San Francisco Classical Voice

Dancer-drummer Eun-Ha Park, traveling from Seoul for this world premiere, was the focal point of the work, filling the role of the shaman with extraordinary power. In addition to her precision and grace as a dancer, she is a virtuoso performer on the chang-go (two-headed drum) and kwoang-gari (small gong).

In Kim's scheme of alternating instrumental groups, the strings and clarinet had a highly vocal and mournful character, with Park's playing built to a furious intensity, the percussionist William Winant often joining her. Kim's beautifully detailed work had the transporting effect that its subject deserved, and it maintained an intimate quality despite its large scale.

With Winant as the festival's featured performer and the great percussionist Glen Velez also participating, there was plenty of emphasis on percussion (too bad they didn't have a chance to collaborate!). Velez opened Thursday's concert with virtuosic solo improvisations on various frame drums and shakers, with overtone singing and North Indian syllabic counting added to the mix. Though his set, introduced with friendly comments on the Indian and Middle Eastern origins of his playing, was more understated than Kim's piece, it had a similar spellbinding quality.

British composer Gavin Bryars, perhaps the most familiar of the participants, revealed his evolution from outsider to immaculate craftsman with The Adnan Songbook (1996), a setting of eight love poems by Lebanese poet Etel Adnan, who lives part of the year in Sausalito and was present for the concert. Adnan's poems encompass both the everyday and the magical. Bryars' restrained settings for guitar, clarinet, two violas, cello, and bass, used in alternating combinations, framed each poem differently, allowing the individual character of each one to emerge.

Bryars brought an equal sensitivity to the vocal lines, subtly increasing their expressive scope over the course of each song and setting the text with great clarity. Much credit is due the excellent young soprano Tammy Jenkins, a rising star in the San Francisco Opera's Merola Program. Her subtle vibrato, fine diction, and dynamic control were an ideal match for the piece. She clearly understood the quality of emotional authenticity inherent in the work, and she left a resonant impression.

Unfortunately, some of Jenkins' subtlest moments, especially her decrescendi, were lost in the amplified mix. The choice to amplify almost every voice and instrument in each concert also lent a slightly steely quality to the sound that took some adjusting each night, especially close to the speakers. If the Cowell's acoustics require that much adjustment, I hope that Other Minds, which seems to be in a different venue every year, will move to a more hospitable setting next time. The Canadian duo of violinist Marc Sabat and pianist Stephen Clarke also made their San Francisco debut, in the music of veteran experimentalist James Tenney. Most intriguing were two 1997 works, the Diaphonic Toccata, for solo piano, and the Diaphonic Trio for Violin and Piano. An homage to Ruth Crawford Seeger, the Toccata rapidly explores the piano's possibilities as a source of simultaneous voices in different registers. It received a masterfully controlled performance by Clarke.

The duo, whose energy and precision make them ideal interpreters of this sort of complex work, were very much of one mind in the Trio, as a similar piano texture was matched to a slower-moving violin in a seemingly infinite counterpoint. The uniqueness of Tenney's sound world, which is a bit dryer and more cerebral than that of some of the other invitees, was heightened by having the instruments tuned in just intonation. By the work's end, this seemed entirely familiar.

This time around, the festival devoted a surprising amount of attention to historical figures, with mixed results. One highlight was Alan Hovhaness' "Khaldis" Concerto for piano, four trumpets, and percussion, performed as a 90th birthday tribute to the composer, who died last year. This is a lovely and original piece, alternating trumpet chorales, percussion accents, and mostly monodic piano writing propelled by rapid alternating octaves. Canadian pianist Eve Egoyan, in her West Coast debut, brought an ideal mix of lyricism and rhythmic vitality to the work, producing a nice shape and clarity in even the most demanding passages.

Preceding Tenney's work, the Sabat/Clarke duo delivered an intense performance of George Antheil's Sonata No.1 for violin and piano (1923). Their drive and precise ensemble were just right for the jaunty, running-amok quality of the piece, which would have been even stronger if its creator had cut a few pages. They also tuned into a less celebrated aspect of Antheil's work, the haunting moodiness of his slower passages.

Several Bay Area stalwarts assembled on Friday night for what was essentially a curiosity, the little-known music of Ezra Pound. Conductor Robert Hughes, whose research resulted in this performance, led an instrumental septet and three singers in excerpts from Pound's opera Cavalcanti. Baritone David Cox, who possesses a wonderfully rich voice, the gifted boy soprano Michael Bannett, and Jenkins, in one precisely articulated number, were fine soloists. Violinist Nathan Rubin made the most of the opera's opening and closing violin solos, after beginning the evening with Pound's Fiddle Music First Suite, a brief unaccompanied work.

But Pound's music, written in a stark, folksy, quasi-Medieval style with an odd deadpan quality, loses its charm after a couple of numbers. Despite the best efforts of the performers, this amateurish work became rather dreary to sit through. For its limited musical value and historical interest, this is worth hearing once, but that's about it.

Other Minds is succeeding in winning an audience for new music, packing the Cowell Theatre. But with many gifted composers around the world struggling to be heard, to devote so many resources to Pound's music was a questionable choice. Maybe sponsoring a separate historical series would be a better way to go. It would also be nice to hear some Latin American composers and a less male-dominated lineup. There was still plenty of great music. Other Minds remains vitally important.

(Benjamin Frandzel is a Bay Area musician and writer. In addition to writing concert music, he has collaborated with dance, theater, and visual artists, and has written about music for many publications and musical organizations. He is currently a graduate student in composition at San Francisco State University.)

©2001 Benjamin Frandzel, all rights reserved