sounds like now

Seth Williamson of The Roanoke Times had some nice things to say in his review of Monday’s concert with the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra.

The Red Room played host to two of Boston’s finest last Friday as Tim Feeney and Vic Rawlings schooled the faithful on the sound of silence. Although Tim confessed that Friday’s set was one of their louder efforts, both musicians operated in a dynamic space that ranged from niente to about mezzo piano. Yet within those seemingly narrow confines there is much that transpires and holds your interest. Both musicians play with such poise and conviction that they compel you to engage, drawing you into a world of sonic subtlety. Texture appeared to be the overarching theme to their set, which oscillated between the white-noisey and moments of pure beguiling consonance, with both textural flavors being equally elaborate and complex. Perhaps the most refreshing and virtuosic aspect of Tim and Vic’s set was the patience and restraint they displayed. Less levelheaded musicians might get bored or anxious working in the confines that they choose to. So it says something about their musical maturity that they are able to not only maintain their self-control but also that they can expand that space into a universe of infinite possibilties.

Justin Schell has a review of last month’s SPARK Festival over at NewMusicBox. My recap is on the way . . . I promise.

I’m going to stay out of the scuffle on the main page at Sequenza21. However, there’s one issue from Anthony De Mare’s concert that both Anthony Tommasini and Frank Oteri bring up in their review and rebuttal, respectively–playing from memory.

One fact from Mr. De Mare’s concert that they both mention, was that Mr. De Mare needed to go off stage to retrieve the score for Mr. Rzewski’s work after failing to be able to perform it from memory. That took a lot of guts. And I’m glad that neither Mr. Tommasini or Mr. Oteri castigated Mr. De Mare for doing so. Rather, both give him credit for a wonderful reading of the work with the score.

So this makes me wonder, who cares if you play with music in front of you? Does it matter that much? A great performance of a work will transcend the score. When I play a concert, I’ve internalized the score to a point where I don’t really need it–in a way I’m playing from memory. But it’s nice to have it there as a reference, especially if the music is extremely difficult and complex. (I do play Stockhausen’s In Freudschaft from memory, but that’s because he specifies that it needs to be played from memory in the score. There is so much choreography that reading a score during performance would be impossible anyway. I’m also scared of the consequences if Stockhausen were to find out that I was playing his piece with the score.) It’s pretty easy to tell if a performer “owns” the piece or is using the music as a crutch.

As a new music performer, I have to tip my hat to Mr. De Mare for taking on the formidable task of presenting six new works from memory. Is it necessary though? Somewhere along the line, playing from memory became the norm in piano performance. Yet I’ve seen some great performances where the pianist played with the score–Marilyn Nonken’s recital of the complete Boulez piano sonatas stands out. Not all instruments have this tradition. But in the piano’s case, does it really matter if you play from memory? I don’t think it’s that important.

After 2000 miles, three successful recitals, one radio broadcast, one review in The New York Times, and many great memories, (and, of course, a wonderful review from David Salvage), I’m home.

What a trip. I actually set out last Sunday in order to get to New York for a Monday morning masterclass at the Manhattan School of Music. As I was leaving Michigan, I had the radio tuned to NPR and heard on the local news broadcast that over the last few days southeastern Michigan had experienced a dramatic spike in flu outbreaks. I’d actually sent a student home on Friday because he was coughing a lot during his lesson. I couldn’t afford to get sick with the NY recital coming up. Had I escaped the plague? Well, as it turned out, I hadn’t. I could feel my body telling me that something was wrong.

When I finally got to New York City ten hours later, I checked into the hostel I was supposed to stay at and then promptly checked out. Sure, it looks nice on the website . . . I couldn’t even fit my saxophones, equipment, and suitcases in the room. Not to mention that the door didn’t seem to close very tightly. I made an emergency reservation at the International House and was lucky to have gotten a room on such short notice. It was the “Middle East Suite.” I won’t forget it! It probably saved my performance.

The bad news was that I was getting sick. I could feel it. And it wasn’t just a small cold. It was a flu-like illness. My sinuses ached and were in danger of closing up, which would make me completely incapable of playing Alvin Lucier’s Spira Mirabilis since it requires me to circular breathe for nearly three minutes. My “stay healthy” regimen over the next three days included drinking about three gallons of water per day, zinc supplements, Sudafed every four hours, a one-a-day multivitamin, three Odwalla Citrus C-Monster beverages per day (1000% vitamin C per serving), and plenty of rest. I was so nervous about getting sick that I didn’t go outside unless I was completely bundled up. This hat helped a lot. (It was pretty cold in New York City that week.)

When it was all said and done, I was able to hold the sickness at bay and turn in a great performance, feeling as though it was one of the best, if not the best, performance of my career. In fact, the Sudafed probably helped my performance of the Philip Glass work. See, there’s no place in the work for me to clear my mouthpiece out if saliva starts to accumulate. The Sudafed dried me up so much that I wasn’t producing any! A blessing in disguise? Probably not. I wish that I didn’t have to deal with being sick, which finally set in the next day. (It’s funny though, I must have pounded the illness so hard that it never fully developed and I only felt as if I had been sick, as in getting over it, not that I was sick.) However, I’m fortunate that everything turned out so positively and am looking forward to many more New York performances.