After a short trip back to Raleigh I was anxious to take in more of what NYC has to offer. Le Train Bleu, an ensemble of crack New York performers directed by acclaimed flutist Ransom Wilson, performed at Galapagos Art Space. The program was also featuring highly regarded soprano, Lauren Flanigan.
The wonderfully varied program began with a major song cycle, Appendage, by Lawrence Dillon, who is presently Composer in Residence at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Mr.Dillon's personal story is a fascinating one. Although he lost 50% of his hearing due to a childhood illness he pursued piano study and composition as a child and ultimately became the youngest composition student to earn a doctorate from Juilliard. I found it strange that only the text for the final song of the cycle, "Last lullabye," was printed in the program. The reason for this became clear to me as I experienced the cycle which moves from nonsense syllables and text fragments to an ever more complete lyric (also composed by the composer). In his website notes on the work Dillon describes the work as the representation of "an unfinished creature, striving to complete itself, to make itself lovely." The music itself seems to vacillate from fragmentary to more flowing and lyrical. A cabaret feel, evocative of Schoenberg's Cabaret Songs, emerges at times. The emotional heart of the cycle is when the music is stripped down to a simple piano accompaniment for the poignant vocal line. This is definitely work on my "want to hear again" list.
A vastly different mood was set by composer John Halle's Mortaging the Earth whose text is derived from the famous memo signed by Lawrence Summers suggesting that the third world was under-polluted and needed to balance out the pollution created by more "developed" areas of the world. While the memo was possibly intended to be sarcastic, the thought of the developed world running roughshod over the poorer countries, especially those in Africa still carries a volatile political message. Portions of the memo are recited and sung by two singers, in this case Lauren Flanigan and one of her students, Jasmine Muhammed. projections of figures involved in the memo and portions of the memo are projected on a wall. The music conveys a "documentary feel" and would make a wonderful study as to how music can influence one's perception of ideas. This whole concept dovetails with Mr. Halle's scholarly interest in "connections between the mental representation of language and music."
Yet another striking change of musical vision came with a performance of Martin Bresnick's My Twentieth Century. This work presents brief statements that reflect aspects of the poet Tom Anderson's life with the statement "My brother died in the twentieth century" repeated a number of times. This event is obviously one of the vital events of Mr. Anderson's life. A lengthy piano introduction, performed by Lisa Moore, evoked the sounds of Bartok. Gradually each member of the ensemble entered into the musical texture. In a surprise move, performers moved to separate stands to recite the text comments until all had their turn. The work concludes with simple iterations of a high D on the piano.
My Twentieth Century
I played hopscotch at twilight in the twentieth century.
I lived in a country of fireflies in the twentieth century.
I saw the moon shipwrecked in the twentieth century.
My brother died in the twentieth century.
I wore ridiculous clothes in the twentieth century.
I danced like a sumac tree in the twentieth century.
I went to a sensitivity workshop and had my umbrella stolen in the twentieth
century.
My brother died in the twentieth century.
I wasted three years on geometry in the twentieth century.
I was anesthetized through most of the twentieth century.
I loved Kawasaki in the twentieth century.
My brother died in the twentieth century.
I ate sweet apples in the twentieth century.
I ate my peck of dirt in the twentieth century.
I ate my words in the twentieth century.
My brother died in the twentieth century.
I wrote passionate letters in the twentieth century.
I was incapable of keeping silent in the twentieth century.
I shed pints of blood in the twentieth century.
My brother died in the twentieth century.
I leaned like a lampshade over my life in the twentieth century.
I prayed to the Son of Man in the twentieth century.
It was nearly possible to live in the twentieth century.
My brother died in the twentieth century.
There was something very obvious in the twentieth century
I could never see or understand.
The dead knocked on the door of my life in the twentieth century.
Who's there? I said.
Tom Andrews and I got the idea for 'My Twentieth Century' during our shared time at the American Academy in Rome in the Fall of 1999. 'My Twentieth Century' is a descendant of Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire - without the chanteuse and in a more vernacular musical and poetic idiom. According to our plan, I have integrated Tom's text within the musical architecture of the composition by having the performers occasionally leave their accustomed roles as musicians and speak the lines of the poem to us, and to each other, as if in a heightened conversation. Tom completed the poem 'My Twentieth Century' shortly before he died suddenly in July of 2001. 'My Twentieth Century' is dedicated to his memory. [ http://www.martinbresnick.com/programnotes/mytwentieth.htm ]
After such a deeply moving work, Randall Woolf's He Haw was a wonderful relief. Part crazy square dance and part sappy country/western music, this work once again featured Lauren Flanigan and her student Marnie Golden (who studied at Queens University in Charlotte) and violinist/fiddlers Marjolaine Lambert and Emily Popham. A recorded square dance call, sometimes distorted, added to the whimsical, loopy feel to the work. One of the singers wearing something of a cowboy hat and the two singers wearing what appeared to be light blue denim jackets competed the package.
I could not have have asked for a better welcome back to New York. Here was a concert that offered what Kyle Gann calls "mid-town" music, music that combines the edginess and riskiness of downtown music with the craftmanship and "groundedness" of uptown music.
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