EARPLAY: NOVEL CHAMBER MUSIC NEEDS BIGGER AUDIENCES
                    Vast Sound Range, from "ff" to "ppppppp"  
<>                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Feb. 6-13, 2012
                                                                  Vol. 14, No. 46
            Earplay is a septet of San Francisco players presenting contemporary  chamber music. These “Earplayers”  now have performed more than  110 world premieres, many or most of them with the composers in attendance. And in recent seasons, Earplay has enriched the mix, broadening the geographic mix of composers represented beyond an inner circle. Perhaps most unusual is that this is essentially a women’s performing group playing new opuses written by males; the only deviations were two men popping up to play in the Alex Hills quintet Feb. 6.
            The latest concert featured three world premieres, no less, largely of an experimental stripe, using “extended techniques,” i.e., sounds you never intentionally intended during music lessons of your youth. It’s all a part of widening the sonic spectrum of conventional instruments, even where the result is, uh, less than gratifying.
            And yet, and yet----the ability to move and touch the listener was most prevalent in more conventional music by established New York figures like Chen Yi, 58, and the late Morton Feldman.  Feldman’s piano solo “Nature Pieces” is a mellow exercise in long silences and few notes. Often it’s light rain-drops, coming in clumps. At other times, dulcet harp-like sounds, thoroughly consonant, blended with the sustaining pedal. The composer relished meditation and repose; at one point, the softness indication goes down to “ppppppp”—pianississississississimo, I suppose, incredibly soft indeed.
            During the Cultural Revolution in China, Chen Yi was a young violinist sent out to the reeducation camps, forced to perform folk pieces (“relevant to the masses”) rather than Bach or Beethoven. This she did dutifully, though she slipped in some Bach here and there without identifying it, thereby averting official intervention and gaining valuable practiced time in the process. This brought to mind other suppressed voices of the 20th century who found relief in emigration, among them Sofia Gubaidulina, Chinary Ung and Arvo Pärt.
            Among her compositions is this regressive one recalling her personal history in Chinese folk music, “Tunes from My Home” (2007), a timely choice during Chinese New Year. It blended pentatonic themes with elaborate western harmonies in a complex web for piano trio---the work which seems destined to be the most played amongst these works. She manages some arresting iridescent colors within the trio, suggesting some influences of Debussy and other French composers. It closes out in a furious finale. 
            The progressive jazz of Ornette Coleman was hinted at in the Briton Alex Hills’ new quintet “1958-1961,” where Coleman’s legacy was most felt in the dissonances of clashing flute and clarinet (yes, I’m quite aware that Coleman played neither of these), as well as in the music’s fondness of going in fits and starts. 
            Mauricio Rodriguez’s new “Crepitum” for solo viola went all over the map, tapping, growling, scratching, disputing in a fiercely combative streak. This resembled a catalogue of advanced techniques, in the end offering what may or may not convey a player at war with the world.
            “Excursion,” a premiere by 1992 Pulitzer Prize winner Wayne Peterson of SFSU, was a  violin-piano selection of a more lyrical nature with abrupt punctuation. The piano provides emphatic rivulets of sequences and chords behind the lead violin in a work that is increasingly animated and feisty, in a post-Bartok way.
            Had Las Vegas odds been offered on that 1992 Pulitzer, Peterson would have come in as a long shot. He was so obscure that a leading encyclopedia of musicians of the time omitted him completely, and the New York press followed the award with dismissive “who’s-he?” stories. Peterson took it all with dignity and good grace. Now, nearing his 85th birthday, he continues to establish an enviable track record in his field.
            The night’s performances were sparked by violinist Terri Baune, playing both the Peterson and the Chen Yi in a lead role. The concert was enhanced by (uncredited) color-light designs playing on the acoustic shell.
            Next task for the new executive director, Laura Rosenberg, one would hope, would be a more focused marketing campaign furnishing an audience with size to match the caliber of the music and performances. The audience Feb. 6 was embarrassingly meager.
            All three premiere composers were in attendance and took bows.
               Earplay at Herbst Theatre, San Francisco. Next: March 19, May 10.  For info: go online.

          ©Paul Hertelendy 2012
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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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