COMPOSING FOR BLENDED MEDIA
The Challenge of
Coordination
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By Paul Hertelendy
artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music
and dance
Week of July 1-8, 2011
Vol. 13, No. 115
New Music turns up in the unlikeliest
situations, often as accompaniment and underlinings, and at times even
in the
night clubs. And the more unusual the performance partner to the live
musicians
is, the most challenging the composer’s assignment.
As
part of a chamber-music festival running through July 3 at Stanford University,
San Francisco
composer
Stephen Prutsman wrote a live-music accompaniment to a screening of an
entertaining
old Buster Keaton silent film “Sherlock
Jr.,” carrying forward a long-forgotten musical tradition dating back
to the
earliest films. This required pianist Prutsman and members of the St.
Lawrence
String Quartet to watch the film and cue their responses instantly,
dovetailing
with the madcap comedic action. Prutsman used a lot of sonic devices
and
harmonies evolving from 19th-century salon music, along with
minor-key tremolos for tense situation as Keaton precariously clung
from
rooftops or boxcars, or nearly gets his head chopped off. But the music
was not
entirely predictable---Prutsman quoted a few bars of Schoenberg’s
ultra-audacious
12-tone music, as if leaping ahead of every one by several centuries.
Equally
challenging was an assignment
for 10 composers to produce mixed-quartet music to go with taped
segments of
animal sounds in the Arctic.
Most
of these new short works were content to surround minimally the
recordings made
on site up north by researcher Kathy Turco. But
there were surprises, like Matthew Welch’s
“The Favorite Opalescence” providing a
dense syncopated scherzo to go with the (recorded) squawks of seabirds
and
gulls. Mary Kouyoumdjian’s “Sedna, Beneath the Sea” played along with
the
haunting howls of Nordic wolves, with a live bass clarinet anchoring
the lower
spectrum. And Kirsten Volness’ “Bering Sea”
was an unpretentious but vital accompaniment to the sloshing of
breakers and
the sounds of------yes, yet more seabirds. Others hooked up with the
tweeting
of birds in the woods (yes, the original tweets!), the growl of bears,
the
groans of (most likely) sea lions, assorted gulls, and the sounds of
rain.
The program
was given by the Redshift
Ensemble, a live group with a leg on both coasts, featuring violin, piano, cello and clarinet. Redshift
achieved a welcome clarity of sound without using microphones. Four of
the 10
world-premiere composers featured appeared on the scene to take bows at
the
Brick and Mortar Club, San
Francisco.
By performing
in a South-of-Market night
club rather than one of the many concert halls, Redshift drew a
younger, thirtyish
audience not often encountered in new art music. And despite the
discomfort of
floor-sitting on concrete (chairs being scarce), the performance got a
warm
reception from the crowd.
Such
amalgams of
environmental-plus-live would be even more effective if the listeners
were informed
what beast or bird they were tuning in
on. And that way, even us non-Alaskans would gain far more from such
encounters.
(Ed.
note: Apologies to our readers for the delayed report, caused by ISP
problems.)
Redshift Ensemble in
new music of “Arctic Sounds” at the Brick and Mortar Club, San
Francisco,
June 30. For info: Go online.
Composer-Pianist
Stephen Prutsman in new accompaniments to a silent film, with the St.
Lawrence
String Quartet; Stanford University, July 1. For
info: Go online.
©Paul Hertelendy 2011
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Paul Hertelendy has been
covering
the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with
relish
-- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never
weakly)
will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with
forays
into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local
artists as well.
#
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