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CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW
Febraury 26 - March 2, 2003
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By Thomas Goss
Contemporary music festivals, marathons, and long concert programs seem to come in two different types these days, as Paul Dresher's latest effort, the “Wired Strings” festival at ODC this weekend, seemed to illustrate. There are productions which have a developed theme, and for better or worse explore that idea over the course of hours or days. Then there are concerted efforts where different composers and performers come together in an attempt to get their works played. In this case the variety can be inspiring, or exhausting, or both. “Wired Strings” proved to be joint-operation type, despite a stated overall theme of artistic collaboration between Russian and American artists.
The real collaboration here was between Paul Dresher and Tatiana Grindenko. Grindenko is something of a phenomenon in her native Russia, a former child-prodigy violinist, rock musician, and artist whose avant-garde activities branded her as dissenter in the Soviet days and got her banned. Nowadays she directs a multi-purpose ensemble of 11 string players and continuo that plays oldies under the name of “The Moscow Academy of Ancient Music,” alternately, contemporary music as “Opus Posth.” The festival, integrating her work with that of Paul Dresher Ensemble's Electro-Acoustic Band, produced mixed results. The repertoire of both sets of performers varied as widely in style and mood as in quality, though the level of musicianship never wavered from rough-and-ready virtuosity.
Cellist Joan Jeanrenaud stood for the role of diffident guest star in featured solos and ensemble work during the festival. She shone most strongly in Dresher's concerto written specifically for her and his band, titled “UNEQUAL DISTEMPERAMENT.” This work pulled out all the stops in Dresher's style manual, with ricochet patterns and catchy grooving. At first, Jeanrenaud seemed to be fighting against all of this rhythmic jousting, but as the piece settled down into playfully spooky “distempered” chords, the organization of material did everything possible to support her as she launched into an impassioned display of pyrotechnics. The evolution of this section into a cadenza that finished the piece seemed to acknowledge her ability to stand alone as an artist, and one of the best at that.
 Alas, the whole program could not be as good. For every strong selection, there seemed to be an equally weak or unapt counterpart. In the Opus Posth program of Friday night, it was heartening and illustrative to hear the blend of cinematic and expressionist outburst of Xenakis' Auroura, [cq] albeit unfortunately prefaced by the bland and stylistically predictable “Company” by Philip Glass. This balancing act became exponential as the night wore on: the rather jejeune if promising Real Audio by Anton Batagov was followed by Dresher's own Kronos-commissioned Casa Vecchia, a mature and compelling work. Vladimir Martynov's Autumn Ball of the Elves came off as “shticky” with its Romantic-period retreads and pointlessly repeated notes, once again and finally redeemed by a terrific, all-out assault on Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa, which showed Opus Posth to be the equal of local hot-shot string whizzes, the New Century Chamber Orchestra. This unevenness was apparent in the performance of the following night as well, when the Paul Dresher Ensemble Electro-Acoustic Band took the stage. Vladimir Nikolaev's Lullaby for Jeff and Andy was a strong and satisfying work, as was Mark Grey's Kemi, a well-devised arrangement from a string score. Artem Vassiliev's Poles Apart showed a real understanding of the ensemble and particularly of the rock/avant-garde milieu. But other pieces might as well not have been played. Dmitri Riabtsev's The Doll, wherein a sock-monkey doll is beaten in order to trigger voice samples, was just not that funny or interesting musically. Keeril Makan's eery soundscape Threads was more music to be listened to as background than performance, and Albina Stefanou's The Glass Bead Music came off as a student exercise. The hardest piece to listen to came last, as Opus Posth joined the Dresher Ensemble in a premiere of Martynov's Kali-Yuga Dances. This piece basically repeated two notes in a jig, over and over again, with no melody, no development, and no variation except for a few little bars thrown in of riff. This continued for many unpleasant minutes. Perhaps as an American I am missing something here, not being exposed to all of the musical directions and subtleties of a foreign culture. But even at that, my own culture is one where idiots leave their car alarms going on for hours in the wee hours of the night, and I would advise against programming anything that unduly reminded us of that. (Thomas Goss is resident composer for Moving Arts Dance Collective, is a member of New Release Alliance Composers and the Cabaret Composers Consortium, and sits on the steering committee of the Bay Area Chapter of the American Composers Forum.) ©2003 Thomas Goss, all rights reserved |
Paul Dresher