Preface
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| Paradise, April 2021 |
What sensible interest would I have in creating music if I didn’t know that other people would be engaged by it and want to hear it? (Of course, I can’t really know it – do you?) Pure self-indulgence won’t handle it because that’s just a dismissive putdown, and what isn’t? I don’t actually ever need to ask myself this question, because I am constantly drawn to create music without telling myself why; and I don’t have fantasy images of potential gratifying social events that might pull me on. There doesn’t seem to be any necessity for creating music except that it feels necessary and engages me deeply once I get into it. So if I have to think about needing a sensible interest in doing it I think: it’s fundamentally the same interest as I have when I listen to music, or read a book, or think hard and long about something: it gets me in deep and takes me somewhere that, to whatever extremity, becomes a permanent transformation – or as Gilbert Rouget puts it, a transformation of consciousness. Of course the nature of where it gets me, or how my consciousness is transformed, is not externally demonstrable, but you know it without any need for reinforcement of conviction when it happens to you. Sometimes the “social” occasion of a music doing is a solitary episode of self-discovery, seeing (metaphorically of course) what was there inside of you that you hadn’t perceived (for better or worse, unavoidably). My “ONE” solo piano sessions were self-consciously oriented that way, solitary occasions for a self-contained purpose; finding what music might lurk in you unsuspected probably threatens to also uncover aspects of your being that might lurk within that unpremeditated music. (All music is unpremeditated even if it’s premeditated.) There were 10 of those sessions, between 1985 and 1987.This one, which I’m indexing here as FIVETEXT, was the last one. Why do I think you might have a sensible interest in listening to it? Because I have no way of knowing that you wouldn’t, since I do."
- Benjamin Boretz "Text for FiveText" from the liner notes for an upcoming Open Space CD
Texts
April 23, 2021
UW Modern Music Ensemble
Cristina Valdés, director
Core Interlude (2000) - Orlando Jacinto García - Kevin Leiferman, Cello; Mia HyeYeon Kim, Piano; Jonathan Rodriguez, Percussion
Umbra (2019) - José-Luis Hurtado - Megan Hutchison, flute; Jonathan Rodriguez, percussion
The most delicate flower (2020) - Alexis Porfiriadis - Megan Hutchison, flute; Bridget Long, oboe; Constance Aguocha, voice; Dalma Ashby, violin; Eugene Chin, viola; Kevin Leiferman, cello; Mia HyeYeon Kim, piano; Sophie Schmidt, percussion
Rocío del Canto (2016) - Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon - Ian Huh, Piano 1; Mia HyeYeon Kim, Piano 2; Jonathan Rodriguez, Percussion 1; Yongyun Zhang, Percussion 2
1. Trope 1
2. Tarde
3. Trope 2
4. Cesa
5. Trope 3
6. Vacío
Treatise (Excerpts) (1967) - Cornelius Cardew - Megan Hutchison, flute; Bridget Long, oboe; Constance Aguocha, violin; Dalma Ashby, violin; Eugene Chin, viola; Kevin Leiferman, cello; Mia HyeYeon Kim, piano; Sophie Schmidt, percussion
First:
Cristina is a fabulous conductor
exactly precise enough so that the ensembles sing the music with her
collaborational rather than
authoritarian
brilliant
I love how she trusts her musicians
collaborative
puppetry
true collaboration
the spatial reality
of the distance between
measured on screen
in inches
or
from the distance as ratio
if
a composition
is not a possibility
then
it is nothing
a conductor conducts
both orchestra
and audience
the vid projection of the putative score
is more theater
What a lovely show, well played and well done by all involved!
Wayward in Limbo
With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series now moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is curating and commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of exclusive material. Many of these will be essentially “live” performances recorded at home for this occasion. Others may create a mix of pre-recorded material that has not been previously released elsewhere.
- from the Wayward Music Series website at https://www.waywardmusic.org/.
April 17, 2021
Afrodite Psarra
Radiotactility
in the writing that accompanies the link
Afrodite lifts a speculative metaphor
for composition with electronic signals
as
a form of textile art
I'm always up
for new ways to consider what music might be
"hand embroidered digital
synthesizers"
"textile radio antennas"
precisely tuned or out-tuned pitch
inferences
or -ferences
in-
or inter-
our old friends the blip bloops
in
snazzy attire
scant apparent concern
for how this might contribute
to concert
music prestige culture
a benefit of electronica
that may
perhaps should
have
been
foreseen
if it had been conceivable at all
textile art
inherently
polylinear
weaves
knits
knots
molecular bonds
electromagnetic
cellular
generated organic
Steve Layton, with Dorota Czerner, voice
March Winds
parse sempiternal rational grasp
over the waters
upon the deep
as we have in
our parsement
of breath to song
and tongue whispers
and roads
choate-ing chaos
the rhythms of chaotic systems are unnervingly familiar
we do not have a
handle on this
interpret how we will
words
as live in caves
grasp what
patterns
as are gleaned
Recorded
April 17, 2021
Songs and Dances of Death - Modest Mussorgsky - Benjamin Luxon, David Willison
this interpretation is over-acted
as though it were an opera scene
with
characters
who do voices
in dialog scare
the children
large venue drama
don't
want to be in a small room
with this
April 18, 2021
Parsifal, Act I - Richard Wagner - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, Jose Van Dam, Victor von Halem, Kurt Moll, Peter Hofmann, Siegmund Nimsgern, Dunia Veizovic, Claes H. Ahnsjah, Kurt Tydl, Marjon Lambriks, Anne Gjevang, Helner Hopfner, Georg Tichy, Barbara Hendricks Janet Perry Doris Soffel Inga Nielsen
it lifts
but loses its way
back down
over again
each lift
leaves a glowing
sound
to vanish upward
time has passed
it's been ages
||
sound design
: depths
and heights
: within places and outside places
: distances near and distances
far
||
these characters mutter to themselves
a lot
lost in their dreamy dreams
his bluster shrinks in upon itself
hope is centered
on a verbal formula
we're
told all about it
storytellers on stage
our legend so far
interrupted by a
sudden event
||
effective orchestration of massed sounds
carefully adjusting the rhythms of their various parts
so that the whole of it
comes along
independently
or according to a species of orchestrational parallax
Slavonic Dance in B-flat minor, Op. 72a #5 - Antonín Dvořák - The Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi
I'm trying to picture this
as an actually danced dance
too many costume
changes to keep up with
On Parade - John Philip Sousa
music for looking at men in uniform
a march is a corporate strut
Sonata in G-sharp minor, Op. 19 (#2) - Alexander Scriabin - John Ogden
never has
'in' been so troublesome
in the sense
in which this
is
in anything
so much sparkles!
great contention
April 20, 2021
Pelleas et Melisande, Act IV - Claude Debussy - Orchestre symphonique de Montreal, Charles Dutoit, Colette Alliot-Lugaz, Didier Henry, Gilles Cachemaille, Pierre Thau, Claudine Carlson, Francoise Golfier, Phillip Ens, Choeurs de l'OSM, Iwan Edward, Denise Masse
matters are getting complicated
suspicion
jealousy
fear
lust
a collision of imperatives
Sonata in F-sharp, Op. 53 (#5) - Alexander Scriabin - Vladimir Horowitz
all the passions
all the time
we are a tumult
Le Roi de etoiles - Igor Stravinsky - Igor Stravinsky, CBC Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Festival Singers
one four note chorale
to eviscerate
an entire school of choral repertoire
would make an excellent pairing
with Varèse's Equatorial
a full scale oratorio
in 4 minutes and a half
Concerto in F-sharp minor, Op. 1 - Serge Rachmaninoff - Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, Serge Rachmaninoff
veers off
when somewhere
might accidentally
be got to
is its own play by play
decorative
with #emotive #moments
on every page
Ameriques - Edgard Varèse - Utah Symphony Orchestra, Maurice Abravanel
well waddayaknow
not Equatorial,
but not such a bad foil itself
at that
took
Stravinsky at his word
big blotches of sound walls
cruel and raw
graceless
In Session at the Tintinabulary
April 19, 2021
Banned Rehearsal 1024 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer
Karen and I were on the porch for the first time this spring
Anna and Neal
phoned in from Outpost Lake City
We made a gently quiet session
while A&N
commandeer baseball
Postscripts
::Consult the Oracle
on another always in search rightly
and enter the dark night and be this toward
delights are in soul self incur because
Reality Check::
the pen is painfully blue
(today I cleaned my room
arranged my tapes in three neat little stacks)
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