San Francisco Classical Voice

Ayre presents some similar issues. The laptop parts, for example, as Golijov explained to us in Oregon, are intricate grooves that were essentially created by Jeremy Flower, under Golijov's supervision. Golijov had ideas about what he wanted, but Flower came up with the actual sounds. Not only are most of the melodies from traditional songs, rather than composed by Golijov, but two of the songs are not by Golijov at all — they are songs newly composed by guitarist and composer Gustavo Santoalalla, who is also the guitarist in the ensemble for Ayre.

The realization that finally made me able to understand and be deeply moved by the third performance of the Passion and Sunday's performance of Ayre is a radically different conception of “composer” than we are used to having in classical music. I realized that Golijov's goal isn't the goal of “self-expression" that we composers always selfishly strive for. His goal is to give voice to something more primal and universal, to the spirit of Latin-American Catholicism in the Passion, to the spirit of the Mediterranean world that produced the folk songs of Ayre, and, in both, to the deep, underlying joys and tragedies of the human condition. In Bach's great cantatas, we don't hear a composer expressing or displaying himself; we hear music communicating the profundities of religion and existence. It is an approach that may seem old-fashioned and out-of-sync with the detachment, irony, and subjectivity of post-modernism, but it is exactly what gives Golijov's music so much strength and power. And so it doesn't really matter where the music came from or who gets credit for having created it. Golijov has a grand over-arching vision for what he wants to convey and however he can get that — whoever's talents he can use to find it — that's what he'll do.

In a way, Golijov is more a director or producer than a composer in the traditional sense. Like a film director, he has a broad vision, but in order to realize it, he must enlist the creative efforts of many others. While a director does receive much of the credit for a film's success or failure, and rightly so, no one would deny that the screenplay writer, cinematographer, special effects designer, actors, and countless others have vital and consequential creative input into the film's production. The director cannot make it alone. As more and more arts become fundamentally collaborative undertakings, classical music, by and large, remains an art of individual creators and interpreters. Golijov's most radical impact may well be the undermining of this arrangement in favor of a more collaborative enterprise.

Setting aside all philosophical discussion of what a composer is or ought to be, the most important aspect of Ayre is that it is profoundly beautiful and moving. The songs range from simple and beautiful to wild and savage, the texts covering love, love lost, war, and the question of God's existence. Golijov is not afraid to look these deep and important issues square in the eye. What saves the work from being a mere pastiche is the conviction and sincerity of the texts and music. Unlike many other composers writing today, there is never the feeling that Golijov is trying to be hip by including “ethnic” musical styles; the impression is always that this music comes straight from the heart and the gut. Upshaw was stunning in the range of color in her voice, from the clear pure tone that made her famous to the raspy, gutteral sounds that show she is still growing, still seeking new challenges. The ensemble of the hot young new music group eighth blackbird — with a few additional musicians, including guitarist Santoalalla, accordionist Michael Ward-Bergman, and laptopist Jeremy Flower, who are essential components of the piece itself and travel with it wherever it goes — played with great spirit and conviction, creating the perfect backdrop for Upshaw's impassioned performance.

The first part of the concert was a set of songs by Santoalalla, some with just guitar or an Andean lute-like instrument called a ronroco, some with a few other instruments, and two with Upshaw joining Santoalalla in song. Santoalalla is an important figure in Argentine alternative music and has also composed for films, including 21 Grams and The Motorcycle Diaries. His pieces were essentially folk/pop songs, stunningly beautiful, played by him with great delicacy, nuance, and expressive range. It was a refreshing way to open a classical music concert, furthering Golijov's case that there need be no barrier between classical and popular music. Good music is good music.

Second on the program, eighth blackbird performed Derek Bermel's lively and colorful Tied Shifts. I had heard much about this ensemble, but had never before seen them perform. Their playing is impeccably precise and clean. They also memorize all their music, and in this piece (and in most others, from what I've heard) they frequently moved around the stage as they played. It was wonderful that they played from memory; I had mixed feelings about all the moving around. It was often interesting to hear the spatial acoustic arrangement of the instruments shift, and it highlighted the importance of this too-rarely considered factor in composition and performance. But the movement didn't always seem warranted by the music and was sometimes distracting. Perhaps with a more explicitly theatrical piece it would have been more effective; but with a fairly run-of-the-mill concert piece like the Bermel, at times it actually took away from the music, as energy that could have been put into making a more lively, impassioned performance was diverted into the physical movement. Still, it was refreshing to see players not tied to their seats, and I hope they will continue to experiment with ways to liven up new music performance — sonically as well as visually.