The chamber opera in two acts is inspired by the epiphany of Rumi, a 13^th-century Islamic jurist and madrassa teacher whose encounter with “Shams” (a Persian poet and philosopher) led Rumi into a new life as an ascetic mystic and poet. As a result of this encounter Rumi went on to write nearly 66,000 verses of quatrains and odes as well as prose works—a body of work that forms the basis of much classical Iranian and Afghan music. Roberts adapts this story to the present-day American Midwest, exploring “our various assumptions about what love is, who it can be between and how intimately linked it is to sexuality.”

Roberts studied composition at Harvard University (Ph.D.) and the University for Performing Art and Music in Vienna (Postgraduate Diploma). Rudolf Rojahn, founding member of Guerilla Opera and composer of several of their productions, has described the composer’s music as having “…both a foreignness and familiarity” characterized by layered textures and timbre manipulation. This jibes well with the excerpts located on his website (here). The music is intense and thought provoking, which should translate well in this production’s small ensemble of four instrumentalists and four singers.

Stage Director Andrew Eggert characterizes the piece as renegotiating “the line between contemporary art and ritual” in which the “entire ensemble functions as a chorus in the traditions of the ancient theater, commenting upon and manipulating the action.” Eggert has previously directed for the Boston Lyric’s Opera Annex as well as for Chicago Opera Theater and Opera Omaha where, in staging Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle, he sought to create a “visual vocabulary that would do justice to Bartok’s music, which is so expressive.” For this work he seems interested in the way it toggles “between the way we live day to day on the artificial “surface” of our lives and the hidden “depth” of our inner worlds.” How this is visualized will rely on Julia Noulin-Merat’s scenic design, which she describes as a “museum like world that allows the characters to exist” and includes a “very special effect for when two of the characters reach “enlightenment.” Somehow in this suburban setting she has managed to combine influences of Warhol, Lichtenstein and Arabic calligraphy.

Productions of Guerilla Opera often involve the audience. For 2010 production of the Heart of a Dog the audience walked with the cast, guided by a Carnival Barker. One would imagine that the audience’s experience for this production will be nearly as thrilling. However, if you can’t make it or would just like to preview the production, opening night is being live streamed here for free.

Cast

Jonas Budris, tenor (John)
Brian Church, baritone (Darren)
Aliana de la Guardia, soprano (Elena/Mean Kid)**
Jennifer Ashe, soprano (Susan/Brian)
Amy Advocat, clarinets
Javier Caballero, cello
Kent O’Doherty, saxophones **
Mike Williams, percussion **

(** indicates Guerilla Opera company members)

Music & Libretto by Adam Roberts; Stage Directed by Andrew Eggert
Scenic Design by Julia Noulin-Merat **; Lighting Design by Tláloc López-Watermann **
Costume Design by Neil Fortin; Props Design by Anita Shriver

First Published by the Boston Musical Intelligencer here.

At the end of the month I’m presenting a paper titled “Wagner’s Re-conception of Weber’s German Nationalism,” at the international conference “Richard Wagner’s Impact on His World and Ours” in Leeds. Here is the abstract:

According to Jorge Luis Borges “…each writer creates his precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.”[1] On 15 December 1844, Richard Wagner modified our conception of Carl Maria von Weber’s work and aesthetics. In a strange nationalistic ritual, Wagner had Weber’s remains brought from England to their final resting place in Dresden. Graveside, Wagner gave a speech that redefined Weber as an insular nationalist: “For thou [Weber] wast not one of those chill seekers after fame, who own no fatherland, to whom that plot of earth is dearest where ambition finds the rankest soil in which to thrive…”[2] In this attack on cosmopolitanism, Wagner painted his own (newly adopted) insular German nationalist identity onto Weber, establishing Weber as an insular symbol of the still-emerging nationalist movement. Thus, Weber became an appropriate precursor from whom Wagner could receive the mantle of an insular German musical tradition.

After a brief discussion of Weber’s criticism, delineating his cosmopolitan ideals, my paper turns to Wagner’s writings and changing perception of Weber’s work. The paper continues with a brief survey of Weber’s historical reception in criticism and performance. Light analysis and discussion of the performance history of Weber’s Kampf und Sieg Cantata(1815) provides musical context, revealing how later revisions of the work brought Weber’s Cantata into line with changed conceptions of the German identity. Overall, my paper reveals the immense impact of Wagner on both the reception of Weber’s work and the modern narrative of the development of German Romantic dramaturgy.

The conference is interdisciplinary, with many papers, several parallel sessions and four interesting workshops covering everything from performance practice to cultural impact.

Finally, I’m slated to attend and review the Rockport Chamber Festival’s celebration of Wagner in the Shalin Liu performance center.  with yet another important Brahms scholar . The program includes several interesting pieces including the Wesendonck Lieder and his third piano sonata in A-flat. It should be wonderful.

Overall, while I didn’t get a chance to celebrate in Leipzig, this isn’t bad for an old bloke from West Chester.

Alan Schneider (Steersman) – photo: Eric Antoniou

Oddly enough, the most interesting aspect of this production is its staging. Most others emphasize the different and gendered worlds of the opera—the men belong at sea and the women belong on land. The balance is upset when the Holländer steps ashore and only resolved when Senta returns with him to the sea. (Of course Senta’s fiancé, the hunter, is the exception, but his is the world of the forest—a romantic frontier akin to that of the ocean). However, by having the character of Senta remain onstage throughout the opera, John Conklin and Michael Cavanagh of the BLO have hit upon an ingenious solution that simultaneously challenges and personalizes the borders between the two worlds.  Appearing variously as an innocent child, adolescent, and woman, Senta’s presence takes on many idealized and nostalgic forms. At one point she seems to be the subject of the steersman’s dreams—a vision of the Ewig-Weibliche (eternally feminine); at another she represents a doting father’s perception of his grown daughter—who he still sees as a child; and of course she also appears as the last hope of redemption for a dark and murderous man. Her continuous presence, observing as often as not, centers her perspective on the narrative. She is the Romantic ruckenfigur (figure seen from behind) through whose eyes we see the events of the opera develop.

Allison Oakes (Senta) and The Flying Dutchman Chorus (Eric Antoniou photo)

However, Senta also wears red. The color stands out, even pops against the dreary background of the fish cleaning hall or on board the ship. This red matches Senta’s hair, it matches the red of the Holländer’s sails, it matches the blood on her mother’s blouse (an earlier victim pantomimed in the overture), it matches the seven-year old Senta’s hands drenched in her mother’s blood, and lastly it matches the red of her blood when she slashes her own throat in the riveting final scene.

Unfortunately, the color, combined with the violence, places this Senta in the staging tradition of other women in red including, obviously, Tosca and Carmen. Indeed, the image of a child drenched in another’s blood hearkens back to the 2010 BLO production of Tosca in which the shepherd boy in the third act pastoral mops blood and brain matter from the stage floor with a sponge.  It was unnecessarily shocking then and here it is even less appropriate. The bloody and graphic world of Carmen and Tosca are related aesthetics that characterized Romanticism in its latest stages of the 19^th century—leading to and participating in the verismo. In a production that seeks to “re-examine” Wagner’s opera in its original shape, as a “strong, light and energetic early Romantic score” the graphically violent ending is an unnecessary effect that is simply at odds with the opera’s style, time period, and the production’s stated goals.

As Senta, soprano Allison Oakes is striking. Her powerful voice is remarkably consistent throughout its registers, cutting through the orchestra with ease and nuance. Her physical presence is commanding and one is not surprised to find that her stop here in Boston is on her way to the Bayreuther Festspiele. To his credit, Cavanagh displayed Oakes wonderfully in his blocking. For example, in the second act ballad, he positioned her downstage and high on a riser for the lingering opening “Johohoe.” The effect is chilling. As the Dutchman, bass-baritone Alfred Walker was equally remarkable. The low end of his range was extraordinarily resonant, filling the room.

As Senta’s father, perhaps the most difficult dramatic part in the opera, bass Gregory Frank authentically managed to express his character’s contradicting motivations of greed and paternal love. Indeed his humor actually upstaged the Dutchman’s gravitas in their Italian-style first act duet “Wie? Hört’ ich recht?” Tenor Chad Shelton’s clear, ringing tenor made the hunter’s naiveté and frustration nearly tangible. The opening of the third act, the famous sailor’s chorus, was fantastic. The contrast between the living sailors and the Dutchman’s crew was terrifying and exciting at once, achieving the spectacle and local color that Wagner must have imagined when writing a peace for the Paris Opéra.

Olivia Dundon-Duvall (Senta, age 14) and The Flying Dutchman Chorus (Eric Antoniou photo)

Usually scholars characterize Wagner’s later revisions to Der Fliegender Holländer as attempts to “alter perceptions of his own development, and to pretend that he was already writing in a much more mature style.” However, this performance undermined that argument. David Angus’s subtle rendering of the score brought to life its many classic “Wagnerian moments.” For example, the awkward moment shared between the Dutchman and Senta at their first meeting, unsung but articulated by the orchestra, is clearly an ancestor of Siegmund and Sieglinde’s first meeting in Die Walküre. Wagner’s transitional music between acts in this opera is also obviously idiosyncratic of his mature works. However, this opera is lighter and faster moving than Wagner’s later works and this production works just fine without intermission—if anything, it felt like it ended too soon.

Reposted from the Boston Musical Intelligencer here: http://classical-scene.com/2013/04/27/blo-hollander/

BLO’s supertitled production in German runs from April 26^th to May 5^th.  [weblink  here]

It was only two years earlier, in 1839, that Wagner was an up and coming composer and musical director of the town theater in provincial Riga where he, his wife Minna and their shaggy white Newfoundland Dog Robber lived a simple life. Indeed, it is said that when the young composer walked to rehearsals in Riga his dog would accompany him and go for a swim in the city’s canals. However, Wagner was building up debts with the town creditors. When he was informed that his position would not be renewed, Wagner decided to leave for Paris. In order to avoid his debtors, he was forced to flee, with wife and dog in tow, in the middle of the night.

It was an awful journey; Begun by sneaking under the city’s walls, followed by a precarious journey to the Prussian coast—during which Minna miscarried—and finally completing the voyage by sea on the Norwegian merchant vesselThetis. Through a chance meeting with Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner arrived at Paris with introductions from the famous composer that unfortunately led to very few opportunities. In Paris, he was impoverished and resorted to music criticism (writing for the Paris Revue et gazette musicale and the Dresden Abend-Zeitung) and creating hack arrangements of other composer’s music for the publisher Schlesinger to try to make ends meet.

Years before in Riga, Wagner had read Heinrich Heine’s telling of the myth of the Flying Dutchman (Aus den Memoiren des Herrn von Schnabelewopski). The tale describes a doomed ship and Captain cursed to roam the open seas for eternity or until he can find redemption at the hands of a faithful, loving woman. Wagner has said that the idea to create a libretto from the myth and set it to music emerged from the family’s perilous journey at sea, when the ship was forced to put into a Norwegian coast and the sailors retold the myth.  Of course, the hero’s redemption at the hands of a faithful woman is a cultural Romantic trope that predates Wagner (Weber’s Der Freischütz and Euryanthe are just two examples) and characterizes many of Wagner’s later libretti.

In April, 1840 in Paris, Wagner sketched the seaman’s chorus and Senta’s ballad while the family stayed in an overpriced apartment on the Rue du Helder (it has been alleged that later that year Wagner would spend several weeks in a Parisian debtor’s prison). Wagner hoped to offer the scenes and a précis of the plot for audition to the Paris Opéra. After obtaining Meyerbeer’s support, Wagner sent Meyerbeer’s famous librettist Eugene Scribé a copy of his sketch for Holländer. The result was less than ideal—the director of the Opéra purchased the story for 500 francs and presented it to his own composers who would fill out the story and compose the rest of the music.  In the following summer, in a much more affordable house just outside the Paris gates, Wagner expanded his own version of the opera to a three act form and completed the music. This is the version that the Boston Lyric Opera is featuring.

Wagner initially intended the work to encompass one act so that it would be appropriate as a ballet opener at the Opéra. It is perhaps due to this functional brevity that gave Wagner the idea to forgo many operatic conventions in this work. However, this version in particular is unique for the way it both reflects its origins in French Grand Opera and portends Wagner’s high German Romanticism. Indeed, one is stricken by the fact that Scribé didn’t accept the scenario. The scene which includes Senta’s Ballad, the first music that Wagner set and auditioned, is a wonderful example of French Grand Opera. The spinning chorus that opens the second act “Summ und brumm” is a perfect example of the “local color” that the audiences at the Opéra loved so much about Meyerbeer’s work. Further, the fact that it is set in Scotland is also typical of the French, who had set chosen to move even Weber’s Der Freischütz from Germany to Scotland in a production from the same year (1841). This scene is followed by Senta’s famous ballad, which, as was typical for the genre, recounts the myth and explains the preceding action and, one could argue, spoils the ending. More importantly though, in this number Wagner’s dramaturgical skills are in full force, shifting between a powerful dramatic line on Senta’s call “Johohoe!” and the nuanced prayer for the Dutchman to find peace. In the character and vocal part of Senta, which Wagner described as a naïve and “altogether robust Northern maid,” one can recognize a prototype of his later dramatic soprano roles.

Another way that this version reveals Wagner’s late aesthetics lies in the transition between acts. In 1859, Wagner would characterize his art as the “most delicate and profound art of transition,” in which his goal is to mediate “all the different moments of transition that separate the extremes of mood.” This is played out in the 1841 Holländer in the subtly composed transition from the sailor’s energetic dotted theme at the end of the first act to the whirl of the spinning wheels that open the second act.

The motivic organization of the opera also emerges from Senta’s ballad. Most memorable is the reminiscence motive associated with the Dutchman himself, which is built from ascending fourths and most commonly heard in the horns. The employment of this motivic association, appropriately termed a “reminiscence motive,” was actually typical of French opera in the period. However, it doesn’t obtain the level of structural organization that Wagner’s fully developed leitmotivic expressions would in his later works such as Tristan und Isolde or Der Ring des Nibelungen.

In the fall of 1842, through Meyerbeer’s help, Wagner’s earlier work Rienzi was accepted for performance in Dresden, leading to a position for Wagner. In January of 1843 Holländer was premiered in Dresden—now revised in the Norwegian version closer to the one the modern audience expects. This production featured some of the best artists of the day, including Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient as Senta and Johann Michael Wächter as the Dutchman (although Wagner did not like Wächter’s Dutchman). After all these years of suffering, his relationship with Meyerbeer finally paid off and Wagner’s future was improving.

However, perhaps as a result of this suffering, Wagner’s devotion to Meyerbeer turned, in hindsight, first to animosity and then to venomous hate. In his autobiographical Mein Leben, Wagner referred to that “wretched Meyerbeer” whose slow writing of a recommendation forced Wagner to wait for an additional three months before acquiring the position in Dresden. Indeed, in 1850 Wagner would write, under pseudonym, his virulent anti-Semitic tract Das Judenthum in der Musik.  In 1869, now a famous composer himself, Wagner had it re-issued in a revised form that directly attacked Meyerbeer.

One of the greatest comforts that one can take in the 1841 score for Der Fliegender Holländer is that its beauty predates Wagner’s expressions of hatred. It is difficult to know whether or not the anti-Semitism had yet infected Wagner’s character when he wrote the opera. There is a traditional element of anti-Semitism in the myth, indeed, Heine (of the Jewish persuasion himself) described his title character as the “wandering Jew of the ocean.” Yet Wagner once stated that there is an autobiographical element to the story: that Wagner actually identified with the Dutchman. Perhaps it’s naïve, but I would like to think that at least for a while the music existed apart from the hate.

Reposted from the Boston Musical Intelligencer here: http://classical-scene.com/2013/04/24/scot/

The concert opened with Ramon Castillo’s Artifice, a deeply introspective play on timbre and gesture with a formal organization structured on a series of organizational crescendos. There is a delicacy to the electronics in this piece, which, more often than not, serve only to preserve, sustain, or finely alter the source signal from the acoustic piano. This was followed by PoChun Wang’s Wonderland, a piece that featured an intellectually rigorous rhythmic counterpoint which only gradually emerged over an obstinate four note theme in what would become an extremely low bass register.

The trance inducing seriousness of the first two pieces was quickly dispersed by the upbeat humor of the third piece, Castillo’s Bounce. The piece was accompanied by a video from Andy Fillebrown (here) in which the sound was not rendered vertically, as it is in notated music, but in a gradually expanding colorful spiral on the screen behind the stage. The visual provided additional interest to the piece as an interpretation but without distracting from the music.

The fourth piece was Iota, written by Deepak Gropinath for violin, percussion and live electronics. While there were only two performers on the stage, the piece is essentially a quartet in which each performer also manipulates electronics. Takahiko Tsuchiya performed the violin part on his Zeta midi violin (here) and his electronic part on a gesturally controlled glove (here). Overall the piece was very bright, and, according to the program, it sought “the middle ground between dichotomies, such as order and disorder, noise and tonalities, improvisation and composition.” There was another dichotomy here, indeed a grating tension, between the futile resistance of the nostalgic violin and the perpetually current electronics.

The next two pieces were by Castillo. Two Eight: Simultaneous Film Scores features a visual interaction of several films intensified by the electronic combination of one or two snippets from each film’s soundtrack. The aural effect is almost “neo-pointalistic” in the way it saturates one’s perception with details. The aesthetic is somewhat a reversal of Arnold Schoenberg’s thematic liquidation in which a theme is slowly stripped of its individual characteristics. Here the music accumulates so many characteristic traits that it becomes everything (and thus nothing) at once. It was an overwhelming symphonic experience. Next was Gargantuan, aptly described in the program as “the extreme stretching of a forte-piano attack.”

Wang’s Six Six is built from a collage of influences including a Brahmsian lullaby and Desmond/Brubeck’s “Take Five.” Each individual section seems to carry an element of heterophony or polyphonic stratification in its adoption of the borrowed material. The transitions between sections are akin to shifting one’s attention from one artifact to another—it is an enchanting aural stroll through an exhibit of influence. Mbira Loops, an improvisation for mbira played by Ryan Meyer and manipulated electronically by Castillo, rounded out the program. With its evolving and pulsating meditation, the piece sharply contrasted Meyer’s asymmetrical and organic melodic phrasing with the hyper-organized electronics.

Throughout the night, the acoustic signals were articulated (initially at least) by the ambitious, confident pianist Pei-yeh Tsai, playing with precision and clarity, in a traditional concert music atmosphere on stage-right even as Castillo worked various non-traditional instruments (a laptop, an iPad, a melodica, et al) on stage-left. The sound was provided a velvet acoustic by the hall itself, a warm room adorned with dark wood and wainscoting that created a damp, but not dull, aural setting.

After the concert, as I walked down the “Infinite Corridor” and spilled blinkingly into the cool spring night, I was struck by the electro-acoustic soundscape outside M.I.T. The walk sign beeped, the wind blew, the brakes on a car squealed, a girl nattered at her cellphone and some grumbling future-engineers rushed past. I’m not sure how to answer the old question about whether art imitates life or life imitates art, but the parallel between the two on Saturday night was indeed striking.

The concert will repeat on April 20^th in Durgin Hall at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

Reposted from the Boston Musical Intelligencer here: http://classical-scene.com/2013/04/14/collective/

According to their manifesto, Bleep Blop, a Boston-based electroacoustic new music ensemble, “collaborates with sound designers, artists and composers to develop new music and visual arts, and is committed to the merging of acoustic performers and live electronics, resulting in an overhaul of the concert experience.” They also promote interactions with their audiences.

Their 8:00 event on April 13^th at MIT’s Killian Hall will feature works by Ramon Castillo, Deepak Gopinath, Ryan Meyer and PoChun Wang for electronically manipulated piano (Pei-yeh Tsai), analog synthesis, the Kronos Quartet Drum Machine, dynamically looped mbira, live video, including Six Six for solo piano and dynamic loopers, Two for soloist performing 8 simultaneous film scores, Bounce and Wonderland for synthesizer and the Kronos Quartet Drum Machine, Artifice for solo piano and iPad controlled effects.

The other day BMInt talked with Ramon Castillo and PoChun Wang, the founding members of Bleep Blop about the group and its upcoming concerts at M.I.T. and UMASS Lowell. An extended excerpt follows:

Joe Morgan: What is the purpose of Bleep Blop?

Ramon: We want to make the process of writing electronic music accessible to younger composers or any composers really who may only know how to approach music from an orchestrational or acoustic point of view. They may know how to write for traditional instruments, but they may not have any kind of electronic experience, so we wanted to make it possible for anyone who wants to write music to do so in this manner.

So Bleep Blop is an ensemble?

Ramon: It’s an ensemble, but it’s very ad hoc. For instance, in one of the concerts we had a laptop ensemble that was put together just for that one concert, and that was it. They went on their own separate ways thereafter.

PoChun with Klaudia and Rebecca from Trio Lumiere

Ramon: The strange thing about the history of the group is that we weren’t really thinking about becoming an ensemble. We just had a concert that we needed to program so we decided to do electroacoustic music for solo piano, and Pei-yeh Tsai was the pianist. The concert was so successful and so much fun that we just decided to keep it going. Bleep Blop was the name of the concert.

PoChun: We soon found interest at Berklee in the Electronic Production and Design department and the Composition department. Since then, we’ve become a bit of a cross-over group between those two departments, at least in terms of student interest.

Who are the standing members of Bleep Blop?

Ramon: Well there is PoChun and myself. She is the director and I am the artistic director. Pei-Yeh Tsai (piano) is the manager and Jean Huang (violin) is the Concert coordinator.

Are you interested in being approached by composers or performers?

Ramon: Anyone. Performers, composers, sound designers, video artists. We haven’t gotten into it yet, but dancers possibly too. Anything.

PoChun: We do have a permanent open call on our website [here] looking for collaboration.

Do you have specific criteria that you are looking for when you screen people’s submissions?

PoChun: We’re looking for creativity above all else, but a high degree of artistic maturity is also important. They [the submitting composer/artist] need to be able to describe accurately what they want us to do. We want them to think in terms of our limitations instead of any set of [musical/stylistic] rules.

From where have you received submissions?

Ramon: While we’ve received submissions from across the country and Europe, we are a local ensemble. Part of our difficulty is the signal to noise ratio isn’t as good as we want it to be. We want the open call to reach people on our wavelength, sorry for all the electronic music metaphors. It helps if submitters get somewhat familiar with our work before pitching a proposal – being in the audience can really help.

What do you offer a composer interested in electronic music?

Ramon: We’ve had a number of composers simply submit scores, and we did the [electronic] programming. We’ve also had composers who provided the performers, the instruments and the technology and we just integrated them into our concert.

PoChun: We also have had collaborators who have sent us, for example, a pre-existing patch, or something that they have already written. They have described how it should be performed, and we have the freedom to interpret their vision. We really enjoy providing performance opportunities for composers of electroacoustic music and educational opportunities for composers who are interested but possibly inexperienced.

Alfonso Peduto and Yoo-Jin Jun performing Sequence/Loop II at Berklee

Ramon: Most of the concerts we’ve had so far were in the David Friend Recital Hall at Berklee. We’ve also performed in Church of Saint John the Evangelist and at the Lily Pad in Cambridge. Now we are branching out a little bit, to do a concert at M.I.T.’s Killian Hall and the concert hall at UMASS Lowell. Ultimately, we don’t care—it could be virtually anywhere— a bar, a coffee shop, etc.

So you are actively seeking alternative performance spaces?

PoChun: Yes, and we have been growing and working on collaborating with other Boston area ensembles with similar interests. One of the most innovative things about our ensemble is that we can entirely self-produce our shows. If a venue or space doesn’t have the equipment we need, we can bring it ourselves.

Is Bleep Blop Chamber music?

Ramon: Okay, we’ve done three things. We’ve done electroacoustic music with solos, duos, trios, quartets, we’ve done purely acoustic chamber music and we’ve done purely electronic music with someone running a computer or synthesizer.

What is the role of improvisation for the ensemble?

Ramon: It is somewhat new. I think the first concert was written out pretty explicitly or programmed—almost fixed media. Obviously interpretive things could happen but the notes and rhythms were there. Slowly more and more pieces on each program are becoming improvised where either PoChun or I improvise on one of the electronic instruments/effects. The most recent work is Mbira Loops, which features Ryan Myer on mbira and me reacting through the electronics to his mbira playing. Ryan does some reacting to me as well. Nothing was planned in advance except the structure of the piece. We worked out the duration of each section, and it turns out differently every time.

What is the role of the visual component in your concerts?

Ramon: We want to offer more in the way of live visuals, and that is something that we all need to learn more about. In one recent piece by Brian Baumbusch a sonogram of the live music is shown as it occurs. We stole the idea from him, and now use it for any piece we perform that doesn’t have a video component specifically written for it.

What is Bleep Blop’s place in Boston’s contemporary music scene?

I’m not sure we will fit in to anything that’s already out there, but that is the charm. We are trying to get the wheels moving and to expose more people to electronic music composition.

PoChun: It’s not the same, it is a totally different approach altogether. I feel that our goal is not to create concert music. We create music. If it is good, if it represents a unique sound or voice, that’s great.

NonDuo (Loudon and Raleigh), Pei Yeh, Ramon and PoChun in front of their misspelled poster after the first Bleep Blop concert

Ramon: It’s a quadruple bill – the groups performing are Bleep Blop, Cloud Ludum (think Jazzified Stockhausen), NonDuo (Electric guitar and experimental video), and Ensemble Robot (via their flagship Heliphon—an automaton glockenspiel). We’ll be in Durgin Hall at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

PoChun: We wanted to collaborate with a bunch of exciting groups. We’ve had an ongoing relationship with NonDuo and Cloud Ludum. Ramon and I have both worked with Ensemble Robot—prior to the existence of Bleep Blop. This concert will feature everything from “third stream” free improvised experimental music to acoustic piano with a twist.

Finally, why did you choose the name “Bleep Blop?”

We thought it was funny. It’s an onomatopoeic description of electronic music. It wasn’t supposed to be serious. We don’t want anyone to expect us showing up in tuxedos.

PoChun: It might be funny if someone wears a tuxedo…

Ramon: Maybe.

Reposted from the Boston Musical Intelligencer here: http://classical-scene.com/2013/04/07/bleep-blop/

The evening began with Elliott Carter’s ASKO Concerto from 2000. As Carter described it, the piece is “…a kind of concerto grosso where 16 players are divided into smaller units that play fleet, whimsical phrases framed by recurring ensemble ritornellos.” These smaller units, marked by differing ensemble groups, make the piece an exciting extended essay in which counterpoint complements timbre and bears witness to Carter’s often unnoticed genius for instrumentation. The double bass bickered with the clarinet. The violin chaperoned the trumpet. Indeed, the xylophone haunted the upper register harp and piccolo. Conductor Jeffrey Means folded in all of these wonderful colors comfortably between vigorous presentations of the tutti ritornello.

If, for Carter’s piece, the audience was eavesdropping on a musical dialogue among the members of the ensemble, then in the next piece, John Aylward’s Flight out of Mind, the music and players addressed the audience directly. The first movement’s surface-level motives—doppleresque “musical gestures that evoke sensations of flight,” —belied the subtlety of the underlying counterpoint. It was this counterpoint that gracefully drove the movement from an opening with detailed, busy polyphony to a homorhythmic texture over a drone at the electrifying end. This kind of compositional eloquence comes only from a combination of discipline and intuitive formal mastery. After a lighter and ethereal central movement, the finale presented a series of thundering crescendos, the last of which was poetically marked by the gradual decay of an isolated residual tone. In all, the symphonic scale of the piece just seemed to bulge at the restraints that the chamber genre placed upon it.

The third work, Stefano Gervasoni’s Epicadenza, was for double trio (string and wind), cimbalom (a concert hammered dulcimer) and percussion on “non-European instruments” featuring percussionist Mike Williams. While the delicacy of Gervasoni’s piece provided a nice foil to Aylward’s symphonic muscle, for this reviewer, it lacked organizational interest. Conceived as a fragment, composed “as if it was the end of a piece whose development would only be imagined,” the piece seemed to lack any sign of structural organization. As a formal design, the fragment emerged in the 19^th-century as a criticism of the tyranny of classical form. In the 21^st-century, the tyranny of formal convention is just not a concern. However, the successful aspect of the work resided in its blending; the string and wind trios at times augmented and punctuated the percussive intensity and at others provided a plodding accompaniment to William’s obbligato line and the cimbalom’s counter line. Indeed, William’s exacting rhythmic precision and striking dynamic range gave this demanding score an authoritative reading.

In the last work, Anthony Cheung’s Centripedalocity, one could detect a remote wave of Schuller’s third stream. The work is collage of distilled influence (Ravel, Debussy and Monk) from which Cheung’s own voice emerges quite clearly. The most interesting moments included the second section’s restrained microtonality and the third movement’s incessant repetition. It provided an excellent close to a fascinating evening.

Several ensemble members deserve special mention. Christopher Watford’s bassoon provided a clear consistent tone throughout all registers in Carter’s concerto. Franziska Huhn, for whom the evening was a marathon, reached beyond the harp’s obligatory lush arppegiations to contribute a real sense of line and musicality.

A final note. While the performance was top notch, there were troubling problems with ancillary aspects of the production. After intermission, the lights were left on. Normally this would provide no real difficulties (it made it easier to read the program notes) but about halfway through Gervasoni’s piece a row of lights began to flash on and off randomly—distracting nearly half of the audience. Further, the program notes were terribly deficient. Because the separate movements were not listed, the audience committed the classic faux pas and applauded after the first movement of Aylward’s three movement piece. Most disturbing, however, was the absence of a listing of the instruments that each member of the ensemble played. The saxophonist [Philipp Stäudlin] and cimbalomist [Nick Tolle]  also deserve mention, but I simply cannot find their names anywhere.

Reposted from the Boston Musical Intelligencer here: http://classical-scene.com/2013/03/25/carter-at-b-u/

Overall the complete statement of the riff articulates a basic groove that shifts between a A minor and G major harmonies. The pitch f in the first measure is interesting in the way that it seems to reach for the high G of the next measure. The basic bass progression of a descent by step is contrasted by an ascent by third in the top voice–e-f-g. I’ve marked them here with a dashed slur:

This music is played at the introduction and in the break (the middle eight), but against the verse the guitar reduces (liquidates) the riff, playing only the first measure and reducing the second half to a simple G major triad.

It is further liquidated when heard against the chorus, just two chords, A minor and G major.

Finally, and most tellingly, the solo’s highest note is that G, expressing it as the goal of the progression, riff, and song. (I’m not going to transcribe it, it’s too late at night, perhaps, dear reader, you’ll just trust me?) Watch the video:

Does this put Eddie Van Halen on par with Mozart? No. Does this put Mozart on par with Eddie Van Halen? No. Does this recognize that Schoenberg found an excellent way to explain how one process of thematic development works? Yes! x2

The solfège syllables are derived from the vowels in the text (movable “do,” or “ut” in this case) The final is G so the text “Sal” gives us a “Fa” which is the fourth scale degree, resulting in a “C” for every note. It was interesting to watch my students, all firmly committed “fixed do” kids contemplate moveable “do” but they did and I think they found it to be interesting. It was also fun to go over the cadences. In this piece the final cadence is a burgundian, except that the lowest voice leaps to the final, not by octave to the fifth (as I was taught)–apparently this was a common cadence type too. Of course we talk about more music aspects of the work, but I don’t want to spoil it here.

On the other hand, one of the most interesting aspects of the motet is its context, this one was written to celebrate the Duke of Sforza’s heroic victory (and capture) of/over the French King, Francis I at the Battle of Pavia. Apparently, the battle was lost partially due to the mutiny of the mercenary Swiss Pikemen. I found a reproduction of a tapestry in a cycle by Bernaert van Orley depicting the battle called “The Mutiny of the Swiss Pikemen.” This tapestry, the fifth in a cycle of seven, shows numerous Swiss mercenaries fleeing the French camp. In the foreground, the leader of the regiment, Jean de Diesbach, is about to be beheaded by an imperial soldier on horseback. Such amazing detail and workmanship–very similar in style to Orley’s friend Dürer.

It was a very fun class, and the students sang through the motet at the end of class and sounded WONDERFUL. I think we might actually be able to swing an end of the semester recital! If so, maybe you’ll come? It would be nice to see you there!

Certainly, the characters of The Face are Faustian. Raphael, St. John’s Faust, is a poet and writer who has recently suffered a series of calamities. They include the death of his beloved Marina, a character who is portrayed in the opera solely by artfully filmed home movies projected at the back of the stage. In his resulting depression Raphael enters into a contract with the devil. That is, he will agree to be the subject of a film made by the well-known and diabolical movie producer Memphis, the opera’s version of Mephistopheles. Infanta is a female director who is working with Memphis to convince Raphael to make the film. Finally, Cybele is a young and ambitious actress whose resemblance to Marina gets her the part in Memphis’s film, but also initiates a great deal of pathos in Raphael.

The opera pays an appropriately large measure of dramatic attention to Raphael’s suffering; his is a borderline narcissism that is associated with his self-pity. This emotionalism was expressed with an infectious cynicism by the barefooted tenor Daniel Norman. To Crockett’s credit, Norman’s part was quite restrained throughout the first nine scenes of the work, making it all the more powerful when, in the 10^th scene, Crockett let him loose. In this big number Norman’s voice emerged with a full and ferocious tone that electrified the room.

Perhaps the source of the opera’s problems is its brevity. Clocking in at a mere 75 minutes, the plot leaves much storytelling basically incomplete. Raphael’s character is the only one in the opera which is given any real sense of depth or developmental arch. Memphis, wittily portrayed by Baritone Thomas Meglioranza, provides some dark comic relief, particularly in the seventh scene’s “Edge World,” the opera’s equivalent to theWalpurgisnacht. Meglioranza’s voice was in good form — clear, authoritative, and perfectly merged with his character. Similarly, Infanta’s character lacked any dramatic arch. Fortunately, the static nature of her character, always sexy and ambitious, was portrayed perfectly by mezzo Janna Baty whose lush, lustrous, and lusty voice enriched the ensemble scenes with refined and syncretic blending. However, at the end of the opera one wondered that her character never experienced or expressed any regret for her actions.

Ultimately, the libretto’s biggest weakness in characterization resides in the characters of Marina and Cybele, the two characters played by Jane Sheldon that represent the opera’s version of Faust’s Gretchen. Crockett has described Marina as “the ideal woman,” and that “…her loss is the reason Raphael is struggling.” At first, this idealization would seem to align with the famous “eternal feminine” that closes Goethe’s version. However, St. John’s version neglects the tremendous amount of suffering that Goethe’s Gretchen underwent during the play. The contrast between the two is stark. Goethe’s Faust is redeemed by Gretchen’s love and forgiveness, a love and forgiveness made miraculous by her enormous suffering throughout the play. St. John’s Raphael is redeemed simply by Marina’s physical beauty as reflected in a series of nostalgic home movies. Ultimately, there is plenty of time and space remaining in the work for character development, and it was terribly disappointing that the beauty and precision of Sheldon’s vocal performance was given to a role that lacked a soliloquy of any significance.

The Firebird ensemble, one of Boston’s greatest jewels, articulated Crockett’s score with precision. His refined timbres, especially in blending the classical guitar with the louder instruments in the 11-piece ensemble, were handled admirably well by conductor Gil Rose, the long-standing champion of contemporary music in Boston. Brian Head’s performance on guitar, both bottleneck and classical, brought a warmth and richness to the score while Rafael Popper-Keizer seemed to cross the line between instrument and voice when he made his cello sing. Sarah Brady also deserves special mention for her pure, yet colorful tone; it was a ringing bell heard throughout the performance.

Original article here: http://classical-scene.com/2012/09/01/the-face-2/