Out West Arts: Performance at the end of the world

If there is anything that’s been reinforced to me lately, it’s that conflict, real or manufactured, seems to draw people’s attention. Even in the field of classical music, the whiff of a cross-country rivalry between Los Angeles and New York serves to do all kinds of things. It’s a marketing strategy for music festivals, and it’s an idea that certainly sells whatever it is big media conglomerates still sell these days the way it crops up again and again in the writing of people who should know better. I was reminded of this on Saturday when I heard a story regarding one of L.A.'s most prominent public writers on all things classical music. Allegedly after hearing a new composition from a young ex-Los Angeles based composer who now resides in Brooklyn, the writer was purported to have remarked about how the composer has “gone soft” now that he works in the apparently toxic confines of Brooklyn. You see, every time you insult New York in Los Angeles, an agent gets his wings.

But luckily, local artists of the musical variety at least are having none of this garbage as evidenced by two local programs that mostly celebrated the connection between themselves and their peers on the East Coast albeit in different ways. What’s more, Brooklyn-based composer Timothy Andres’ music featured prominently in both. Andres was the star attraction at this weekend’s Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra concert, which I saw Sunday in its Westwood incarnation. Andres was commissioned as part of the group’s Sound Investment program with donations from individual audience members to bring new work to life. Andres was this year’s choice, and the result was a remarkably interesting 13-minute piano concerto entitled Old Keys. The single movement highlighted Andres' familiarity with 20th-century American music history, but had an accessibility that brought later John Adams immediately to my mind. And while the piano part, which Andres played himself, was no virtuosic tour de force, it subtly achieved its own greatness fully integrating itself within the context of the larger orchestration. This was not the usual individual-vs-society concerto model but something far more nuanced. As Andres' himself pointed out, it's a restless piece constantly on the move, looking for something though not necessarily in an agitated way. If there was any complaint, it was that the piece ended far too quickly as if it were only the first movement of some larger, much more ambitious work.

Andres didn’t completely pass on the virtuosity, however. He followed Old Keys with his recomposition of Mozart’s Piano Concerto, No. 26. As music director and conductor Jeffrey Kahane pointed out before the performance, it is not a well-loved piece by many soloists. This is in part due to the fact that Mozart didn’t write out the music for pianist's left hand which Mozart himself likely improvised on the spot or played from his own memory in performance. Other composers have had a stab at fleshing this sizable gap out, but Andres took a radically different approach, creating a related but completely independent part not intended to conform or mimic Mozart’s style. The result is fiendish to play and nearly schizophrenic, the right hand almost unaware at times of what the left is doing. The orchestra speaks to the soloist as if through a translator or across time in something that feels contemporary in a twisted sort of way. Just to put a point on it, Andres played his piano transcription of Mahler’s “Des Antionius von Paduas Fischpredigt” from Des Knaben Wunderhorn as an encore. He left no doubt in this room that he’s a major talent with some incredible music yet to come.

All this bi-coastal good feeling served as a template for the young upstart wildUp collective that returned to Venice’s Beyond Baroque this past Friday and Saturday. The theme was a mocking nod to a N.Y. vs L.A. rivalry with the ensemble playing pieces predominantly from young composers working in either city. The intent wasn’t so much to draw a contrast as it was to point out similarities in two burgeoning music scenes. In the best ironic twist of all, music director Christopher Rountree, who contributed a piece based on Walt Whitman’s ”Brooklyn,” was absent from the show except by pre-taped message as he was in that very same borough this weekend helping out with the Brooklyn Philharmonic. See how easy that was? And nobody had to get off a high horse to do it no less.

Andres’s music featured prominently here as well with the group playing several chamber-sized pieces, many of which had previously been heard as part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s “Green Umbrella” new music series. The impressive pianist Richard Valittuto showed that Andres is not the only one who’s capable of making How Can I Live in Your World of Ideas? sound great. Andres’ Ives-inspired Some Connecticut Gospel was also in the first half of the program and was played with as much New England pluck as you could wish from any ensemble. Andrew Tholl revisited Missy Mazzoli’s solo violin piece via Bach, Dissolve, O My Heart, and participated in the violin octet that gave the juice to Andrew Norman’s Gran Turismo. Norman will be taking over the composer in residence spot at LACO starting next season so local audiences will hopefully to get to hear more of this kind of great music. These pieces bristled with invention, all very inviting, and, from the look of things, as fun to play as to hear.

The Los Angeles part of the program kicked off with a comical piece from Art Jarvinen, Egyptian Two-Step, that made ample use of the hissing from compressed air canisters with the players breaking out in smiles as wide as the audience's. From here things got a bit more serious with Odeya Nini's Shelter in Swarm, Andrew McIntosh’s Silver and White and Andrew Tholl’s Corpus Callosum, which all showed the markings of European modernism. I was perhaps most taken with Rountree’s Brooklyn, which provided chamber accompaniment to a pre-recorded reading of Whitman’s poem. Whitman’s language is as stunning as Ives’ music and Rountree craftily follows along matching the emotional fervency in the building vision of a city from the water. It was all very exciting stuff in large part due to the commitment and excitement of the players. Granted, sometimes that excitement cut into their ability to sell the music in a serious fashion with a rotating roster of emcees for the show who were too inclined toward a little humorous self-deprication, which can go a long way; more than that goes way too far. But better this than something boring, which wildUp never is. Again proving that, yes, we can all get along and have a good time without highlighting our divisions to do so. Who would have guessed?

Labels: Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, wildup

I’m not in Los Angeles this weekend. However, if I were, I’d certainly be at the opening performance of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s 2011/2012 season. Music Director Jeffrey Kahane will be leading works by Golijov, Beethoven, and LACO’s composer-in-residence Derek Bermel who will be presenting the West Coast premiere of his concerto for electric guitar Ritomello. It’s a program that sets the tone for a banner season featuring new and recent music from a number of artists including Bermel, Thomas Adès, Gabriel Kahane, and Timothy Andres. Gabriel Kahane will present a new work in April 2012 which will be his second big commission for a local orchestra in Southern California in as many years. His Orinoco Sketches for the Los Angeles Philharmonic earlier this year was one of the highlights of last season. In the meantime, he’s been breaking down musical genre barriers elsewhere with the recent release of his new album of contemporary pop songs, Where Are the Arms which has too many should-be hits to go on about them all here.

Meanwhile, the recipient of LACO’s “Sound Investment” commission this year is the young Brooklyn-based composer, and friend of Kahane’s, Timothy Andres. “Sound Investment” which is now in its 11th year, is a commissioning program run by LACO where donors can make contributions to the ensemble specifically for the purpose of supporting new musical works for the orchestra. Andres should be no stranger to local classical music audiences having made a significant appearance on the L.A. Philharmonic “Green Umbrella” new music series at the invitation of John Adams in 2009. Last week he was back in L.A. to offer LACO staff and supporters a preview of his music and what he’s working on for the scheduled premiere in April. Andres is a tall, thin young man who is much more personable than his bookish appearance might suggest. He’s smart and engaging without being overly demonstrative or effusive. Only in his mid-twenties, he’s had some major successes including the previous L.A. Philharmonic gig. He released his first recording last year, Shy and Mighty, a one-hour song cycle for two pianos on the Nonesuch label. He garnered strong reviews for the recording and on Wednesday at the Colburn School in downtown Los Angeles he gave a small solo performance of “How Can I Live in Your World of Ideas?” a piece from the recording that was also included in his 2009 L.A. Phil performance.

His new piece for LACO is only just now taking shape, but it is a piano concerto that he will perform as the soloist. Andres’ work as a pianist has been highly influential on his compositions to date, and the spring LACO program will feature one of his other more notorious projects, a completion of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 26. Mozart famously left much of the music for the left hand in the piece blank with the intention of improvising it later along with the cadenzas in the performance. Andres took up the challenge to complete the piece by rewriting all of the left-landed component of the score not with a mind to mimicking or complementing Mozart, but providing his own retrospective historical commentary on it. You can listen to his performance of the piece on his excellent website already, which I would recommend you do. But until April, there are plenty of other great shows LACO has planned. And you don’t have to wait until April to hear them play. In fact, I wouldn’t wait at all given that Sunday’s show at Royce Hall already has a lot going for it.

Labels: Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra

Los Angeles loves young fresh faces. And when they come with talent to match, sparks can fly. Which may just happen again later this month when the not-yet-30-year-old composer and pianist Timothy Andres arrives in Los Angeles for two high-profile performances with two very different local organizations. Andres is a fast-rising star in the musical world having already had his work included in programming from the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009, the year before he released his debut recording, Shy and Mighty, on the Nonesuch label. Press has been glowing, and new commissions are coming fast and furious making his upcoming L.A. appearances a high priority for anyone interested in the next generation of American composers. His music will be included in the latest program from wildUp, L.A.’s new music collective, who’ll consider current music scenes on the East and West Coast on the 23rd and 24th of March at Beyond Baroque in Venice. And on an even bigger note, he’ll appear with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra under Jeffrey Kahane on the 24th and 25th of March playing his completion of the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 26 as well as his new piano concerto, Old Keys, a commission of the group’s Sound Investment program. Not excited yet? You should be. Prior to all this, Out West Arts was lucky enough to get Timo to take a stab at the ever popular 10 Questions.

1. How important is contemporary technology to your creative process?
   

   
   I have trouble separating the "creative" process from the day-to-day "getting notes down" process. For me, they mostly happen at the same time; it's not very glamorous. I almost always work directly into Sibelius. I've been composing on computers since I was a kid, so it feels natural. Occasionally I'll start with an audio mockup in Logic. The only thing I'll do by hand is the very outset of writing a piece, sitting at the piano and improvising and occasionally jotting down incomprehensible little notes to myself.
   
   That's in addition to all the other things computers help to do: recording, editing, playing random keyboard instruments, doing all my design and layout, doing my website, exchanging scores and recordings with fellow musicians—I even read most music off my iPad now, so there are pitiably few hours in a day that I'm not in front of some sort of screen.



2. What’s your current obsession?
   

   
   It's not one that I would have anticipated even a couple of years ago, and that is men's clothing. Out of school I dressed like any number of Liberal Arts College Graduates—that is to say, in striped t-shirts and skinny jeans. When I moved to New York I found myself in a meeting at my record label or something, and all of a sudden it was—I feel like a child right now, and not in a good way. Also around that time a friend of mine bought me a really beautiful jacket, and I realized I had not a single thing in my wardrobe that wouldn't look ridiculous alongside such a garment, so that started me down the path. Now I spend most of my free time trawling eBay or thrift shops, searching for, I don't know, the perfect houndstooth bow tie or something equally foppish.
   
   There are a number of other things I waste time on including bicycles, cooking, and repeatedly cleaning all surfaces in the apartment.



3. You’ll be performing alongside the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra on March 24 and 25 in a program that will feature a new commission from you for them, a piano concert entitled Old Keys. What should we know about the piece before hand?
   

   
   Here are some things you should know about Old Keys: it's an uncharacteristically neurotic piece for me, full of little details and inflections. It's a piano concerto but only in outward appearance; the piano part is not flashy or even that difficult. The entire thing is basically stitched together out of transitions, or at least each section is agitating to move on to the next; it never sits still and just contents itself with one or two things.

4. That same weekend, L.A.’s young, fresh family of musicians wildUp will feature your music in a program playing off an imagined East Coast vs West Coast composer rivalry. Can’t we all just get along?
   

   
   Yes and no. West coasters, in my experience, tend to be genuinely open minded, which is so great. If there's rivalry it is solely between the East coast and its own self.
   
   Over here, critics and curators love to repeat that old saw about how today's young composers have no stylistic limitations, how we just "let it all hang out" all of the time, but in reality things are much more like that old Tom Lehrer song "National Brotherhood Week"—everyone comes out to Miller or Merkin to hear their friend's piece and puts on a friendly face for precisely as long as is needed ("be grateful that it doesn't last all year!"). At one of these things someone asked me if I was an "uptown or downtown" composer, which… just… never ask anyone that.
   
   Competition among composers is a funny thing. If you're, say, a violinist and you bomb an audition, it's easy to say "I had an off day" or "so and so practiced harder" and kind of take the brunt of the blame yourself. Composers are never like that. It's more along the lines of "Orchestra X didn't program my piece because they like that Euro crap/that post-minimalist crap/That New Complexity/That New Sincerity" etc. etc.—they think there must be some terrible extenuating circumstance or conspiracy turning things against them.
   
   My strategy is to remind myself that "a rising tide lifts all boats". If your friend gets commissioned by the LA Phil, how is that anything other than fantastic? It means the LA Phil is paying attention to your immediate sphere, your field, and bringing that music to new and bigger audiences. And you never know, your friend might drop your name at Deborah Borda or John Adams and they'll end up commissioning you next time.



5. What music made you want to be a composer?
   

   
   At first it was just pure harmony what did it for me. When I learned how to play major chords I thought they were the most beautiful sound imaginable. Somewhat later it was Beethoven, Brahms, and Ravel. Now hundreds of different things make me want to compose.



6. What’s your second favorite opera after Berg’s Lulu?
   

   
   Need you ask? Nixon in China.



7. When should I clap?
   

   
   Whenever the hell you want? As long as it's not during a super beautiful quiet part?

8. You’re equally well known as a performer in your own right, especially of contemporary music. In what way does your work as a performer of other people’s music influence your work as a composer?
   

   
   The two are linked quite inextricably. I perform my own stuff a great deal, of course, but it will never challenge me as a pianist in quite the way a score from someone else does. Ted Hearne's Parlor Diplomacy totally schooled me on how to play trills, I learned how to hocket and groove from playing Reich and Adams and Brad Mehldau, and Rzewski taught me about playing ridiculous counterpoint with one's forearms. And whatever I'm currently practicing finds its way into what I write, sooner or later—it's just unavoidable. It works the other way, too; I think I get a "leg up" on deducing a composer's intentions by being one myself.
   
   Playing the piano is also my primary means of discovering new music—I don't listen to contemporary music regularly (though I'm trying to find more time for that) so I'll often find out about a great composer by performing one of his or her works.



9. You’ve been associated with at least two different larger groups of composers: the six person collective Sleeping Giant and more broadly, a generation of young composers currently living and working in Brooklyn. How important is it for you to be surrounded by a community of other composers in making the music you do?
   

   
   The proximity to fellow composers is a nice thing, and the Sleeping Giants are close friends and we love getting drunk together, so that's great. But technically we could collaborate from anywhere in the world—one doesn't need to occupy the same space in order to share work, create work together, critique said work, talk trash, and get silly.
   
   The Brooklyn/Greater NY area really comes in handy for performing. I love playing with groups like Metropolis Ensemble or ACME, chamber ensembles, bands, bandsembles (that's French), just any random and interesting gig that comes my way. Since college, my M.O. has been to stay as busy as possible at all times, and living in the midst of such an active community has allowed me to support myself doing just that. I'm grateful for it literally every day.



10. What’s the next big thing we should be looking for from Timothy Andres?
    

    
    Some things I'm particularly excited about this Spring: playing a solo "opener" for the Brad Mehldau trio in Denver, then giving a full recital at Le Poisson Rouge here in New York, leading into my London début at Wigmore Hall in June.
    
    Also some new pieces in the works for next season that I'm thrilled about: a solo piece for the amazing young pianist Kirill Gerstein, a quintet for Jonathan Biss and the Elias Quartet, my first choral piece (!) for Present Music in Milwaukee, scoring a documentary, perhaps a song cycle, and some big new collaborative works with the Sleeping Giants.
    
    And a bit down the road, my next album—a collaboration with the wonderful young orchestra Metropolis Ensemble.

Labels: 10 Questions, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, wildup

John Adams and members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Photo: mine 2009

What’s left to do for your contemporary music program when your two biggest assets are no longer part of the picture? That was the question facing the L.A. Philharmonic’s “Green Umbrella” series on Tuesday with a show that closed out the season without either Esa-Pekka Salonen or Steven Stucky, the two figures that have shaped this corner of the repertory for nearly two decades. The answer was to bring in John Adams who is also leading weekend performances of his own A Flowering Tree later this weekend. On Tuesday night, he offered up the L.A. premiere of his own Son of Chamber Symphony while making room for new works from much younger composers as well. It’s a virtually identical format to the last young composers revue that Salonen anchored with a work of his own last month but with Adams picking the fresh meat this time around. And, while Adams is no slouch, this was a noticeably less satisfying evening on the whole.

The young composers were 24 year-old Timothy Andres and a decade or so older Payton MacDonald. And while both presented pieces that were noteworthy in many ways, overall their music went mostly to prove how much influence Adams’ own work is having on a whole generation of younger American composers. In fact, you might not have even noticed that all the work on Tuesday wasn’t attributable to the more elder statesmen if it wasn’t for Adams' own piece, which provided that missing element of authenticity. Andres offered two works, How can I live in your world of ideas? for solo piano and Nightjar for chamber-sized orchestra. Ideas was originally written for two pianos with a plaintive lyrical line being repeatedly interrupted by a more obstinate and aggressive one. Andres later condensed the two parts into one. I think it may have worked better in the original context in that the intrusions by the second bit of material seemed to more clearly lie in wait than come out of nowhere in this single player format, which the composer preformed himself. Nightjar is inspired by birdsong, not the soaring celestial kind, but a more earth-bound variety populated by specimens from the New England wilderness. It was pleasant, in an Adams-channeling-Messiaen way.

MacDonald’s Cowboy Tabla/Cowboy Raga was the more intriguing of the young composers’ pieces on the program. A percussionist by training, MacDonald has fashioned a thirty minute or so single movement work that functioned as a not-quite concerto for a series of percussion instruments, found and otherwise, fashioned to reproduce the effect of an Indian tabla. Some electronic loops and augmentation are added when MacDonald switches from the ersatz tabla to a marimba in the second part of the work. The effect is to maintain some of the more hypnotic elements of South Asian musical traditions in a Western context and, again, there was this feeling of a post-Minimalist lyricism that strongly brought Adams’ own music to mind. The crowd reponded quite warmly to something that clearly grew on the listener over time.

In the end, though, it was Adams' own show, and he led the L.A. Philharmonic new music group through the frenzy and frolic of his second chamber symphony. He nearly danced along as he conducted the group, yet, while I enjoyed the piece very much, I can’t say I had strong feelings about it either way. It was undoubtedly the more intimate and playful Adams at work here as opposed to the one associated with the grand and dramatic gestures of his works for orchestra or the stage. Lucky for us, there is a fine example of that latter composer waiting just around the Tuesday. Adams is certainly making a case for how he’s casting his own long shadow in the musical world.

Labels: LA Philharmonic 08/09

OWA is back from the recent cold and snow on the East Coast to sunny everyday Los Angeles and looking forward to a busy March. What to do? Here’s my list for the picks of this month in performing arts around town and beyond. Interestingly the two events I’m most anticipating involve composer Timothy Andres who has been seen on local stages before and will be all over the place at the end of the month. He’s one of a number of young composers whose music will be featured in the latest program from wildUp, entitled “Craft” on the 23rd and the 24th. Director Christopher Rountree and his fellow young musicians have selected a program riffing on the contrast (or lack thereof) between East and West coast composers programming them side by side for these evenings at Beyond Baroque in Venice. Meanwhile, Anders will unveil a major new piano concerto commission entitled Old Keys for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra as part of their Sound Investment commissioning project on the 24th and 25th. And just to cap off LACO’s big month on the 7th, music director Jeffrey Kahane and his players will celebrate his 15th anniversary with the group in a concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Probably the other major musical event this month will be the inaugural Piatigorsky International Cello Festival that will welcome over two dozen cellists from around the world for two weeks worth of concerts, master classes, and other events in a large collaboration between LACO, the L.A. Philharmonic, and the Colburn and Thornton Music Schools. There’s a lot to choose from including performances from Mischa Maisky (17th), Alisa Weilerstein (18th), and Ralph Kirschbaum (15th) with the L.A. Philharmonic under Neeme Järvi (a different work and soloist is featured in each program.) There are also two group shows worth checking out including a performance of all six of Bach’s unaccompanied Cello Suites with 6 different soloists on the 11th and another program that closes the festival on Sunday the 18th at WDCH featuring music by Adès, Stravinsky, Bach, Rachmaninoff and others played by 9 different soloists. And speaking of internationally known cellists, REDCAT will welcome Frances-Marie Uitti for a program of late 20th century works in a rare L.A. appearance on the 23rd.

Of course if you want 20th century music there are other opportunities to consider. The Southwest Chamber Music collective will continue its John Cage 2012 festival with programs on the 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th and 24th all around town covering a wide variety of the composers works in his centenary year. Monday Evening Concerts will offer avant-garde works on the border between jazz and everything else in a program including works by Peter Ablinger and Stefan Wolpe on the 26th. Also at REDCAT this month will be another adventurous evening from the California E.A.R. unit who'll collaborate on the works of Morton Subotnick on the 24th. Meanwhile, there's plenty to see in San Francisco where Michael Tilson Thomas will lead two weeks of American 20th century music as part of the wide ranging “American Maverics” festival which will repeat at Carnegie Hall later this season. Music by Harbison, Ives, Foss, John Cage and others will be performed by the likes of Jessey Norman, Joan La Barbara, and Meredith Monk who will collaborate on selections from Cage's Song Books on the 10th. The SFS has created a festival pass as well that can get you into the shows for relatively little and it breaks my heart that I’ll only get to see the shows on the 9th and 10th but there are many other worthwhile events including an appearance by the PARTCH ensemble on the 11th.

There’s other music of course. The L.A. Philharmonic will offer a program with Osmo Vänskä leading Sibelius 6th symphony on the weekend of the 23rd. Ute Lemper and the Vogler Quartet will grace UCLA’s Royce Hall on the 29th with more early 20th century cabaret music. And as we head into April the Los Angeles Master Chorale will perform Bach’s St. John’s Passion on the the 31st and April 1st at WDCH. The Philharmonic Society of Orange County will welcome three big guest ensembles including the St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra on the 13th, the Takács Quartet with Garrick Ohlsson on the 20th and Marin Alsop with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on the 28th. And there will be two major opera openings in the region with San Diego Opera reviving Donizetti’s Don Pasquale starring Danielle de Niese and Charles Castronovo on the 10th and Long Beach Opera offering a puckish 20th century comedy double bill with Poulenc’s The Breasts of Tiresias and Martinu’s The Tears of a Knife on the 11th and 17th. (Castronovo will also give recitals in Orange County on the 30th and April 1st.)

On the theater front, Pasadena’s A Noise Within will offer two new productions. First up will be Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra starting on the 3rd which will be followed on the 17th with Tony Kushner’s adaptation of Corneille's The Illusion. REDCAT will present the world premiere of a new work from Martin Acosta called Timboctou starting on the 3rd. Dance at the Music Center will host visits from Evidence starting on the 9th and Ballet Preljocaj who will give three performances of their highly regarded production of Snow White the 23rd through the 25th. The Center Theater Group will have new shows in all of their houses including the Green Day musical American Idiot at the Ahmanson starting on the 13th, Beckett’s evergreen Waiting for Godot at the Mark Taper Forum on the 14th, and on the 9th at the Kirk Douglas Theater the excellent American Night, a comedy from L.A.'s own Culture Clash that received its premiere at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2010. And speaking of OSF, I’ll be reporting on some of their early productions for the year as the month closes including Mary Zimmerman’s staging of The White Snake but will share more on their great season a bit later on. Down in San Diego the Old Globe has productions of O'Neill's Anna Christie to consider on the 15th and a new musical version of A Room with a View from the 2nd. And don't forget South Coast Repertory's latest revival of Donald Margulies Sight Unseen which starts on the 11th. And won't you please go see Ms. Sandra Bernhard as she returns to the area at La Jolla Playhouse from March 14 - 17. Of course there's plenty more so stay tuned for further detail as the month goes along and always check out the calendar section for selected upcoming events.

Labels: In the Wings

April is a big month for out of town activity here at Out West Arts as much of the American opera season enters its home stretch. (Not here in L.A. however where May will be the opera month to watch.) And while I’ll be out and about at times, there are at least three events I’m going to miss that I’m already kicking myself for so I’m going to start with them so you don’t make the same mistakes as me. Do not miss an opportunity to see the Netherlands’ superb Wunderbuam who’ll return for their third appearance at REDCAT after the devastatingly good Looking for Paul in 2010. This time around they’ll bring their latest Songs at the End of the World on the 28th. Then there is the program from the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra on the 28th and 29th which will include the local premiere of a new work from Gabriel Kahane, Crane Palimpsest hot on the heels of Timo Andres' great success with the ensemble last month. And you’ll also want to be in Santa Monica on the 21st for the latest program from Jacaranda, which will focus on works from Messiaen, Gubaidulina and Henri Dutilleux.


Don’t feel too sorry for me though. First of all I won’t miss the most hotly anticipated shows of the Los Angeles Philharmonic season, which will occur during the week of the 16th when one of the great living interpreters of Lieder, Matthias Goerne, will be in town. He’ll give two recitals with Christoph Eschenbach on piano and three concerts where the famous conductor will take his more traditional spot on the podium the weekend of the 20th. All of the concerts will be dedicated to the music of Schubert including Winterreise on the 18th, Die schöne Müllerin on the 16th, and other orchestrated songs which nicely coincide with the latest release in Goerne’s remarkable recordings of Schubert Lieder for Harmonia Mundi which includes Schwanengesang. There’s other music from the this month from the L.A. Phil to consider including a visit from Herbert Blomstedt who’ll lead Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis the weekend of the 13th and John Adams returning on the 5th to conduct his own Violin Concerto with Leila Josefowicz followed by the West Coast Premiere of Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 9. On the 10th, the Green Umbrella new music series of the orchestra continues with works from Cage, Stockhausen, and a world premiere work from Oscar Bettison. Baroque ensemble Concerto Köln will visit town with Bach and Vivaldi on the 24th. And the first weekend in May will welcome Magdalena Kozená and the music of Bruckner's Symphony No. 9 and Mahler's Rückert-Lieder under the guidance of Sir Simon Rattle.

There’s tons of other music around town new and old. The Monday Evening Concert program on the 23rd is particularly intriguing with music from Aldo Clementi and Helmut Lachenmann. The Cleveland Orchestra will come to Orange County as the guest of the Philharmonic Society to play Shostakovich and Saariaho under Franz Welser-Möst on the 17th. Cage’s music will also be the focus of Susan Svrcek’s recital for Piano Spheres on the 24th. And don’t forget about the world premiere chamber work from Bright Sheng which will be paired with works from Dohnányi when Camerata Pacifica makes the rounds from the 10th through the 15th in the Southland. British early choral music stars Stile Antico will appear at St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral for the Da Camera Society on the 18th and The Pacifica Quartet will visit Royce Hall with their take on Beethoven and Shostakovich on the 11th. And proving the L.A. Phil isn’t the only ensemble in town that can play the game, the Los Angeles Mater Chorale will cover music from a wide swath of North and South America in their program on the 29th. REDCAT will bring New Zealand’s Richard Nunns to town for two nights of music from the other side of the world on the 18th and 19th just after an evening of experimental machine music from KarmetiK Machine Orchestra entitled Samsara on the 12th and 13th. Meanwhile the Los Angeles Chorale will pay tribute to Morten Lauridsen on the 15th and in one of the few opera highlights on the local scene this month, the Pacific Symphony will welcome a great cast including Maija Kovalevska and David Lomeli for concert performances of Puccini’ La Bohème starting on the 19th. Of course no month in L.A. is complete without the newest of the new bubbling up from the local music scene. You should check out Isaac Schankler and Aron Kallay's People inside Electronics program on the 28th. And on the 14th and 15th the place to be is at The Lost Studio where Julia Adolphe will premiere her new chamber opera Sylvia for her devoted fans.

And I haven’t even gotten around to the theater picks for the month yet. Why not start with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Anna Sinyakina in In Paris, an adaptation of the Ivan Bunin short story, at The Broad Stage on the 11th. This is the same night that the Geffen will welcome the local premiere of David Lindsay-Abaire’s New York hit Good People with the always lovely Jane Kaczmarek. Over at REDCAT there is much to consider besides Wunderbaum including Dayna Hanson’s take on American History in Gloria’s Cause on the 5th, My Barbarian’s “Post-Living Ante-Action Theater” experience on the 14th and 15th. And although it's technically a film event, the collection of Bill Morrison’s films should be given your attention on the 23rd. For stylish visuals it'll be hard to ignore the Ballet du Grand Théatre de Genève which will come to Dance at The Music Center on the 13th with works from the very hot, very young Benjamin Millepied for three nights. Danai Gurira’s The Convert arrives at the Kirk Douglas Theater on the 17th directly from a well-received run a Chicago’s Goodman Theater. And in the city’s many magnificent smaller venues, how about a new production of Chekhov’s Ivanov directed by Bart DeLorenzo at the Odyssey Theater starting on the 14th. Down in Orange County, South Coast Repertory will offer up some of the highlights of their season with two world premiere plays, Steven Drukman's The Prince of Atlantis starting on the 6th and Cloudlands a new musical written by Adam Gwon and Octavio Solis on the 15th. And don’t forget the final production of A Noise Within’s spring season in Pasadena that starts on the 7th with Moliere’s The Bungler.

So where will I be when I’m missing bits of all the local scene on offer this month. In part I’ll be right under the X in Houston on the 21st where Joyce DiDonato will give her role debut as Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda in anticipation of her appearances in the role starting this coming New Year’s Eve at the Metropolitan Opera. Houston Grand Opera will also be putting up Verdi’s greatest opera, Don Carlos, under music director Patrick Summers starting on the 13th with Brandon Jovanovich, Christine Goerke, and the King Philippe II of Andrea Silvestrelli. But the end of the month will feature 10 whopping days in New York (you remember, the cultural capital of America right?) where I’ll get another look at Robert Lepage’s new production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle in all its flat screen emulating glory under Fabio Luisi with Eric Owens, Bryn Terfel, Katarina Dalayman, Jay Hunter Morris, Jonas Kaufmann, Eva-Maria Westbroek, and Stefan Margita. Given what I’ve seen in the house so for, it’s unlikely to become a highlight of this or any year, but what might is the revival of Janacek’s The Makropulos Case which opens at the Met on the 27th with Karita Mattila who took San Francisco by storm in the leading role in 2010. Also on the week’s operatic agenda will be Natalie Dessay on Decker’s red couch (hopefully) in La Traviata which opened on the 5th and Nathan Gunn who may bare some if not all as Britten’s Billy Budd on May 4th. Rounding out the New York jaunt will be TR Warszawa’s Festen as St. Ann’s Warehouse, the return of Elevator Repair Service’s jaw-dropping GATZ at the Public Theater, Death of a Salesman, and Judy Garland’s final months played out in End of the Rainbow. Oh, and Leif Ove Andsnes alongside Matthias Goerne (again) at Carnegie Hall on May 1 with Shostakovich and Mahler. What more can I tell you?

Labels: In the Wings

September is already fully upon us and the Fall season is raging our way. After a particularly lazy summer here at Out West Arts, things are heating up again and what better way to start that a preview of the things you shouldn’t miss before we’re already in October. The big event this month is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the U.S. operatic season. Los Angeles Opera Artistic Director and superstar Placido Domingo will take on his 140th role when he appears again in a baritone part in Verdi’s I due Foscari on September 15th. He’ll be joined by a great international cast including Francesco Meli and Marina Poplavskaya under Music Director James Conlon in a new production that will travel with Domingo around the world including appearances at the Royal Opera House in London. LAO will also present a star studded production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni with Ildebrando D’Arcangelo in the title role and both Julianna Di Giacomo and Angela Meade making their company debuts sharing the role of Donna Anna. Meanwhile in San Francisco, Music Director Nicola Luisotti is heading up a revival of Verdi’s Rigoletto with two casts including among others Željko Lučić and Aleksandra Kurzak that will wrap up just in time for the not to be missed Joyce DiDonato to arrive as Romeo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi starting on the 29th.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic will return to Walt Disney Concert Hall at the end of the month as well for the opening performances of their season under Gustavo Dudamel. After a Gala opener on the 27th, Dudamel will take his first crack locally at a specialty of the orchestra under his predecessor Esa-Pekka Salonen with Starvinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps. The members of L.A.’s favorite indie orchestra collective, wildUp, will also continue their widely regarded and very exciting residency at the Hammer Museum this month with a solo recital from pianist Richard Valittuto on the 15th with music both new and older from the likes of Cage, Stockhausen and others. But perhaps the biggest new music event of the month will take place in Carlsbad starting on Sep 21st when the Calder Quartet will usher in this year’s installment of their own Carlsbad Music Festival which promises to be just as adventuresome as previous years. The three days of programming will feature appearances by Timo Andres, Matt McBane, Sara Watkins, Wu Man, and a performance of Michael Gordon’s excellent Timber for wood percussion instruments by the Mantra ensemble on the 22nd. The Calder Quartet of course will wrap the weekend up with a show to include work from this year’s Composers Competition winner Andy Akiho.

On the theater side there are six shows not to miss. REDCAT will kick of its fall with an appearance from Gob Squad who collectively will recreate Warhol’s Factory with a multi-media piece entitled Gob Squad’s Kitchen (You’ve Never Had it so Good) starting on the 20th. Meanwhile, the Geffen Playhouse returns with the local premiere of another well received new play from Lynn Nottage on the 26th with By the Way, Meet Vera Stark that is rightly highly anticipated. And though it would require a trip to San Francisco, you’d be foolish to miss the West Coast premiere of the recent Broadway production of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart which opens on Sep 13th. The unwieldy monikered CAP UCLA series also will bring two performances of one of this years highlights on the 21st with the Théâtre de la Ville-Paris who’ll bring Ionesco’s Rhinoceros to the stage at Royce Hall on the 21st. I would also mention that Shakespeare’s more rarely performed Cymbeline will make a local appearance at the start of the A Noise Within season when in kicks off in Glendale on the 22nd. And finally for those in San Diego, Th Old Globe will present the world premiere of a new musical by Jay Kuo, Allegiance, set during the 20th Century internment of Japanese Americans in California starring George Takei, Lea Salonga, and Telly Leung. As usual this list only scratches the surface, but hopefully it sets you out in the right direction. Stay tuned for more.

Labels: In the Wings

With only a handful of days left in 2011, it’s naturally a time to reflect and think about the coming year. And in 2012, there’s already a lot of very exciting things to consider and plan for on the preforming arts scene. So while I'm packing for London and before my January preview comes to light next week, I’ll leave you the following music, theater, and performance highlights for the year ahead. Let’s start with L.A.’s biggest classical music organization, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which will continue its current season with a wide variety of works from late 20th-century composers including Louis Andriessen, John Adams, Steve Reich and others. Probably the most important shows coming up for the L.A. Phil will be the world premiere of a new oratorio from Adams entitled The Gospel According to the Other Mary, which will be seen in late May/early June under Gustavo Dudamel, just weeks after Adams himself leads a program with the West Coast premiere of Glass’s latest Symphony No. 9 in April. And as for older music, the most enticing programs of the spring will be a string of recitals from Matthias Goerne accompanied by the L.A. Phil under Christoph Eschenbach and with the conductor alone on piano in works of Schubert the week of April 16. And don’t forget the long-awaited return of Simon Rattle in early May when he’ll lead Bruckner with our local orchestra as well.

And speaking of Adams, the other major living composer with that name, John Luther Adams will have his Inuksuit receive its West Coast premiere along with many other pieces at the 66th Ojai Music Festival starting June 7th. This year’s artistic director is Leif Ove Andsnes and he’s scheduled to appear alongside fellow pianist Marc-André Hamelin and clarinetist Martin Fröst over this first-rate weekend. Back in town, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra will be celebrating music director Jeffrey Kahane’s 15th anniversary with the group by performing a new commission from Brooklyn-based composer Timothy Andres on March 24 and 25 as well as one from Gabriel Kahane on April 21. LACO, along with the L.A. Philharmonic and both the Colburn and Thornton music school will also host the first Piatigorsky International Cello Festival in Los Angeles beginning on March 9 for 9 days of concerts, master classes and recitals with over 20 of the world’s best known cellists including Alisa Weilerstein, Miklós Perényi, Steven Isserlis, and Mischa Maisky. These performances take place in multiple venues with a variety of different music so be sure to check the schedule. Oh and done forget L.A.'s rebelious Wild Up collective that will present "a compendium of hipster music" from both East and West coast young composers on March 23 and 24.

On the opera front, the biggest thing to talk about in Los Angeles prior to the announcement of the 2012/2013 season for Los Angeles Opera next month will likely be Placido Domingo’s performance in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra starting February 11. Long Beach Opera, of course, has assembled another season of rarities from the likes of Poulenc, Martinu, Piazzola, and Osvaldo Golijov. Out of town the two most exciting things on the schedule are Karita Mattila taking another swing at Janacek’s The Makropulous Case at The Metropolitan Opera starting April 27 and Mariusz Kwiecien’s scheduled appearances in the title role of Szymanowski’s King Roger at Santa Fe Opera starting in July. (I’m also crossing my fingers that I may make it to London in late June for the Royal Opera House’s new production of Berlioz’ Les Troyens with Jonas Kaufmann, Eva-Maria Westbroek, and Anna Caterina Antonacci. Stay tuned.) There will be Ring cycles everywhere, of course, on this anniversary year including new stagings at both the Metropolitan Opera and in Munich to name just a few.

The theater offerings are no less interesting. Center Theater Group has planned major West Coast runs of the critically well-received recent New York productions of Sondheim’s Follies in May and Jon Robin Baitz’ Other Desert Cities before the end of 2012. But before all this, L.A.’s largest theater producer will bring concurrently running productions of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and Bruce Norris’ Clybourne Park to the Kirk Douglas and Mark Taper Forum stages respectively. The Broad Stage will bring Helen Hunt in Thornton Wilder's Our Town starting January 14. And then there's the exciting line-up at REDCAT which has too many interesting things to detail here but I would not skip the return of the Netherlands' Wunderbaum on April 28 and 29 with Songs at the End of the World. This just scratches the surface so stay tuned for the monthly performance previews and have a great New Year.

Labels: In the Wings

Composer Dale Trumbore

A couple of weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times published a misguided rant from Mark Swed about how “technological fascism” is the latest destroyer of worlds for all things classical music in the form of such online services as iTunes, Twitter and Spotify. I wrote about the problems with this flimsy argument then, but there’s a whole other part to the story. Which is that the social media/online revolution is breaking open new avenues for younger artists to get their works heard in ways that never could have happened before. It turns out that the Internet, much like a deity, never fails to open a window after closing a door. And if you aren’t hanging around reminiscing about your college days listening to ever-increasingly copyright protected Beatles albums, you might just catch a whiff of the future.

Let me start with a story. A friend of mine, a former USC Thornton School of Music graduate student, relates the following: In the spring of 2011, the school hosted a visit from the young, high-profile composer Eric Whitacre. As the story goes, during the Q and A session that followed his appearance, a soon-to-be graduate posed the question to him of whether or not it was a good idea for a young composer to be willing to give up some control of her work when signing a first contract with a publisher in order to get her foot in the door. Whitacre’s answer was clear. Never give up anything. Why would you want to? Those days are gone. Do it yourself. He estimated that the cost in time and effort to photocopy parts for a customer should not hinder anyone from going it alone in distributing their music, considering that publishers may not be able to do much in terms of promoting a young unknown composer not to mention the large cut in overhead they take. It's a topic that Whitacre has written about on his elaborate web site's blog. What Whitacre may be one of the best examples of, is a composer who has managed to get his work heard in numerous venues and recorded in part due to his active engagement in social media outlets from Facebook and Twitter to You Tube. His 2010 Virtual Choir project using thousands of vocalists individually recorded on line, which were then mixed together for a single performance of one of his scores, generated lots of media attention. And while this in and of itself may not have made him a fortune, it has made his name even more memorable and helped drive increased interest in his work overall.



But the story isn’t just about YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Composers who are in and just out of music programs are doing for themselves in terms of financing performances and recording as well. Take Isaac Schankler, a 2010 graduate of the Thornton School who has found the benefit of Kickstarter for getting his music played by real people. Schankler’s chamber opera about the rivalry between Tesla and Edison, Light and Power, was produced in Boston earlier this year when the sponsoring organization, the Juventas New Music Ensemble, raised money for the performance through the site. For the uninitiated, Kickstarter provides microfunding for a wide variety of unrealized ideas from consumer goods to music and art. Visitors can pledge small amounts of funding towards projects creators have listed on the site and in aggregate get work funded that might never have seen the light of day. A goal is set by the proposer and if enough contributions are pledged, funds are collected and awarded to the creator with funders receiving goods or services from the collective project. Shankler and colleague Aron Kallay host a concert series of electroacoustic music under the moniker People Inside Electronics and recently received funding through Kickstarter for a concert this coming Saturday September 17 at MiMoDa of electroacoustic music featuring new compositions performed by California's Eclipse Quartet. This, like the chamber opera, is a show funded by dozens of people chipping in various small amounts on Kickstarter who are interested in seeing it come to life. (The video above gives more details.)



And if that isn't enough technological fascism for you, take Dale Trumbore, a composer and USC student who has already had works premiered by the Kronos Quartet during her time at the University of Maryland. Trumbore has also funded projects through Kickstarter, including her upcoming CD release Snow White Turns Sixty, a song cycle for soprano Gillian Hollis based on twelve texts from contemporary female poets. Trumbore will be rolling out the recording this month and has several dates set up around the country for concert performances of the new piece. Trumbore is an artist who, like many other young classical composers and musicians, is finding use for one of the many music e-commerce sites like Bandcamp. Bandcamp allows artists to sell their music directly to customers without having to set up their own individual sites to handle download and payment technical issues. It also allows them to avoid some of the pitfalls of selling music on iTunes although it does not prevent artists like Sufjan Stevens, Gabriel Kahane, Trumbore or anyone else from doing so simultaneously. Artists can set up their own subsidiary Bandcamp sites and set their own prices for their music outside of the iTunes 99 cent track dictum. Is anyone getting rich there? Probably not. Is it a way to financially support music and artists you care about without having to go through Big Apple? Definitely.



Ensembles have gotten into the act as well like Los Angeles' own wildUp who have an active on line presence and have used services like Bandcamp as well. This recently formed contemporary music collective under the artistic direction of Christopher Rountree has been making a splash over the last year participating in such performances as the Sofia Gubaidulina festival at REDCAT last spring. Their future plans contain some of the most promising programming around with a Clarence Barlow show in November and another slated for the spring examining young composers on both coasts including Timo Andres, Andrew Norman, and Missy Mazzoli among others. wildUp's roster is crammed with a who's who of young musicians, composers, and sound artists who are actively engaged in social media like Andrew Tholl and Chris Kallmyer.

But these examples are only the tip of the iceberg. There is a whole generation of musicians and composers who are collaborating, interacting and creating spurred on by their online connections. Careers are building built in new and different ways with the use technologies that can just as easily demonized. This does not mean that anyone named above or elsewhere hasn't relied heavily on other more traditional methods to fund and support their work. This does not mean that all music that comes out of online collaboration is great music. But it does suggest that music, like life, will go on even with the changing interface we have with technology.

Labels: Dale Trumbore, Eclipse Quartet, Eric Whitacre, People Inside Elecronics