I’m in Austin for a performance of Michael Djupstrom’s Walimai this Tuesday at the Music Teachers National Association National Conference. Mike won their national composition competition with the work and will be here fulfilling roles as faithful collaborator on the piano and national award recipient.
I made a quick incursion into Philadelphia yesterday for a performance and question and answer session with Marshall Taylor’s saxophone class at Temple University. My original plan was to perform a concert with composer/pianist Michael Djupstrom, since he’s currently living in Philly, but alas, he is on a concert tour with his piano trio. As a result, I had to improvise somewhat, playing four pieces with CD playback–J Anthony Allen’s Hyperacusis, Memories of Xiaoxiang by Lei Liang, Getting to Know The Weather by Eve Beglarian, and Billie by Jacob ter Veldhuis. It was a good sampling of different sound worlds and compositional possibilities with the medium. The students were extremely attentive and asked many wonderful questions. It was fun to share a bit of what I do with some new folks. Speaking of that, I’d better get going. I’m giving a master class at Morgan State University here in Baltimore in about an hour and a half. And I need to catch a cab.
When we last left our hero, he was on a train somewhere between Baltimore and Philadelphia. We resume our story about 20 minutes from Wilmington station, where our hero suddenly has a stunning revelation . . .
J likes to remind me that every time I travel there seems to be something that goes wrong. Flights canceled/delayed, ticket being voided mysteriously, luggage getting lost, and so on. I really don’t think I have bad luck travelling—more like I’ve been cursed since she said that! Well, bad luck, curse, or whatever, it was with me again on that train to Philadelphia for Hybrid Groove Project’s concert as part of the Chamber Music Now! series.
Now, before I travel anywhere—especially for concerts—I always make an exhaustive list of what I need, lay it out neatly on the floor, and then cross each item off the list as I pack it away. The night before, I layed everything out, but didn’t make my list. About 20 minutes from the Wilmington train station, just as I was settling into the soothing comfort of the train gliding across the tracks on a cold, rainy, and dreary day, I had a sudden panic attack, feeling as though I’d forgotten something. I went over the list in my head: saxophone (soprano + alto), check; wireless microphone, check; camera, check; laptop, check; music, check . . . wait a minute, let’s break this down a little more (Erik’s pieces, yes; Richard’s piece, yes; ter Veldhuis, yes; Beglarian, yes; and . . . ). THE GLASS PIECE! How could I possibly forget that?! The music is huge! Instantly, I thought to myself, “Can I play the concert without it?” The answer: no, it’s 12 minutes long. Well, there was going to be no way around it–I had to get back to Baltimore . . . and fast.
I ran to find the conductor, who filled me in on the train schedules. The gods must have been with me that day because when the train pulled into Wilmington, there was another headed back to Baltimore just about to leave on the other side of the platform. I jumped on, the conductor was sympathetic and didn’t make me pay for that train, and I called Jihwan to let her know the situation. Even luckier was was the fact her boss had called her earlier and said she didn’t have to go into work until later than she was scheduled. If that didn’t happen, she would have been gone, and there would have been no way for me to get the piece. ê³ ë§ˆì›Œ, ìžê¸°ì•¼.
Although I arrived in Philly a little later than planned, I was finally there with Glass in hand. And everything was ok. On with the show.
Let there be no doubt that new music is alive and well in Philadelphia. And I think that that fact is due in no small part to the evangelical efforts of Richard Belcastro and David Laganella, the directors of the Chamber Music Now! recital series. Now in its fourth season, CMN! has established itself as a new music pulse of sorts in the City of Brotherly Love with its innovative programming and willingness to take musical risks. It’s a formula that’s obviously worked, judging by their loyal fanbase and the curious first time concertgoers, both of which made up the incredible audience that night.
CMN!’s theme this season of “new music and rock and roll” was a perfect fit and a great vehicle to launch Hybrid Groove Project, a unique non-traditional chamber ensemble comprised of myself on saxophones and DJ Dubble8 (a.k.a. Erik Spangler) on turntables. I’m excited about this band because of the possibility for it to appeal to a variety of audiences. HGP plays composed music (our current repertoire includes music by Erik, Eve Beglarian, Jacob ter Veldhuis, and Philip Glass), improvises, and adds a popular twist with Dubble8’s beats and remixing.
The show, which actually began with a 45-minute Dubble8 solo set, included compositions by the folks mentioned above as well as a new piece by Richard Belcastro called Collage No. 1: bits of Bowie, written for the occasion and reminiscent of John Oswald’s plunderphonics. It was a great show for a very appreciative crowd on an amazing new music series. Richard and David deserve a huge round of applause for CMN!
. . . it pours. And that’s exactly what it did following Non-Zero’s concert at the Tenri Cultural Institute on Saturday. Tim and I looked like we had jumped in the Hudson after getting all his gear out to the car. Luckily, we had the closest possible parking space to the venue but even that didn’t save us from getting drenched. Despite the downpour outside, the show was a success. We were fortunate to have a good-sized audience, including composers Sophocles Papavasilopoulos, Keeril Makan, and David T. Little. Thanks to everyone who came out.
Here’s a story about New York City you don’t hear too often: After making my way through the rain with a companion who will remain anonymous for reasons that will soon become clear, I arrived at the 14th Street A train station. When the uptown train came to a stop, we boarded. As the doors were closing, my companion, who was in charge of carrying my soprano saxophone–I had three horns with me as well as a suitcase and messenger bag–exclaimed, “The soprano!” Then I saw my soprano saxophone sitting on the platform all by itself. As I tried in vain to pry open the subway doors, a man began picking it up. Seeing the terror in my eyes, he attempted to calm me by saying, “I work for transit.” Yeah, right, I thought. The next stop on the A is 23rd Street. We got off the train and fueled by anger and panic I sprinted 9 city blocks through the pouring rain, I might add, back to the 14th Street station. I thought I’d never see my soprano again. However, when I finally arrived, the man from the platform was on the phone at the information desk–my soprano sitting by his feet. It turns out he did work for transit and he was calling to report a lost object. He recognized me immediately and returned the instrument to me. What a relief. Don’t believe everything you hear. There really are honest people in New York City.
With composer Karen Tanaka. I performed her work for saxophone and electronics, Night Bird, on a concert last Sunday. I’m off to Boston today to rehearse with Tim. Non-Zero plays New York’s Tenri Cultural Institute on Saturday. Works by Hillary Zipper, John Cage, Sophocles Papavasilopoulos and world premieres by Keeril Makan and David T. Little. In the meantime, want to know how artsy you are? Take Helen’s quiz.
Non-Zero played NYU last night. A fun concert, but what a day. Tim and I left Boston at 7:30am and arrived in NYC at 12:30pm thanks to the rain. A full day of work-shopping new works with the NYU graduate composers, a short recording session, and finally a concert shared with the stellar Janus trio. Tim headed home to Boston right after the concert and I stayed in the city with an old friend in order to catch an 8am flight to North Carolina for some business over the next couple of days. My old friend is Evan Tobias, actually the very first person I met as an undergraduate. He’s a music educator and one of the most serious and creative folks I’ve had the opportunity to know in the discipline. He’s a proponent of alternative teaching models and is working hard to integrate new technological approaches into the classroom, including laptop improvisation. I suspect you won’t find Orff instruments in Evan’s classroom. For those interested in a non-corporate alternative to various web-releated things, he’s also got a web hosting operation. Not to be outdone with my new Sciarrino acquisition, Ken Ueno shows me a CD of Sciarrino’s Studi per l’intonazione del mare (2000) for contralto, four flutes, four saxophones, percussion, orchestra of 100 flutes and 100 saxophones.
The Tower Records in Harvard Square has been singing its siren song to me all week long. It lures me in seductively, flaunting its assets–a good sized section devoted entirely to new music–while simultaneously draining mine. Ever since the Borders in Ann Arbor scaled down its classical music section I haven’t had many opportunities recently to thumb through the bins and discover an interesting and exciting CD. My safaris through Tower these past few days have yielded four trophies: a box set of Conlon Nancarrow’s Studies for Player Piano (Wergo); Still Lives (Lovely), a CD featuring three works by Alvin Lucier, including Marilyn Nonken performing Music for Piano with slow sweet pure wave oscillators; Salvatore Sciarrino’s La bocca, i piedi, il suono (Col Legno) for a quartet of alto saxophones with a back-up band of one hundred saxophones; and Vespertine by Bjork.
Music has an amazing ability to reconnect you with another time and place. Earth, Wind & Fire, “September,” Emotions, “Best Of My Love,” Foo Fighters, “Up In Arms.”
There's more where that came from. Music, videos, and albums by Brian all inside.
