Playlist

Live

March 22, 2014
Any Ensemble
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Topology - Andrew Smith

A tetrapuntal projection of shaped space. In the corners in front of us two electric guitars played repeated single tones in something like cross rhythms of mutually adjusted independence. Over the course of the hour they changed pitch and tempo 20 times or so, at more or less coordinated points, each time taking a moment to reorient their attitude to each other, as people deep in conversation do. In the corners behind us two electric guitars played long tones without distinct attack points, not constant, but a continually renewed presence, like spillover ambience from the front. What was on the left was cloven from what was on the right. What was in front was functionally distinct from what was in the back. As the harmonies and relative tempo structures shifted over time, this sonographic space warped, thickened, blossomed, rippled, tilted, quivered. A peripatetic violist appeared here, aimed this way, now here aimed that way. The actual fact of his physical relation to any of us at any particular time was not nearly so precise as his location within the evoked space in sound. Blown away.

Topographies - John Teske

Sounds are individuals within populations. Long tones tend away from emphasizing their initiation, pointing toward their respective apogeal episodes. Short tones bloop and pop in the randomish rhythm of volcanic mudpots, or fields of spurting geoducks. Ship masts at harbor rock in slow motion. Rational value is void at water's edge.

Recorded

March 16, 2014
Symphony avec orgue - Camille Saint-Saëns - Orchestre symphonique de Montreal, Charles Dutoit

Or: Farmer Hogget ascends to heaven.

From the middle of the 19th through the early part of the 20th centuries the symphony was often a vehicle for nationalist aspiration. Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Franck, and the later generation of Sibelius, Nielsen, Elgar, and hosts of others (each with copious asterisks) were playing to pride of country. It is this notion of what a symphony is about that lends such overwrought nostalgia to Rachmaninov, such naïve pathos to the later American symphonists such as Hanson, Copland, and Diamond, and such a sharp satirical thrust to Shostakovich. So what exactly is so French about Saint-Saëns' 3rd? I would point to the graceful melodic lines that spread over the meter - it may be 'in four' or 'in three' but it is the whole phrase that is the building block.

In Nature's Realm - Antonin Dvořák - London Symphony Orchestra, István Kertész
Graduale 'Christus factus est pro nobis' - Anton Bruckner - Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Eugen Jochum

March 17, 2014
Quartet in A - Max Reger - Reger Quartet

As much contrapuntal clockwork ferocity as can be crammed into the space allotted. So tightly wound it seems to fall apart from the inside.

Pohjola's Daughter - Jean Sibelius - London Symphony Orchestra - Robert Kajanus

After a clear, directly linear opening that moves from dark to light, the narrative becomes obscure and convoluted. Love the ending. Kajanus owns this stuff.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

March 17, 2014
Gradus 241 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

First part: holding a resonance together long enough to cause the transformation of its innards.
Second part: making up for the minimally thicker global texture by slowing and thinning the presentation. Moving into thinking about the colors of specific combinations of notes and how those colors shift, and away from the more sensually lush lofting of resonant results.

Upcoming

 

April 12, 2014 - 8 PM 

A Cat's Life Returns Again - a recital by Keith Eisenbrey, piano, with special guest Olivia Sterne, narrator

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Attitude - Doug Palmer

Greek Nickel 2 - J. K. Randall

Sonata (2012) - Aaron Keyt

A Cat's Life, a little opera for solo piano (1990) - Keith Eisenbrey

 

June 27, 2014 - 8 PM

Banned Rehearsal Celebrates 30 Years of Noise

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle