ALAN LOMAX ALIVE AND WELL IN BATES' MEMORIAL TRIBUTE 
                                              By D. Rane Danubian
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of March 11-18, 2009
                                                                  Vol. 11, No. 75
          WALNUT CREEK, CA---Did I detect a hint of Ferde Grofé’s rich musical palette in Mason Bates?
            Grofé you recall had been Paul Whiteman’s arranger, the one who gave us that pictorial par excellence, “The Grand Canyon Suite.” A lot of that sheer textural beauty surfaces in Bates’ brief  “White Lies for Lomax,” which got its world premiere via the California Symphony at the Lesher Center for the Arts.
            Berkeleyite Bates, 31, is an award-winning composer best known for his electronic elements and DJ activity. Despite his youth, he has already done several key commissions, both here and in New York. This piece is different: a straight instrumental opus for an orchestra that lights up the ears with iridescent sounds. It is also a lilting, jazz-&-blues-inflected piece that is a tribute to the ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax (1915-2002), who collected blues from the back country pretty much before any one else. An old radio recording played toward the end of the Bates performance, integrated with the orchestra, was a sample of Lomax’s work.
            This is a spirited bluesy dream, a piece that offends no one in its harmonies, one that should get wide playing. It was given a  sensitive reading under Music Director Barry Jekowsky. The composer annotated his work beforehand, and reappeared for bows thereafter before the receptive audience when we heard the premiere March 10.
            The audience however appeared most drawn by the return of the extraordinary 23-year-old, Stefan Jackiw, performing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, to mark the 200th anniversary of that composer. He is an exciting talent, with a firm, robust tone, resonant and articulate (what I’d give for a violin with that powerful a tone!). He has strong fingers, fine intonation, and admirable technique. His body English might bother some, and his affect to play nonstop with eyes closed might bother many a conductor, who thereby is automatically converted from collaborator to follower. But he projected this work unerringly. He dropped the Andante movement down to a pianissimo, an alteration which I found less than convincing.
            The concert closed with Brahms’ great Symphony No. 4 in a lethargic, phlegmatic reading under Jekowsky. The orchestra played very smartly however. If the cellos and basses were almost inaudible, you could probably blame the hall acoustics, which are consistently unkind to bass notes.
            CAL-SYM NOTES---The California Symphony, based here since its founding 23 years ago, is notable for its three-year residency programs for young American composers, providing them not only with a platform for new work in concert, but also to “woodshed” in the preparation process under Jekowsky’s tutelage. Bates is its latest beneficiary.
            The California Symphony, at the Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek. Next: May 3, 5. For info: (925) 280-2490, or go online.

        ©D. Rane Danubian 2009
                                       #
        D. Rane Danubian 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.
                      #
               Return to main menu.