Sounds Heard: Eliot Gattegno and Eric Wubbels—Intersections
NewMusicBox, October 26, 2009
I’ve known saxophonist Eliot Gattegno for several years and have been consistently impressed by his playing. However, one of his most admirable traits as a musician is his determination to promote music for the saxophone not intended to stimulate the cognoscenti.
Sounds Heard: Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca
NewMusicBox, August 10, 2009
I have to admit that I had not heard of the Dirty Projectors until my friend Sarah, who owns the Metro Gallery bar/performance venue/art space in Baltimore, booked them to perform at Rufustival, the Gallery’s 2-year anniversary concert extravaganza. Since then, I’ve been listening to their latest CD non-stop.
Sounds Heard: Flexible Music
NewMusicBox, July 20, 2009.
My review of the new Flexible Music CD.
Last week I had a couple concerts and a couple reviews: Tim Smith wrote about Mobtown Modern’s season-ending show for the Baltimore Sun and Matthew Guerrieri lived to tell the tale of Sunday’s microtonal marathon in the Boston Globe.
American Voices got a nice little write-up in today’s Baltimore Sun. (In the print edition, no less. Did you know they still had such a thing?) Anyhow, we’re grateful to Tim Smith, Baltimore’s venerable classical music critic, for including the not-quite-so-recently-released CD in with a batch of products a little hotter off the presses. Here’s what he had to say:
I just caught up with a no-longer-new CD by Brian Sacawa, the saxophonist behind the stimulating Mobtown Modern ensemble at the Contemporary Museum. The disc makes quite a statement about his virtuosity and curiosity in repertoire by the likes of Philip Glass, Christopher Theofanidis and Erik Spangler. Sacawa approaches the wide diversity of styles with equal panache, right down to the heavy breaths and grunts called for in Keeril Makan’s Voice Within Voice.
This past Tuesday, Mobtown Modern was allowed to invade the main gallery space at the Contemporary Museum for our Sequenzathon, a marathon performance of 12 of the 14 Sequenzas by the late great Italian composer Luciano Berio. Talking to Erik before the show, I realized that with the exception of seeing Sequenza VIIb for soprano saxophone performed several times, I had never experienced any of these pieces live. So we were fortunate to have an immensely talented roster of soloists willing to tackle some of the most unforgiving solo works in their repertoire, some of which like Sequenza II for harp, Sequenza XI for guitar, and Sequenza XIII for accordion are rarely heard outside the confines of a pair of headphones. We had an amazing crowd who definitely got their money’s worth of Berio for the evening. And the reviews of the show seem to confirm that it was indeed a great night:
- Tim Smith in the Baltimore Sun (including a little extra)
- Charles T. Downey in the Washington Post
Next up for Mobtown Modern on May 6th is our final concert of the season, Out To Lunch. We’ll be back in our usual digs playing music by Edgard Varese, Eric Dolphy, Frank Zappa along with a rare realization of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Solo and a mind-altering performance by Sam Burt of Alvin Lucier’s Music for Solo Performer.
Mobtown Modern’s first season came to a close last Friday night with an exciting concert performed for a packed house. Once again, we were overwhelmed with the coverage of the show, which included the following wonderful reviews:
Dynamic Minimalist Program by Mobtown
by Tim Smith, The Baltimore Sun
Performing Arts - Mobtown Modern
by Charles T. Downey, The Washington Post
The Mob Hit
by Devin Hurd, Hurd Audio
Many thanks go to all of our musicians for giving so much of their time and talents to help make each concert such a success. We’re also grateful to Mack MacLaughlin for making us sound good and especially to Guy Werner for his visual and lighting wizardry, which made the space really inviting. And of course, we love Mike Fila from Himmelrich and Irene Hofmann, executive director of the Contemporary Museum for embracing the series with such passion and enthusiam.
We’re already looking forward to an exciting second season, which will include 6, count ‘em, 6 concerts beginning on September 9th. And we’re also putting the finishing touches on a spiffy new website that will launch in conjunction with our 2008-2009 season announcement. As always, stay tuned for details!
American Voices got a nice write-up in the current issue of the Saxophone Journal. Here are a couple choice quotes:
“In performing Piece in the Shape of a Square Brian Sacawa exhibits a strong vibrant sound on saxophone with phrasing and intensity that makes the piece come alive.”
And . . .
All the pieces on this American Voices CD are, at the very least, extremely provocative. Brian Sacawa’s interpretive skills are laudable, and in fact, admirable. American Voices is new music for the saxophone performed by someone who is a master of his instrument.”
The reviews are in! And by all accounts, Mobtown Modern’s launch last night at the Contemporary Museum was a spectacular success:
We’re extremely grateful to all of our commited musicians and to Art Jones for making the trek down from NYC to add some inventive video imagery to the performance. A very speical thank you goes to Irene Hofmann, the executive director of the Contemporary, for embracing the series so energetically and giving us a (really, really cool) home. And of course, many, many thanks to all who came out to the show to support new music in Baltimore. We hope to see everyone on May 9th for our next concert.
There's more where that came from. Music, videos, and albums by Brian all inside.
