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CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW
November 9, 2003
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By Miguel Galperin
The latest Empyrean Ensemble concert, last Sunday, part of the Festival of New American Music, was particularly exciting to contemplate as it promised insights into the issue of technology's ever-expanding influence on the arts. This program offered two important works that utilized computer-generated material. As the very well-balanced program came to an end, however, it became clear that the most interesting work came through traditional formats: a chamber concerto for soprano sax, eight winds and percussion by Ross Bauer, and an enigmatic solo percussion work by Brian Ferneyhough. Ferneyhough's Bone Alphabet is an ambient piece of sorts where the performer conjures an endless variety of delicate, short and mostly soft gestures. Considering how limited its sound-world is (only seven non-pitched instruments produce the piece's entire sonic spectrum) Bone Alphabet is a longer piece than most audiences expect and can, ultimately, tolerate. Nonetheless, Chris Froh's performance was magical enough to hypnotize the audience into a state where time stopped. In fact, the certitude of Froh's playing, as well as the audience's attentiveness, grew in direct proportion to the piece's length. This was an utterly convincing performance of a score that is complex in more ways than one; we don't often enjoy such success from a performer as young as Froh.
Ross Bauer's This, That and the Other was the other highlight. Victor Morosco excelled as the “jazzy soloist” that the score calls for. His playing, if a bit rough in terms of rhythmic precision at the beginning, grew more and more persuasive as this spirited piece progressed. The last movement, in particular, left the public breathless as its bacchanalia of notes culminated in a surprising and energetic ending. Also worth mentioning is the beauty and precision with which the composer wrote for the soprano saxophone, which rapidly traveled to its virtuosic confines without ever sounding strained.
Paradoxically, the pieces involving technology functioned better as traditional work than as boundary-shifting explorations. Skirr benefited from the gorgeous and contorting imagery of Rachel Clarke's mostly monochromatic graphics, but the score composed by Stephen Blumberg (though at times attractive per se) often struggled to keep up with the significant changes expressed on the screen, distractingly located at the side of the ensemble. Something quite similar happened with Mei-Fang Li's Interaction, as both pieces had merits in their constitutive parts taken separately but suffered in terms of establishing a true collaboration between them. While perhaps more successfully integrated, Interaction, with its mostly atmospheric tape, still did not dialogue in equal terms with the very active piano, played with elegance and precision by the always reliable Karen Rosenak. To be fair, it is only logical that the very new space opened by technology (particularly in attempting the reunion of the visual and sonic worlds) be explored in timid ways. After all, it wasn't that long ago that all the visual sophistication available to classical music buffs was that of imagining mature German sopranos as 15-year-old Japanese beauties. Separate mention is reserved for how well crafted the program was. The contrast achieved by the coupling of high-tech pieces with more traditional ones worked brilliantly, and the very professional Empyrean Ensemble played superbly throughout the night, with Tod Brody excelling on Jeffery Mumford's focused expanse of evolving experience. Despite the shortcomings of the pieces involving technology, the program ended up as an interesting and varied concert.
(Miguel Galperin is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Davis, where he studies composition. He can be reached at mgalper@hotmail.com.)
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