Composer David Lang’s death speaks will be released on April 30th. The album features Bryce Dessner, Shara Worden, Owen Pallett, and Nico Muhly and was produced by Bryce.
If any of you in the Chicago area are attending the upcoming eighth blackbird concerts (featuring Bryce, Nico, and Shara), the composer and artists will be signing copies of the CD after the concert on Wednesday, May 1st. Tickets and more info for that event are available here.
eighth blackbird - Meanwhile (incidental music for imaginary puppet plays) —- a short film by Manual Cinema. Music by Stephen Hartke: Meanwhile: I. Procession.
Music from their newly released album Meanwhile - “On this recording, eighth blackbird wanders through an unfamiliar house. With each track a new door is opened, releasing unexpected sounds and dramas. Some are sweet, touching. Others have hilarious quirks. A few possess a disturbing strangeness.”- eighth blackbird
Is there a Grammy award for Cutest Music Video?
A Rain-Soaked Inuksuit in Chicago Millennium Park
by Arlene and Larry Dunn of Acornometrics! Photo credit: Larry Dunn
One more review of Inuksuit by my now-official Chicago colleagues, the Dunns. Included in the review is the full roster of performers.
I’ll be playing the above music with the above instrument today in Millennium Park. With nearly 100 other performers. And there will be over a hundred drums. And over a hundred cymbals. And birdsong.
John Luther Adams’ Inuksuit was written to be performed outside. Part of the concept is that this allows the music to blend in with the surrounding natural environment, if not activate it. Millennium Park will provide a peculiar atmosphere; a green landscape surrounded by the city’s skyscrapers.
There’s also a chance today that it might rain. Percussion gear safety aside, I think Adams would be pretty excited by that possibility. I know I am.
You can hear organizer Doug Perkins and eighth blackbird percussionist Matthew Duval discussing the piece and giving a bit of a demo here. They come in around 6:00:
eighth blackbird play the Pritzker Pavilion tonight as part of Millennium Park’s ongoing Loops and Variations series. The last concert featured Ensemble Dal Niente and Deerhoof, which I was pretty stoked about. Tonight the sextet will perform some works from their previous programs, most prominently the Music of Less. I’ve seen them do Glass’ Music in Similar Motion twice but I have no doubts that it will be just as mesmerizing the third time around. They play the piece with a robotic virtuosity, using as little movement as possible in order to not distract themselves or their audience. By making themselves virtually static performers, the ensemble allows us to direct nearly all of our attention to the music. Whereas live performances often encourage musicians to “get into it”, when it comes to minimalism the goal is to get out of the way.
Unfortunately, one work that they won’t be repeating tonight is Andy Akiho’s ErAsE (see the video above) which won eighth blackbird’s first ever composition competition. This piece is definitely on my top five of the year so far. Tim Munro made a comment at the end of the Music of Less concert that minimalism is a musical movement which we are very much still experiencing. Composers like David Lang (also featured on tonight’s program) speak to that continuity in terms of where we’re at right now. But I think Akiho, who seems to mix elements of minimalism with a palette of endless influences and possibilities, is pointing to where that movement is headed next.
Pirouette On a Moon Sliver by composer Amy Beth Kirsten. A character study for the larger work Never My Heart, a fully staged piece created with the director/ choreographer Martha Clarke. Coming in 2013. Performed by eighth blackbird flautist Tim Munro at Ganz Hall in Chicago, IL. Video by Dan Nichols.
Tim Munro also performed this excerpt at eighth blackbird’s Music of More concert back in March, in which the audience in the video had just about the same reaction; that is, complete silence. There were a lot of humorous moments in this piece where I wanted to laugh—and ample pauses from the performer that would allow for such a reaction—but I felt it was somehow inappropriate. Was this due to placing a performance piece (a character study, as the composer describes it) in the context of a seemingly standard music concert?
For me, the piece presents a conflict of intention: as the definitions of drama, choreography, and music intersect, so does the interpretation of each, leaving the audience to question which is which. In other words, I didn’t feel like I was supposed to laugh because I wasn’t sure if Munro’s movements, falsetto squeals, and other non-flute gestures contributed to sound or to action. If my mind told me the latter, I would feel comfortable enough to chuckle. If the former, I would keep quiet. But I never truly felt one way or the other.
Not that you can’t laugh at “serious” music, BTdubz. But hardly anyone does. Unless there’s some cute, abrupt staccato ending to a piece and the performer smiles to let you know that it’s okay.
In a way, this clash of artistic mediums can encourage closer listening/watching rather than leave an audience member wrapped up in their confusion. The tension of interpretation provokes curiosity, leaving the listener/viewer to press on in hopes of coming to a more solid conclusion of just what exactly this is.
Or maybe, as Tim puts it, “what you see can’t be seen.”
Videos from The Music of Less/More can be seen on eighth blackbird’s vimeo page.
Dear Friends,
We are excited to invite you to be a part of an incredibly exciting project this summer. On August 26th, 2012 eighth blackbird, New Music Chicago, and a consort of percussionists and musicians from around the Midwest (and the country) will come together in downtown Chicago’s…
AHHHHHH DREAM COME TRUEEEEEEE
After a brief test run over the summer, the radio program Relevant Tones—perhaps WFMT’s first attempt at a show dedicated to contemporary music—will air once again, starting tonight at 5pm. I’m sure the station occasionally programs some new-ish music, like that one time where they had Anna Clyne host (which I just had to make a note of). But a weekly broadcast of new music? That’s a big deal.
The show’s upcoming programs can be viewed at its website, including the playlist for each one. Tonight will have members of Chicago’s own eighth blackbird in the studio! The music will feature a collection of pieces that the ensemble has been playing fairly recently.
Host Seth Boustead, composer and founder of Access Contemporary Music, was recently interviewed on Chicago Tonight to discuss the show. He briefly talks about the obstacles one faces in attempting to “update” the classical image for listeners who haven’t really given contemporary music a chance. He also mentions the problems that come with continuing to use a term like “classical,” something which Kyle Vegter also touched on in my interview with him.
Relevant Tones is a great and much-needed addition to popular Chicago radio (WFMT does have listeners, right???) and I’m hoping it will build more incentive for programs that showcase the impossibly wide array of art music that’s being created right now. Hey, only 23 more hours and Chicago might have its very own Q2!
You can listen to tonight’s program on WFMT’s website or, if you happen to own a car, on the radio at 98.7fm.
This week will showcase a whole lot of American composers, featuring some monumental works that are not to be missed. Sorry Russian Masters, you’ll just have to wait this time.
Tonight, 8pm at Orchestra Hall: The San Francisco Symphony makes a stop in Chicago on their American Mavericks tour. The program features Henry Cowell’s rarely heard Synchrony, John Adams’ brand new Absolute Jest for string quartet and orchestra, and the massive planet of a piece, Charles Ives’ Concord Symphony (the composer’s infamous piano sonata as orchestrated by Henry Brant). Every time I see the title for the Adams piece, I keep assuming it says Infinite Jest. Turns out the composer’s inspiration was Beethoven, not David Foster Wallace:
Which is kind of programmatically perfect, considering Ives quotes Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony throughout his work. In his essay on the first movement, “Emerson”, the composer writes:
“There is an ‘oracle’ at the beginning of the Fifth Symphony—in those four notes lies one of Beethoven’s greatest messages. We would place its translation above the relentlessness of fate knocking at the door, above the greater human-message of destiny, and strive to bring it towards the spiritual message of Emerson’s revelations—even to the “common heart” of Concord—the Soul of humanity knocking at the door of the Divine mysteries, radiant in the faith that it will be opened—and the human become the Divine!”
Amen, Charles.
Tickets can be found at the CSO website, but the American Mavericks website is chock full of awesome content in case your curious about the SFS’s festival.
March 22 and 24, 7:30pm at the Museum of Contemporary Art: eighth blackbird presents The Music of Less/More, two nights of concerts approaching composition in two very different ways in response to the MCA’s current exhibit, the language of less (then and now). The programs will feature works by American hotshots such as Philip Glass, David Lang, and Alvin Lucier, as well as some newer American voices like Andy Akiho and Amy Kirsten. Don’t worry, they threw some Ligeti in there to break up all this patriotic fervor. Tickets at the MCA website.
And if that wasn’t enough…
March 24, 10pm at the Museum of Contemporary Art: Immediately after their concert, eighth blackbird joins (seriously) almost every single new music ensemble in Chicago for a performance of Terry Riley’s epic masterpiece, In C. If only it wasn’t a New Music Chicago exclusive; I was hoping they’d welcome participation from amateur musicians in a true Scratch Orchestra fashion. Tickets also at the MCA website.
