MUSICAL REVIVAL IN A LANDMARK CONCERT HALL 
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Feb. 23-March 2, 2009
                                                                  Vol. 11, No. 68
          OAKLAND---Mills College has had a hot-and-cold affair with contemporary  music, memorably dating back to faculty composers like Darius Milhaud, Luciano Berio  and Terry Riley, the Mills Performing Group, the dawn of the Kronos Quartet, and the electronic-music center established here in 1966.  
            This year with the reopening of its mural-decorated concert hall, Mills is once again working at reviving its glory traditions with an ambitious Festival of Contemporary Music comprising six concerts. These concerts renew Mills as a center for experimental, avant-garde music. But the real test remains, to see whether the college follows up with ambitious musical programs after the dust settles from this festival. 
            On Feb. 22, the festival’s second day, Mills faculty member Chris Brown contributed an eclectic  world premiere combining a catalogue of 11 birdcalls, Olivier Messiaen’s trio called “Exotic Birds,” improvisations, and a twittering  electronic track sounding more C3PO-ish than bird-like. Brown played the piano outfitted with an electronic overlay called the Moog PianoBar, triggering synthesizer sounds tied by program to the keys depressed.  There were extensive solos for Brown’s two performing colleagues---Joan Jeanrenaud on cello, and William Winant on vibraphone and other percussion. They performed fast-scurrying runs, arpeggios, and some virtuoso turns. The quarter-hour opus was an effective environmental addition to the genre, even if the perfectionist Messiaen might never have approved of the adaptation/update on his work. 
            On the same program a lasting impression was left by the video “Liquid Amber,” the creation of Mills faculty member Maggi Payne. It is   full of semi-abstract watery scenes of nature and plant life, with a quiet processed score quite overwhelmed by Payne's striking visual images. Its quarter-hour span went by in a flash and fairly cries out for re-viewing.                 Brown and Payne are co-directors of Mills’ Center for Contemporary Music.
            Other works that night were experimental in varying degrees. Former faculty member Pauline Oliveros, 76, returned to hit chords on her accordion, complementing Ramon Sender’s pontillistic electronic effects in “Desert Ambulance.” Sender, 74, had been an early San Francisco rebel against academia in new music.  
            John Bischoff’s “Audio Combine” had processed sounds of scrapes, clicks, plucks and hums, without any clear structural focus. Yet more experimental was James Fei’s “Faktura,” in which the players’ breath was blown through two saxophones as though they were hollow tubes rather than musical instruments.        
            This was closer in its thrust to some of Mills’ older forays with Robert Ashley and his colleagues a generation ago, where the shock value of performances was often the one salient effect.  
            The 450-seat Littlefield Concert Hall built in 1928 is in an architecturally arresting building on campus, having just undergone an $11-million renovation/restoration. New sound-reflecting panels assure better acoustics, and the enlarged stage can now accommodate larger musical groups (though it lacks a proscenium or fly space).   It is dripping in music history and innovation, having hosted John Cage and served as site for Milhaud world premieres over its 80-year life. In addition, it features numerous stunning murals suggesting the era of Matisse and other brightly colored Fauvist paintings. 
            (Review edited/updated on Feb. 24.)
            Festival of Contemporary Music, Feb. 21-April 5. Next: Feb. 23, 27-28. Littlefield Concert Hall, Mills College, Oakland. For info:  go online.

        ©Paul Hertelendy 2009
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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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