The Performances! Oh, the Performances!!!

   This is a continuation of the series related to June in Buffalo. The original post has been updated with links to the topics listed by bullet points

 

   June in Buffalo is many things--lectures, masterclasses, rehearsals, and performances of attendees and by resident ensembles generally featuring the works of the guest composers. There were two performances every day during JiB, except Sunday that just had a performance by the Buffalo Phil.

   One of my first ideas going into JiB was to write concert reviews. That's been a running theme for me, eh? Not writing the reviews, but the IDEA of writing the reviews. But, after attending a few concerts, I thought better of it. My acerbic wit and biting criticism don't mesh well with the current climate of music criticism. Instead, I'll focus on broad themes rather than specifics.

   First off, the rehearsal experience with Ensemble Signal. Awesome. Rehearsals during JiB are often open. However, Brad Lubman, esteemed conductor for Signal, called for their first rehearsal to be closed. I thought (as most composers probably do) that this meant everyone but them. So I wandered in, shook some hands, and then Brad told me "The first rehearsal is closed to everyone. We'd like time along work through the piece, figure things out, then bring up concerns, ideas, and such tomorrow" (paraphrased, of course. It HAS been a month).

    My first reaction was "huh?" That was soon followed by "FUCK YEAH! GREAT IDEA! PEACE!!!" I didn't quite say it that way...but it was close. I think I said "Oh, that's a great idea! I have no real reason to be here anyway, I'm sure all of you "get" the piece and will do awesome. I'll drop by tomorrow then. Have fun!" Yeah, that seems more like what I said. I do wonder what they thought as I almost skipped out of the auditorium, more than happy to let an ensemble do what it will do.

    The next day I came by and there were, of course, concerns. A notational thing here or there, better to write things this way, this might sound better up an octave. I took a bunch of it in stride, made a few quick choices, scribbled all over a score. When asked, I made quick decisions, described what I wanted, frowned when I realized things didn't work and scribbled away. I never once asked them to stop, rather content to accept my defeats and fix them in a resulting later draft. There were only a few small changes to things, namely a few horn bits that moved from stopped to open, and a note or two changing octaves. Easy stuff.

     What happened in the concert, however, was exactly what I wished to have happen. I wished my piece came later in the week, being on the second attendee concert only gave the piece so much "weight." Perhaps I should say...levity? The first two pieces were fairly long, somber, and somewhat Romantic in style. I glanced around the auditorium often, seeing people straining to keep attention through the 15+ minute works. We were all still acclimating--not quite used to the week, but not quite falling over tired (as happened on Saturday during a particularly long concert). We were adjusting.

    The first couple concerts provided music that were somewhat expected--the first was percussion ensemble Talujon playing attendee works. Most of the pieces went well over 10 minutes, up into the 15+ range. There was an extreme focus on timbral combinations, which is quite in vogue these days. The evening concert with Talujon and JACK went from classics, such as Reich's Drumming, to a newer Ferneyhough work, Exordium. Still, the landscape was what I expected in most "new music" concerts.

    I tell you this to setup what happened when Signal play All Things Are Not Equal--Sinfonietta Edition. This piece is not standard new music fare. It's a jazz/funk/groove piece reorchestrated for a classical group. It's what a jam band might play on a Saturday night gig when everyone wants a solo (along with Street Cleaning, of course). My thought, in re-orchestrating the piece, was to create something that a group could put on a concert that'd change the mood, break the all too powerful fog of concentration, and give everyone something fun to do.

   My piece starts with what I'd like to think of as a fake out. It's not the most convincing fake out (Augusta Read Thomas had some things to say about it...), but, it's something that I think, in context, worked really well. Everyone hears large snap pizz chords in a somewhat off kilter rhythm. The winds come in, same idea, then--glissandi, harmonics, a smattering of melody in the horn. It's just a fake out...

    In a concert of new works, the hope is the beginning gets people thinking "Ok, some sort of post-minimalist thing, maybe some sort of standard new music idea..."

   Then the groove starts. And it's funky. In fact, it's a pretty straight forward funk tune.

    And then the groove keeps going. and going. Little bits layer in over top, but it's about that groove. Then, the groove switches, and solos start.

    By the time the solos start, I'm hoping everyone has gotten the joke, and tongue in cheek "HA! It's a funk/jazz tune and you thought it was gonna be something else! Now relax, because music can be fun!"

    After the piece finished, the applause was more than polite. I won't say it was "enthusiastic" but it was an applause that definitely said "Thank you!" Thank you for something different, thank you for a breath of fresh air, thank you for something that's nothing more than what it is, simply, music.

    Ensemble Signal played the hell outta the piece. They made it work. They deserved the clapping far more than I. And I did what any good composer would do, offered to buy them drinks. Sadly, they didn't come out to the post evening concert carousal, but my pocket book probably thanks them for it. I WOULD have bought an entire round--with 9 players, that would have a been a bit expensive, but completely worth it.

    A final quick note. I waited till the aisles cleared a bit, then bee-lined for the stage, shaking hands, sincerely offering drinks, and congratulating all around. One other composer had headed down quickly...the others headed down after I started shaking every hand in sight. Always remember to thank the performers during your applause AND after the concert! Music happens on stage, after all. Don't be timid or nervous about it, but jump right into the fray. I'm NOT particularly a people person, and I dislike crowds in small spaces (by dislike, I meant I have some mild anxiety about it), but I am always as gracious as possible to my performers, no matter how tight the bar happens to be.

   ********************************************************************

The series is moving right along. Perhaps I'll talk about some more generalities on what I heard at the concert, as far as "good, bad, and ugly." But, more than likely, I'll wrap up some ideas later. There was, after all, this academic conference in Portugal I went to where all sorts of interesting things happened...

 
 

Wyner and Thomas laid a litte smack down

And I'm more than ok with that. Criticism is an art that seems to be falling away in the arts. There's not enough "holy crap, this sucks! and let me tell you why I think it sucks!" We coddle the youth, say "that's nice, but you could maybe do this thing a bit better," and when they don't change it we chalk it up as a learning experience. It's a mindset I've actually been trying to change in myself.

Socratic method is all well and good. Leading people to their mistakes. But, sometimes, the best way to do that is to give your honest opinion. "I don't like this passage. I think it's this problem. Why don't we find out why?" rather than "That's nice, I like it. But..." It's a change, and one that needs to happen.

And that's exactly what I got from Yehudi Wyner and Augusta Read Thomas. I played Till Coffee Do Us Part for Wyner. He praised the lyricism of the vocal writing. And attacked the instrumental writing quite heavily.

Wyner felt that the instrumental writing was getting in the way of the singing. It was at times too dense without any harmonic support for the singers. I shrugged at that, since that was more or less the style I was going for in the beginning. However, he didn't even like the later parts that were traditionally founded. Wyner thought the harmonizations in the strings got in the way, and that they didn't offer much harmonic support.

I appreciate those comments. I will take a look at the beginning again--it is very likely that the thick nature is causing issues. In a previous editing, that section was thinned out, and an entire section removed, but I may not have gone far enough. Time for some erasing.

Then there was the plot. Boy did Wyner dislike the plot. Elevating coffee to being an opera, creating a farce. He thought I failed miserably. But he couldn't give me a why. Another student in the masterclass did, after much questioning give me a good solid answer: The conflict starts too early, and that makes it not seem like it's going anywhere. AH! That's some incredibly good criticism. And there's a damn good chance he's right. In fact, I'm pretty sure I agree with him. But, it took some intense questioning, more or less forcing an articulate answer to get it from him.

All in all, I agreed with a lot of what Yehudi Wyner said--vocal writing is hard, opera is even harder. Setting prose is a bitch, and it's very easy to let the background, and your grand theories, get in the way of good writing. Can you write a dense, complicated opera? I totally think so. Shadowtime by Ferneyhough is fantastic. But it will be a tough piece to sell.

And that farce and parody are not everyone's cup of tea, and people are much less forgiving on it. A good farce is worth a million dramas, but people forgive a drama.

*********************************************************************************

Augusta Read Thomas was the same as she's ever been. Many years ago, I was in a masterclass with her--it was 2005, I believe, and the piece was one of my first. Possibly my first to really be played in public. A little duet from trombone and marimba. It used mutes, some dead strokes, mallet changes, all sorts of things I felt to be very "avant-garde." I was, after all, the "crazy composer" in the group. LOL

I remember a few things from that masterclass. One was Thomas praising my lyricism in my writing AND playing. Bad idea--never nurture a musician, they might see you 8 years later! lolz. Another bit was being able to sing your music. I nailed that bit, but others had some difficulty. Of course, I was also PLAYING mine, so it's almost like cheating--singing what I play was a normal part of my trombone lessons. And I remember something she said to another student: "I hear Beethoven, a Schubert, and maybe a little Brahms. But I don't hear any of you! You are what you eat--or listen to. Listen to yourself!"

Ah, for a 20 year old just starting in composition, this was a big eye opener!

With that knowledge, I entered my masterclass with All Things Are Not Equal: Sinfonietta Edition, recently recorded by Ensemble Signal, Brad Lubman conducting. It's a piece that's about as unpretentious as you can get. Straight forward, jazz and funk "inspired" (hell, it's easier to classify in those terms than "contemporary!"), and by todays standards, somewhat short. The performance is solid, and it was obvious the group had fun.

I came prepared. Thomas listened, gave some initial thoughts. The biggest one? She didn't think it went far enough. I stayed tied to my groove, let the groove playout, and didn't do much variation. True enough. And I didn't set out to do much variation. And then the singing started.

First it was "sing the first groove." Easy enough. Alright, now do a simple variation. Then another. Alright, now do something far away from the groove, harmonically and stylistically. Ok, do another, but add in longer notes.

I did all these without breaking much of a sweat. I did have a tendency to speed up, which annoyed me .As I was snapping and improvising, I actually said "I keep speeding up. Ugh," then went back into the singing. I added in all sorts of things--pitch, percussive sounds, all sorts of consonants and vowels, mixed and matched from whatever...and I always made a point to end by grabbing the groove right where it should be when I ended. Ok, that last bit was me showing off.

The looks from the assembled group were, well...worth the showing off. Even Augusta Read Thomas looked suitable impressed. Of course, I knew something like this was coming--I had practicing the grooves a bit, and had all the lines in my head, so I could sing them. And while I'm a crappy improviser on trombone, that's a problem with my control of the instrument, not the brain. This played into my strengths. And when it was done, I already knew where it was going...

Hey, John, since you can come up with all these ideas spur of the moment, why aren't any in here? Where's all that crazy improvisational writing? I sputtered the easy answer: "You write a simple tune to allow people to improvise around. In this case a groove, and setting up a certain feel. Then the soloist would do their thing. Guess I flubbed a bit when I reduced the improvising..."

Ah, see, I had. And Thomas called me one it. She more or less had said that in her comments, that it didn't go "far enough," but she wanted to prove that point unequivocally. And she did. I softball'ed the transcription. The statement of "I did it in 24 hours and didn't give it much thought," is a poor answer, so I didn't give it. There's no reason for half-assed work. And it All Things is a bit half-assed. Written quickly (over about 4 days), re-orchestrated even quick (24 hours over about 2 days). It was half-assed. And I rightly got called on it.

*********************************************************************************

Really, Wyner and Thomas were telling me the same thing--I hadn't treated the material with enough care. This echoed Ferneyhough's earlier masterclass. It seems to be an issue. And all three pieces were developed quite differently. It took me 8 months or so to write Dance. Till Coffee was a solid 2-3 months, though definitely rushed toward the end. All Things was about a week total. And yet they all had issues with "care."

I just finished revising Cake for a performance in November. The same could easily be said of that score, and I spent about a year on it!  A YEAR! And while, musically, I think it's alright, notationally it was horrid. Lack of care, in this case toward the presentation.

So, two things came out of this--1) Direct criticism is a good thing! 2) Don't be a jerk and half-ass any of your work. Even if you worked your ass off on the first draft, you've got three or four more to go!

More than one draft? IN MUSIC?!? SHEER FOLLY!

Bruckner would disagree, I think...

Ferneyhough and Me (part 2)

Many moons ago, I wrote a blog entry about Brian Ferneyhough. At that point, I had not met him. My thoughts came from various quotations from a rather old article/interview with Ferneyhough.

A few weeks ago, I got to meet Brian Ferneyhough. My first impression actually came through talking to a few of his students in attendance. We traded stories over some fabulous Korean food. Getting the "inside scoop" from his students was nice--I got to hear the good and the bad. And from two different types of students: one an ardent supporter; the other more disillusioned. Both agreed, however, that whether or not you buy into Ferneyhough's aesthetics or theories, that there's no denying he's brilliant.

I went into the masterclass a bit worried. What would I show him? I was assured that Ferneyhough actually didn't push his aesthetics onto composers, and worked from within the pieces. So, I thought I'd bring a piece that's a couple years old, but one dear to me that I honestly think is a pretty good piece--Dance of Disillusionment and Despair. Dance is a piece I've always enjoyed, and many others seemed to as well. However, I haven't been able to get it a life outside the 2 performances in 2011. I've been showing it in masterclasses, hoping to figure out what I can do to bring it along. John Corigliano really hated it.

Ferneyhough, however, didn't hate it. He did, however, dislike the contraints I put on the music. By choosing (arbitrarily) to make each movement 1 minute, he felt like I shortchanged the material. Almost every movement he would say: I like where this is going, you're starting to make something, then it ends.

At first he wasn't sure about the construction, with some movements having dense material, other movements being incredibly sparse (especially pitch-wise). When I told him the decision came from mapping measures in the first movement through the whole piece, he flipped through the whole piece, skipped to the beginning a few times, and said (paraphrased, of course. as was the earlier): Ah, ok. Fair enough. It appears you stuck pretty well to that. Sometimes, I don't like what happens, but it's a clear reason and you stick to it. Fair enough.

Finally, he came to the main points. And they were quite poignant. I had written a 17 minute piece...that was meant to be 35-45 minutes. I shortchanged my material in every movement. And, the endings...By making so many endings, I played out the possibilities.

Food for thought from Brian Ferneyhough: There are a million ways to begin a piece, but only a dozen or so ways to end one.

And when you have 13 endings, you're bound to have repeats.

What struck me about Ferneyhough was how romantically he talks about music. He quickly fell into the world of Dance, which is fairly Romantic. And then, during his talk, he referred to his own music in much the same way. Systems be damned, it was supposed to be musical, even Romantic. Ferneyhough seemed to use the different systems and construction methods just as a structuring device, a way to limit his own thought moving through his pieces.

When you look at a Ferneyhough score, "Romantic" isn't the first word that pops into your brain. When you hear some recordings, "mechanical" seems more like what should be heard.

I got to hear five pieces by Ferneyhough during June in Buffalo: Incipits, Exordium, Terrain, Mnemosyne, and Intermedio alla Ciaccona. This festival was the first time I've ever gotten to hear any of Ferneyhough's music live. And it was a treat. I'll even forgive JACK Quartet for changing their program and playing Exordium instead of String Quartet No. 2, even though SQ No. 2 is one of my favourite pieces of all time.

It's a great mix. Terrain and Intermedio had Irvine Arditti as the soloist, Terrain with Ensemble Signal. Terrain was handled masterfully by Talea Ensemble, JACK took on Exordium, and Mnemosyne was performed by Keiko Murakami (I believe) of Ensemble Linea (I can't find my program, but she's listed as the regularly flutist with Ensemble Linea).

Everyone played passionately. This doesn't mean they missed notes--they were all inscrutably perfect. But there was music in every note. Every awkward leap, every crunchy harmony, all the subdivisions within subdivisions moving at different time ratios, every nuance had meaning. Watching Arditti play Terrain and Intermedio was astounding. There was no break, no phrase that wasn't carefully attended to. JACK playing Exordium was masterful, with Arditti watching from the audience (and clapping quite enthusiastically when I stole a look in his direction).

This all leads me to one major thought: Ferneyhough, while writing in a method that some would call "dense," is still trying to reach people. He still wants an audience to get a reaction from the piece, to be drawn into that world. In the masterclass, the way he talked about my piece was more about how I failed to do exactly that. And hearing his music live, I was drawn into the music, the drama, the entire experience. During his pieces, I found myself moving closer to the edge of my seat, listening with full attention. If I didn't have full attention, I'd miss a single detail, and the following sequence may be rendered meaningless.

Ferneyhough creates experiences. Let go of the preconception, of the "i don't understand." Stop trying to understand and just listen, be a part of the music. Maybe, eventually, you can listen and "understand" but that's not really the point. He's giving you all the information, and, just like in a certain author's books, you don't have to READ the whole page, just relax, and skim, and the information will "magically" come to the surface. Ferneyhough is like that.

And what I learned from him is I'm not there yet.

JiB Told Me to Do It

This week has been insane. Completely. Effing. Insane.

In all the best ways.

Too many things happened this week, and I have been far too busy and exhausted to begin to sort it all out. But here are some highlights that I plan/hope to discuss and put into a larger context:

• Charles Wuorinen's talk--mainly in the context of the current context of "entrepreneurship." 
• Brian Ferneyhough's talk, focusing on his interesting ideas on musicality (and some great examples from the festival. Linea KILLED Incipit. Jack killed Exordium. And Irvine Arditti killed Terrain. GODDAMN what a week!)
• Masterclass with Ferneyhough--Beginnings, Endings, and what materials demand
• Masterclass with Yehudi Wyner- musical expression, vocal writing, and "not getting in the way"
• Masterclass with Augusta Read Thomas- Don't half ass your work!
• The experience with Ensemble Signal, premiering a piece no one really expects in a festival like this, and the reaction to this unexpected piece.
• The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly--Beautiful Structures, Rough Performances, and WTF was That?!?
• JiB in context of the college experience--How a hardcore festival/workshops like June in Buffalo may one of the greatest things possible. Not for the performance, and the resume padding, but for all the RIGHT reasons.

These topics may all be discussed. Sometimes they'll get shoved together, more than one in a post. Maybe they'll span more than one post. I have no idea at this point.

But this process will be mostly for my own benefit. It's about decompressing all the information that's been shoved into my poor little brain. But hopefully more people will get a great deal out of it.

Ya know the worst part? I don't really have time to write these or decompress. On Saturday, I leave for Lisbon, Portugal, and Electroacoustic Musical Studies Conference 2013. So, instead of really being able to reflect, I'll be preparing for round 2, this time all EA instead of acoustic.

Shift gears, be prepared for anything

And always, ALWAYS be prepared to sing. Because ya never know when you'll be singing all the lines from your own piece, or as a great singer found out, auditioning for some opera and/or ensemble solo work.