round out the piece’s warm, dancelike spirit, crafting a joyous and hopeful ending to Montgomery’s debut.

And while this album may just be the beginning for Montgomery, “Strum” certainly echoes with possibility.