The group opened with the least unconventional piece, Dublin-born Donnacha Dennehy’s As An Nós (2009), translated from the Gaelic as “Breaking the Habit.” Scored for flute/piccolo, clarinet, piano, percussion, guitar, violin, and cello, it largely relies on a pulsating array of rapid, repeating figures that overlay and ornament a slower-moving ostinato of four or five notes. The patterns flicker, changing their shapes and timbres as the ostinato gradually expands and evolves in its own way. This scintillating, ever-varying texture infuses the work’s quasi-minimalist style with freedom, flexibility, and exuberant energy. Conductor Sara Jobin (read an interview) was able to keep everything moving and had the performance well in hand.
Ronald Bruce Smith’s Five Pieces for Guitar and Live Electronics (2007) is a kind of duet, in which the electronics amplify and react to whatever the guitar is playing, creating new material in the process. This partnership was most evident in the thoughtful, final piece,“Stelé,” where both elements seemed to shape the music in tandem, with guitar and electronics behaving almost as equals. “Echoes,” the first piece, is a brilliant toccatalike movement, while the other three pieces evoke flamenco, Brazilian, and middle-Eastern idioms. Guitarist David Tanenbaum gave the work a vivid, thoroughly masterful performance.
Archeology of the Future (2009) by Ken Ueno, of UC Berkeley’s music department, uses vocal effects based on overtone singing, throat singing, subtones, and multiphonics. Ueno wrote the vocal part for himself, and he was the soloist, backed by an ensemble of amplified bass flute, piano, percussion, viola, and cello. The instruments generated an austere mood of harshly percussive, isolated sounds gradually giving way to sustained tones in the flute and strings. Ueno’s low vocalizations added an almost ritualistic atmosphere. As the piece concluded, a long vocal solo exploring a wide range of sounds finally achieved continuity, and a kind of expressive resolution to the musical tension that had built up.
The concert’s finale was French composer Philippe Leroux’s De la Texture (2006) for solo woodwinds and strings, guitar, percussion, and piano. It started out with all the performers gathered at the piano, strumming, stroking, and scraping its strings into an indescribable blur of sound. Returning to their seats, the players produced a bizarre mélange of insect or birdlike twittering noises that gave way to a wide-ranging set of ever-changing textures. Periodically, some of the performers moved to different places on the stage, and toward the end a few woodwinds migrated to the rear of the hall, enfolding the audience in an ambience of whimsical sonic complexity. Amazingly, conductor Jobin seemed to keep things moving without a hitch throughout the composition’s almost 20 minutes' duration. Her upbeat, informative remarks about the music were also helpful in preparing us for what was to come.
And so ended one of the more spectacular musical events of the season, thanks to the adventurous spirit and virtuosic élan of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. The patient, tolerant, sophisticated audience was eager for, open to, and at ease with anything the occasion provided. They deserve credit, along with the organization, which has striven to cultivate and educate such an audience for so long.