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CONTEMPORARY MUSIC
February 22, 2004
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By Susan Waller
The declared mission of the American Composers Forum is twofold: engaging communities in the creation,
performance, and enjoyment of new music; and providing opportunities for composers and their music to
flourish. This Salon concert, put together by the ACF's San Francisco Bay Area chapter, and featuring
music for flute, certainly fulfilled both of these goals.
The first thing to say is that I really enjoyed the entire evening. The concert was billed, accurately,
as featuring the flute in “a wide array of permutations of instrumentation and style.” In addition,
following each performance, the composers and performers were joined by moderator Mary Chun, Principal
Conductor for San Francisco's new music ensemble EARPLAY, for a brief discussion session. This provided
the audience with an opportunity to ask questions and make observations about the performance they had
just experienced. The very open observations about both the compositional process and the techniques
involved in the performances added a greater depth to the evening's experience.
Four composers were represented; three of them are flutists, and two (Martha Stoddard and Polly Moller)
performed their own works. Stoddard opened the program with two pieces for solo flute in which she
utilized a number of special effects, including pitch-bending, fluttertongue, and a variety of trills and
tremolos. She was joined by Tod Brody for three short flute duets, characterized by lots of imitation and
a wide range of moods, from lyrical to intense. At times it was impossible to discern which flutist was
playing which part, so successful was the balance and the matching of timbres.
John Thow's Breath of the Sun is a quartet for three C flutes (Amy Likar, Stacey Pelinka, and Sarah Holzman) and alto flute (Julie Burkert). The melodic material is inspired by the Chumash, the indigenous people of the Santa Barbara Channel area. Thow created a truly polyphonic quartet for four equal voices. The use of the alto flute adds a much-desired lower-pitched voice to the quartet, providing a sense of grounding. There are many unisons from which individual parts diverge and then return, but the several solos have a definitely improvisatory sound, sometimes mimicking bird calls. There is lots of imitation among the parts; yet, at times, the four voices seem to be totally unrelated. But then they return to a unison and a point of coordination. The four players were very well matched, and played with great commitment. The highlight of the concert was Tod Brody's performance of Thea Musgrave's Narcissus for flute with digital delay. Written in 1987, this is a virtuoso work for solo flute enhanced by the use of an electronic “echo” system. The potential uses of the digital delay provided the inspiration for this investigation of the Narcissus story. The echo provides an accompaniment or counterpoint which is sometimes a single sustained note and sometimes provides layer upon layer of a repetitive pattern. The length and duration of the delay varies throughout the work, with very specific directions from the composer. Brody captured all the nuances of this complex work, ably assisted by R. Andrew Wheeler (who operated the computerized echo). Polly Moller is a performance artist who has expanded her classical flute training and more traditional avant-garde background with diverse influences such as Celtic, new wave, and trip-hop. To close the evening's program, she was joined by Grant Gardner, guitar, and Jim Carr, bass. Each of Moller's four selections utilizes a text of some sort which is frequently associated with some sort of movement/choreography. The spoken sections were sometimes inaudible, which may have been intentional or possibly just a problem with the sound system. Especially effective were the alternation of flute with spoken word in "Three Quarters" (Nubanusit & Contoocook) and the hypnotic repetitive patterns in "Taste the Wall." This recital proved to be actually less about "the flute" and much more about the music itself and the emotions that these composers need to express. I left the concert with a good feeling about the evolving role of composer-performers (or performing composers) and with a sense of respect for the amount of time and energy that these particular composers and performers have invested in their art.
(Susan Waller is a flutist who performs in both orchestra and chamber music throughout Northern
California. She holds a D.M.A. degree in flute performance and is a former university instructor.)
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Tod Brody
Thea Musgrave