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Classical music is fluid. Try as we might, we can never pin down a definitive “beginning” or “end” to the arbitrary musical eras we’ve created. And while we may broadly categorize music as Baroque or Classical, Romantic or Modern, ultimately all of these seemingly individualized movements blend into a much broader pool: the Western classical music tradition.
But this pool is not static—it continues to change and evolve as composers and performers continue to make waves in the contemporary music world.
That’s the premise behind pianist Michael Mizrahi’s new album of solo piano works, “Currents.” Recently released on the New Amsterdam record label, the album brings together six impeccably performed and expertly recorded new American piano works, almost all of which were written specifically for Mizrahi’s idiosyncratic sound, style, and musical approach.
The result is a unique addition to the 21st century solo piano repertoire that, as the title suggests, embodies movement forward, building on the great piano works of the past while also expanding and propelling the solo piano works of the future. The album features works by Sarah Kirkland Snider, Troy Herion, Mark Dancigers, Asha Srinivasan, Missy Mazzoli, and Patrick Burke.
The album begins with the title track: “The Currents” by Sarah Kirkland Snider. Perhaps best known for her song cycles (which feature the inimitable voices of Shara Worden and Padma Newsome), this solo piano piece carries the same flowing lyricism and sensitivity as Snider’s vocal music—but without any of the words. Mizrahi’s fingers swim gracefully through the ebb and flow of the piece, beautifully capturing the depth and breadth of colors that make the currents come to life.
The piece is followed by Troy Herion’s pseudo-Baroque solo piano work, cheekily titled “Harpsichords.” Heavily peppered with trills and musical ornaments, the piece evokes the pristine, transparent textures of the Baroque era while venturing into 21st century melodies and musical forms (or, you know, lack thereof). Mizrahi blends both eras seamlessly.
The slow-moving and sincere “Bright Motion Ascending” is nothing short of sparkling. The work was composed for Mizrahi by his NOW Ensemble bandmate, guitarist Mark Dancigers, as the third installment in his “Bright Motion” trilogy. Mizrahi’s fast fingers transform the piano into a harp, his fingertips gliding effortlessly across cascading arpeggios, from the glistening upper registers of the piano all the way down to its earthiest tones.
Asha Srinivasan’s introspective “Mercurial Reveries” draws upon her Indian-American heritage, weaving in elements from Indian classical scales and modes, along with the occasional (and ever so subtle) jazz piano lick. Over the course of five short movements, she explores a vast terrain of distinctive musical textures, at one point even instructing the pianist to physically reach inside the piano and stop the strings’ vibrations with one hand while playing on the keys with the other. Mizrahi, as it turns out, plays the inside of the piano with the same precision and grace as the outside.
The work is followed by Missy Mazzoli’s “Heartbreaker,” an intimate piece which showcases Mizrahi’s virtuosity without bleeding over into the showy (and at times superficial) pitfall of many virtuosic solo piano pieces. The piece starts out deceptively simple, but quickly spirals into freewheeling abandon, dancing just within the limits of the pianist’s control.
The album comes to a close with Patrick Burke’s poignant and pensive “Missing Piece.” Mizrahi’s fingers pace across slow-moving triadic harmonies and yearning dissonances, uncovering the work’s clear Romantic underpinnings.
Ultimately, each piece on the album reminds us that there is no clear line between the music of the past and the music of the present. We don’t always have to separate the music into arbitrary categories—sometimes we just need to sit back, relax, and get swept up in the “Currents.”
by Maggie Stapleton Skylark is a professional chamber choir of world-class musicians with a passion for small ensemble performance and their new album, Crossing Over, demonstrates a strong dedication to music composed in the 20th and 21st centuries.
To celebrate its March 25 release on Sono Luminus, we’re excited to present the video premiere of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s gorgeous, evocative, and other-worldly setting of an ancient Icelandic psalm: Heyr þú oss himnum á.
Skylark: Crossing Over Matthew Guard, Skylark Artistic Director [1] Elegy by Daniel Elder (b. 1986) [4:16] [2-9] Butterfly Dreams by John Tavener (1944-2013) [12:13] [10] Otche Nash by Nicolai Kedrov (1871-1940) [2:03] [11] Requiem by Jón Leifs (1899-1968) [4:41] [12] Heliocentric Meditation by Robert Vuichard (b.1985) [9:12] [13-15] Carols of Death by William Schuman (1910-1992) [9:42] [16] Heyr þú oss himnum á by Anna Thorvaldsdottir (b. 1977) [4:27] [17] Funeral Ikos by John Tavener [5:55]
Skylark is a premiere a cappella vocal ensemble of leading American vocal soloists based in Atlanta and Boston. Formed in 2011 by Artistic Director Matthew Guard, Skylark has been described as “a gem… soloists who come together to create a dynamic and inspiring whole” (ArtsATL). Skylark strives to set the standard for innovative, engaging, well-researched, and dramatically presented programs that re-define the choral experience for audiences and singers alike. Since its founding five years ago, Skylark has branched out to perform its innovative programs in museums, concert halls, and churches in six states. In 2015, Skylark became one of the only chamber choirs in the U.S. to successfully perform Francis Poulenc’s Figure Humaine. In 2016, Skylark will make its Spivey Hall debut with a chamber performance of Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil. Skylark Artists have performed with other internationally renowned groups including Blue Heron, The Handel & Haydn Society, Lorelei, The Pheonix Chorale, Sante Fe Desert Chorale, Seraphic Fire, Trinity Wall Street and the Yale Choral Artists. A not-for-profit entity, Skylark also performs educational outreach programs with high school students in Atlanta and Boston and across the U.S. during its concert tours.
Photo: Saga Sigurdardottir
Anna Thorvaldsdottir frequently works with large sonic structures that tend to reveal the presence of a vast variety of sustained sound materials, reflecting her sense of imaginative listening to landscapes and nature. Her music tends to portray a flowing world of sounds with an enigmatic lyrical atmosphere.
Anna’s music is frequently performed internationally, and has been featured at several major venues and music festivals such as Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival in NYC, the Composer Portraits Series at NYC’s Miller Theatre, ISCM World Music Days, Nordic Music Days, Ultima Festival, Klangspuren Festival, Beijing Modern Music Festival, Reykjavik Arts Festival, Tectonics, and the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Her works have been nominated and awarded on many occasions – most notably, Anna is the recipient of the prestigious Nordic Council Music Prize 2012 for her work Dreaming, and The New York Philharmonic’s Kravis Emerging Composer Award.
Some of the orchestras and ensembles that Anna has worked with include International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), BIT20, Musiques Nouvelles, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Yarn/Wire, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the CAPUT Ensemble, the Oslo Philharmonic, and Either/Or Ensemble.
Anna holds a PhD from the University of California in San Diego.
David Stock did not hold back. That one thing about the late composer is for sure; his music was unfettered by any sort of self-consciousness or reticence. His works are an unabashed good time, and the bluntness of his titles reflect a musical personality full of good humor: Plenty of Horn, Blast!, Sax Appeal, Knockout. David was an up-front kind of guy, and was profoundly focused on creating, promoting, and nurturing the finest musical art. He left an indelible mark on the American musical landscape in long associations with some of the country’s finest orchestras. Through his creation of the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and his work with other Pittsburgh institutions, he brought amazing culture and musical vitality to the Rust Belt.
Who better than Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project to do justice to his work? Rose shares Stock’s ties to Pittsburgh (both were educated at Carnegie Mellon), and his no-nonsense, quality-above-all-else attitude. In response to the often modest size of BMOP’s concert audience, Rose told the New York Times, “I don’t like to put a lot of money into marketing because I’d rather put it on the stage.” He has focused on building an orchestra of the Boston area’s finest freelancers and focusing their collective musical might into the most consummate performances of contemporary music, with a special emphasis on preserving the music of living composers in high-quality recordings with his own BMOP/Sound label.
Rose and BMOP explore Stock’s concertos in this latest release, teaming up with soloists who were close with the composer. The Cuban-born violinist Andrés Cárdenes premiered Stock’s earlier 1995 Violin Concerto with Pittsburgh Symphony during his time as that orchestra’s concertmaster, and aside from his usual spectacular virtuosity brings a special affinity to this music. He seemingly devours every note and rhythm in the Concierto Cubano (2000), particularly in the tango-like third movement “Dancing, with fire.” That third movement is not far from the textures and harmonies of the final movement of Copland’s Clarinet Concerto (both works are scored for soloist and string orchestra), revealing some of the underpinnings of the Americana in Stock’s orchestral sound. Though BMOP’s intonation begins to fray slightly in the course of some rapid and challenging passagework, the orchestra executes this music with resolute confidence and poise under Rose.
Stock’s music is not all pyrotechnics: the lyricism that rounds out the works on this release actually makes the collection quite accessible for newcomers to his music. The second piece on the disc is especially demanding of a special seriousness in addition to the trademark Stock joviality, and oboist Alex Klein is fully committed, giving an almost operatic performance. In Oborama, Stock presents a series of five character pieces that each feature a different instrument, touring us through the oboe family from English horn to musette (piccolo oboe), oboe d’amore, and bass oboe before giving the final word to the standard oboe itself. Klein is an especially adept practitioner of the instrument to excel on all five, giving life to each instrument’s character as portrayed in the five-movement drama. If you know of another work that features five instruments of the oboe family, please tell us. It must have been a rare treat to see this work in live performance – we are super jealous.
There’s more live performance FOMO in Lisa Pegher’s recording of Stock’s Percussion Concerto, which is whoa!-inducing from the start. Stock strikes up an unbalanced dialogue between soloist and orchestra at the outset, with the soloist interjecting thunderously among soft string chords à la Ives’ The Unanswered Question (or the second movement of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto, with roles reversed). Pegher masterfully captures the underlying tension of the inward-looking second movement (marked “Introspective”), and the soft tones of the marimba never seem to wander aimlessly. She’s right at home as the fully battery is unleashed in the jubilantly syncopated finale, and BMOP is up for the mad scramble of notes as well. Stock has written another fearsome part for the orchestral timpanist in this concerto, and BMOP’s Craig McNutt trades blows with the soloist with aplomb.
I first met David Stock at a Seattle Symphony rehearsal in 2007, when the orchestra was preparing for a performance of his work Blast! under Gerard Schwarz. One of my favorite memories of David comes from one of the many conversations we had at performances of the Pittsburgh Symphony (did he miss a single one?), when I reminded him of that occasion in Seattle. He exclaimed at me from behind his suspenders and massive glasses, “It’s not just Blast, you know, it’s Blast! With an EXCLAMATION POINT!” Speaking of Stock with Jerry Schwarz in Pittsburgh in 2014, Schwarz said to me: “We chose to feature David’s music ina program of the All-Star Orchestra. He always said, ‘It’s not just Blast, you know, it’s Blast! With an EXCLAMATION POINT!’”
David was an unforgettable person, and the infectious character of his music is felt both by those familiar with his work and experiencing it for the first time. Though this latest BMOP release was recorded before his passing in November 2015 and was never meant as a eulogy for the composer, it serves as a fitting tribute, wrapped in the blinding virtuosity, good humor, and friendship that these musicians do best.
Geoffrey Larson is a host on Second Inversion, and is the Music Director of Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra.
These are just some of the things that ran through my head as I tried to push through the internal noise and jot down a few melodic ideas to match the words in front of me. The negative voice in my head can be quite derisive. I’ll avoid, for your sake, typing the more profane things it comes up with to keep me from making progress.
While that voice was not helpful at all, it was not entirely without ground to stand on. I’d never taken someone else’s words and set them as music before. I’d never written for an ensemble of such size, or a piece of such scope. It was yet another creative stretch past my previous efforts and it was, at times, very painful. There were times when I really did feel like I was faking it until I could make it.
But that’s the thing about doing something for the first time, isn’t it? You don’t know what will happen. Not that you can ever truly know, and be 100% sure, of any future. But at least you can have an experience-based sense of what to expect.
So how did I end up in this stress position, reaching for something new? I tend to say “yes” a lot. It’s one of the things that has been a blessing and a curse. Sometimes, both. In this particular case, I’m super glad that I did say “yes”, because those intense, stressful periods were short, and interspersed with real glimpses of inspiration. Were it not for the deadline, I might have had nothing but joy and a synergetic experience. Truth be told, though, without a deadline I might have never finished. And, once the piece was complete, I had the thoroughly moving experience of performing it with committed and powerful musicians. And there’s more to come!
This project, my setting of Tracy K. Smith‘s poem “Life on Mars”, from her Pulitzer prize winning book Life on Mars was an outgrowth of an earlier collaborative seed. Scott Reed, at the Music Academy of the West, had approached me about working with Tracy at some point, and as an intro to her work, had given me a copy of Life on Mars as well as another one of her books, Duende. I’d read them multiple times when there suddenly was the need for another composer on one of Town Hall Seattle’s concerts full of premieres. We wanted four new works with our available forces – Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire was the big work on the program, scored for Soprano, Violin, Cello, Flute, Clarinet, Piano, and a few doublings – and had run out of contacts with time on their hands. I was convinced to set two of the nine pieces from “Life on Mars” for that concert, and when Music Academy of the West found out I was already in that project, they commissioned me to finish the 9 song cycle.
I chose “Life on Mars” because to me it represented a colorful, modern voice using creative analogies to probe some of the deeper questions about complicity and empathy. Up to that point, the little music I’d written down on paper had been more fanciful in nature; playing with the idea of light traveling through different atmospheres, or exploring the naïve quality of young love. I wanted, this time at least, to look something straight in the face and tell it I was not afraid.
Tracy’s work does this. In “Life on Mars,” we circle around the darkness, toying with theories about what binds us together or pulls us apart. We also take the time to more directly confront episodes of moral error, looking at the horrifying story of a man who kept his daughter in a cage in his basement for years, a girl recounting the rape and destruction wrought on her village, and the actions at Abu Ghraib.
Finding a musical way to embrace the variety of tones, even among those darker passages, was a unique challenge. The nine poems had a few through lines – a character named Tina (a real-life friend and colleague of Tracy’s) muses about scientific connections to emotion and language while the author’s voice responds in the text – and a rhythm of wild fantasy in contrast with the depths of depravity emerges – but my initial and pervading instinct was to follow the many colors within the poems to their most natural musical styles. Thus, I began to search out the most obvious clues and go from there.
One of the first things that jumped out at me was the sarcasm in the poem about Abu Ghraib (“Strung Up”). As I heard a voice in my head speaking the text, enunciation became stronger and a blues rhythm began to emerge. There was no going back from this, and it became a hardcore blues riff with bass clarinet taking center stage along with the soprano. In “They”, where the girl has been dragged from her village, the italicized text and hauntingly stark descriptions of the event made me feel an incredibly discordant juxtaposition of stillness with bubbling energy underneath. More whispered than spoken, with moments of beautiful reverie that become disturbing for their context.
At other times, it was not a voice that captured my imagination so much as connections to the structure or the words themselves. The first movement references “dark matter” (which I chose as the title of the song), and the rhythm of those words began popping up as a unifying music gesture. In “Back and Forth”, violin and cello exchange false harmonics in an easy dancing rhythm, and the singer alternates between two notes as she sings the line. I used a simple inversion technique in “In Error” as the words “and told in reverse” are sung, and amplified the effect with a sudden stop on the word “hacked.”
As for structure, one of the happy things about writing based on an existing piece of art (or anything, really) is that I am able to come up with a musical structure based on what I perceive as the existing narrative. Rather than coming up with a new abstract form, or imposing my own, I was able to just spend a lot of time with the text and watch as the shape began to emerge, seemingly on its own. Obviously this is my interpretation, and is based on my musical associations with the text, as well as my understanding of the text on its own merit. Other artists might not have gone off so playfully with passages like the one in “A Pair of Them” where words like “spaces”, “nothing”, and “equation” are repeated in the text, and so repeated as flourishing musical gestures in the song. Also, someone else might not have bothered to count that there were 12 statements about “The earth” and decided that a “Passacaglia” was in order, with each phrase starting on a different chromatic tone over the same ground (earth).
I could geek out all day over this, hehe. That’s the fun part. Once you get an idea, it can be absolutely exhilarating. My parents, who hosted me at their farm in Oklahoma for much of the writing of this piece, probably thought I was nuts as I would shout and repeat just-discovered harmonies over and over again on the piano. Especially as I’m not really a trained pianist or vocalist, but have no shyness at home.
But even that might not compare to hearing this sung and played live. I’m very grateful to all the musicians who have performed notes I’ve written – each time it has been a humbling and invigorating experience. And, as someone fairly new to composition, mind-bending as well. With this piece, with my short chamber work “take me all the way,” and again with my cello concerto “Awakening.”
The latest performance of my own work, which you can hear in its entirety, was with Jessica Rivera singing “we do it to one another” at Town Hall Seattle, and all of the musicians brought their best in a performance that left me feeling amazing gratitude. Jessica and the others really got into the characters, and left me with goosebumps from intensity as well as beauty (yes, there are moments of great beauty in this poetry as well). Jessica Rivera is someone who takes the roles she inhabits very seriously. She is not only a singer with a beautiful voice, but one that uses it with a great sense of responsibility and deep preparation.
I was especially grateful for their dedication as a fever had me horizontal for much of the week, and shaky on my feet even during the performance, which I conducted. So, a brief but heartfelt thank you is necessary to:
(February 25, 2016 performance at Town Hall Seattle. Photo Credit:Libby Lewis)
As part of this very special event, Tracy was able to join us and read some of her poetry, including “Life on Mars.” You can hear this, as well as our panel discussion with Rebecca Hoogs, below. Tracy shares some of her insight into the writing process, as well as her feelings about having her work turned into a musical piece after the fact. Spoiler: we feel the same about that – it is a unique situation when compared to either setting poems from an author of the past, or working with a librettist in a real-time collaboration.
Thank you for supporting my artistic journey by reading this blog. Please feel free to comment, and even suggest topics for future posts. There are plenty on the docket, but it’s always nice to know what you are most interested in hearing about, as well. In a process that is not too dissimilar from my composing, that negative voice pops up during the writing of blog posts as well. One thing I’m slowly learning: sometimes that voice just means you’re breaking new ground, and it’s important to keep going as you expand your artistry, and ultimately, your concept of self.
I hope you have a chance to listen to the concert in its entirety. Back to my initial impulse to write this particular piece; I am a fan of music that helps us escape, celebrate, etc. I know I am in part, an entertainer. But sometimes, I think it’s important to explore a little deeper, within the safe place that art can offer. Then we have the opportunity to challenge ourselves to look within, with fearless scrutiny, and face every aspect of our collective nature together.
In the realm of contemporary classical, the line between acoustic and electronic is sometimes blurred. In the realm of L.A.-based composer Daniel Wohl, that line simply does not exist.
Photo by Nathan Lee Bush
Wohl’s newest release, titled “Holographic,” bends the rules of light and sound altogether, creating a new dimension in art and music. Released on New Amsterdam Records, the album blends electronic elements with the musical talents of the Mivos Quartet, Mantra Percussion, the Bang on a Can All Stars, Iktus Percussion, Olga Bell (of Dirty Projectors), and Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Shaw (of Roomful of Teeth). Not a bad roster for an electro-classical experiment.
The album begins with “Replicate,” a dense two-movement tapestry of sound featuring Iktus Percussion and a whole lot of electronics. Pitched percussion figures circle above a two-note drone, creating a warm, tranquil sound world that slowly builds in density as the piece progresses. The first movement is liquid, like echoes rippling across an ocean of sound—but the second movement picks up the pace, transforming into a chaotic wind tunnel of machines clinking, glass breaking, foghorns blasting, and electronics oscillating.
Mivos Quartet and Mantra Percussion team up with Wohl to perform “Formless,” a five-minute musical soundscape which oscillates from ear to ear. The string players slither and slide through cyclical harmonies amidst a web of muted electronics and softly pulsing percussion, blurring the boundaries between acoustic and electric, man and machine.
The album’s title track is more kaleidoscopic in nature. Performed with the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the two part “Holographic” is a something of an aural illusion—it is filled with small clusters of musical material which distort and transform to create ever-changing colors, timbres, and musical textures. It’s no wonder the work was originally conceived as a multimedia piece (which, by the way, featured a synchronized visual component designed by artist Daniel Schwarz). And though the album doesn’t include any visuals, the piece is just as vivid without them.
In keeping with vibrant musical imagery, Wohl’s next piece on the album is perfectly titled “Pixelated.” Performed with Mantra Percussion, the piece sounds sort of like a cross between a winning slot machine and a bag full of brightly-colored bouncy balls flying off the walls. It is light, bright, colorful chaos, like spilling rainbow sprinkles all over the kitchen floor.
“Source” is slightly less frenzied, though every bit as striking. The wordless vocals of Olga Bell and Caroline Shaw flow in and out of focus in this eight-minute rumination on computer music and sampled sounds, as if ghosts in an eerie electronic landscape.
The album climaxes with the hyperactive “Progression,” a maverick mashup of unusual sonorities and even more unusual rhythms. The frantic strings of Mivos Quartet intertwine with the frenetic percussion of Mantra to create this fast-paced and fretful sound world.
The album ends with Wohl’s atmospheric “Shapes,” co-written with the L.A.-based experimental music outfit Lucky Dragons. Mivos Quartet’s transparent strings mingle with humming electronics in this ethereal meditation, immersing the listener in warm waves of sound.
And in these liquid musical moments, it’s difficult to tell exactly where one instrument ends and another begins. The beauty of this album is that with each piece, Wohl artfully erases the line between acoustic and electronic, creating three-dimensional, holographic sound worlds which engulf the listener in their textures, timbres, shapes, sounds, and of course, their shimmering colors.
Classical music is fluid. Try as we might, we can never pin down a definitive “beginning” or “end” to the arbitrary musical eras we’ve created. And while we may broadly categorize music as Baroque or Classical, Romantic or Modern, ultimately all of these seemingly individualized movements blend into a much broader pool: the Western classical music tradition.
