AN EVENING AT THE STONE (5/27/2011)

My first visit to The Stone, a very unpretentious performance space developed by avant-garde jazz saxophonist John Zorn, largely consisted of a lecture on homeopathic medicine.  I was hoping for a little more with this visit.  I had met the composer Neil Rolnick at a performance by the Del Sol String Quartet and was looking forward to hearing some of his music. 

Three of his works were featured on the program.  The first, a piece called Faith for piano and laptop, was performed by Rolnick and a Rabbi (whose name I did not get) and is based on the many conversations about many topics the two have had over the years.  The interplay between the piano and the laptop was always very creative and, in a way, very conversational.  Rolnick displays a very eclectic style with the music migrating from jazz to early 20th century pop piano to Latin to pointillism to minimalism and to neoclassicism. His range of exposure to tremendously diverse repertoires shows through.  There are several points where the pianist is expected to improvise along with laptop loops that can be controlled by a foot pedal from the piano.  It would be interesting to hear how two other performers might interpret this work as it seems very close to these particular performers.  

The second work, a song cycle entitled Making Light of It, is based on poems by Philip Levine.   A sonorous bass/baritone singer engaged with sounds provided by the laptop in a manner that was largely quite straightforward and syllabic, almost declamatory.   Bits of musical theatre and jazz became a part of the picture at times and, once again, both Rolnick's eclecticism and his creative use of the laptop shined through.

The program ended with a celebratory piece for harp, flute and percussion, Uptown Jump.  Based on Rolnick's life in the heavily Hispanic Washington Heights, Latin elements dominate.  The ensemble interplay between the harp and flute was always quite ingenious and polyrhythmic elements kept the performers on their toes.

If this concert was any indication, Neil Rolnick's work with electronic music never becomes abstract or far removed from the highly diverse experiences that surround his life.  I look forward to hearing more of it.