Today's Articles (We've Got Lots!):
- Podcast Episode 4: Christopher Marshall
- Gary Hill Session Review: Today's Wind Band…
- Nagoya University of Arts Wind Orchestra Review
- Royal Irish Academy of Music Percussion Ensemble & CRESCENDO Percussion Ensemble Review
- University of Louisville Wind Ensemble Review
- Meisterklasse mit Gerhard Markson (Deutsch)
Podcast Episode 4: Christopher Marshall
New Zealand composer Christopher Marshall, now resident in the United States, talks about his work being performed here this week, Resonance, and his history of attending WASBE Conferences. He also speaks about his most recent wind work, Renascence. To listen (or subscribe) to the Podcast, visit our Podcast page.
Today’s Wind Band
A diverse collection of musicians, lacking a standard instrumentation, and playing from a wide-ranging repertoire — As It Should Be!
It is always interesting to hear conversation and, in many cases, banter during intermission and following each concert. It is sometimes more interesting, however, to observe conversation after a research session. In either case, the provocation of emotions seems an important ingredient toward the future.
I have been hearing a lot about reaching back to move forward at pre-concert talks, discussions about programming, and during the late night sessions that wet the whistle and whet the appetite for debate. Gary Hill shared his perspective on reaching to the past, offering a bit of a mind bend to those who attended his lecture, “Today’s Wind Band … As It Should Be!” Laden with historical and statistical evidence (even some examples that made the keen listeners blush), Gary demonstrated that dynamism is perhaps the key to the future of the wind band. The ideas presented and the gauntlet laid down for conductors to think about not as much about what they are playing, but why, and to shape the future through dynamic forces that neither cause the perpetuation of habitual music making, since the beginning of the 20th century, or the current trend to be at the front of the “art music” movement, generated lively conversation after the lecture, particularly by delegates who missed the punch line. The premise that making music is (and always has been) a social activity that feeds people both mentally and physically, simply by nature of its essence … sound … deserves some serious thought by conductors at every level and speciality. The wind band world seems to work very hard to marginalize itself through the dichotomy practiced by its members, in lieu of making music simply for the love of it. Perhaps wind band music would touch members of the audience and the musicians generating the sound, if there were more careful selection of meritorious repertoire, even if it means breaking the standard instrumentation or causing a little controversy. Gary’s premise that the centuries-long history of the band being a fluid, dynamic ensemble, germane to its social context, deserves some serious thought, if we are to continue movement toward acceptance as a legitimate medium of serious artistic expression.
Nagoya University of Arts Wind Orchestra
Concert #6 (Tuesday)
After the many fine performances heard at WASBE 2005 in Singapore, I was pleased to see the Nagoya University of Arts Wind Orchestra on the performance calendar. This Tuesday, 10 July, they certainly fulfilled every expectation. The stage of Ireland's National Events Centre was bursting with musicians as the 75 musicians took the stage, signaling the beginning of the event.
Conductor Masaichi Takeuchi began the program with Soren Hyldgaard's Tivoli Festival Overture. This well-known work, a cousin to his Hans Christian Andersen Suite, showcased the band's talents and gave us a preview of what we were going to experience during the remainder of the concert. The second work on the program, Tower of Babel, was composed by Hayato Hirose in 2006 and dedicated to his mentor, Jan van der Roost. It was first premiered in Leuven, Belgium in 2006 under the baton of the composer. Its seven movements, performed without interruption, are highly programmatic and are based on the "Tower of Babel" story from the Old Testament Bible. Its dark and moody beginnings soon gave way to a triumphal fanfare. Woodwinds are highlighted in extended lyrical passages, followed by the brass choir. They come together in a return to some of the introductory material and bring the work to a dramatic and triumphal close. Tower of Babel uses many ideas common to music of both eastern and klezmer styles, blending them together into a pastiche of modern orchestration.
The final work on the first half of the program was Sinfonietta, subtitled “Suito Sketches,” by Jan van der Roost. van der Roost, who serves as visiting faculty to the Nagoya University of Arts School of Music, was on hand to conduct. According to the program notes, each movement is a study in character and atmosphere, "displaying a variety of qualities and possibilities of the modern wind band." Movement I: "The Landing" began with a haunting alto flute solo. Muted brass provided a textural depth and the percussion created a humming curtain of sound through sustained atmospheric effects. Movement II: "Sword Dance" opened with percussion elements that evoked Taiko drumming. Its angular rhythms and constant motion increased the technical demands placed on the musicians and pushed the ensemble to its limits. Movement III: "Nightfall by the River" was calm and peaceful. Still, one could hear a possibly menacing undercurrent manifested in the underlying harmonies. Movement IV: "Towards the Future" was a mini-work unto itself, with quick technical passages, a chorale-section, and a grandioso ending. It included a joyous restatement of some earlier themes, including a return to the Taiko percussion of Movement II. van der Roost was exuberant on the podium and his Sinfonietta was a fitting end to this half of the program.
After the interval, we returned to the hall for two more works: Fooga, by Tetsuonosuke Kushida, and Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky, recently transcribed for wind band by Tohru Takahashi. Fooga, conducted by Masaichi Takeuchi, was commissioned by the Koto Youth Wind Ensemble in the spring of 2006. While not directly programmatic, the composer sought to "express Japanese people's sensibilities by sounds." In two sections, the first half of the piece featured a stately opening and florid woodwinds. The tranquility of the first half gave way to the energetic second half that, like the earlier Sinfonietta, featured the sounds of Japanese Taiko drumming. This work would make a good supporting addition to any program and should be accessible to most ensembles.
The final work on the program was Tohru Takahashi's transcription of Pictures at an Exhibition, conducted by Jan van der Roost. This transcription is based on Mussorgsky's original piano score and not on the Ravel transcription for orchestra with which we are all so familiar. As such, some of the elements we had come to expect were not present, or were scored in a completely novel way. This was an excellent opportunity to explore new ways to hear favorite works. By this point in the program, some fatigue was beginning to show in these otherwise skilled musicians and performers. The difficulties experienced were not enough to detract from the concert as a whole. The musicians consistently demonstrated excellent control of dynamics and phrasing as well as a sensitivity to their conductors and each other, and the applause following their performance was long and sustained. Cheers to the Nagoya University of Arts Wind Orchestra.
Royal Irish Academy of Music Percussion Ensemble & CRESCENDO Percussion Ensemble
Concert #5 (Tuesday)
Percussion instruments completely filled the stage of the Irish National Events Centre for this afternoon’s percussion concert that featured talented ensembles from Ireland and Holland. The groups complemented each other nicely, with each presenting vastly different repertoire for much different sized ensembles.
The Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) Percussion Ensemble performed four African-influenced works that employed four to twelve percussionists. First was Michael Udow’s African Welcome Piece. Udow composed this work after spending a semester in Africa, and chose to imitate common Ghanan dance rhythms and song styles. This work created a dramatic opening to the concert, as eight performers walked onto a dark stage rattling colorful bead-filled balloons in imitation of the African bull-roar. Udow called for but this instrument but conductor Richard O’Donnell joked that it had caused too many injuries in rehearsal to be safe for use. [The bull-roar is a thin board with slits attached to a long rope that is swung overhead at a considerable speed.] The RIAM ensemble performed the work with ease, and seemed to enjoy themselves…at least until the part that they’re required to shout and holler, as if they were having to consciously repress their well-bred behavior in order to perform such primal sounds on stage.
Omphalo Centric Lecture by Nigel Westlake followed, performed beautifully by four students on marimbas with some additional percussion instruments. The modern marimba is a descendant of the roughly made African marimba, which usually has only a couple of octaves of a select pitch set. Westlake incorporated African marimba patterns into this work, mixing them with some elements of minimalism and his own creative melodies. The piece is exuberant and, in spite of extensive unequal meters, retains a clear dance feeling. The excellent performing seemed slightly hampered by a gap of at least twelve feet between the two pairs of marimbas, which seemed to make it difficult for the quartet to lock-in in a very groove-oriented work. It was very nice to have four marimbas brought in from Adams, giving an even sound all four instruments, though this uniformity was diminished by the use of different types of mallets between the marimbists.
There are very few drum set concertos in the repertoire, so it was refreshing to hear Tom Nazziola’s From Here to There, which while not a concerto per se, featured drum set prominently. The work began as a trio with set, marimba, and vibes, as each performer presented non-rhythmic colorful ideas. The set functioned as a multiple percussion set-up at first, then funk and jazz licks began to punctuate the texture. At times the trio played music reminiscent of Frank Zappa, with unison mallet percussion and drum set melodies. Additional players entered later in the first movement and in the second movement, expanding the sonorities. The drum set had several short cadenzas, though it mostly stayed in close conversation with the other instruments. Overall, it proved to be a fascinating work, and a welcomed addition to our repertoire. I believe the soloist was named Garrett Bassett, though O’Donnell only mentioned his name quickly in passing and his name was not in the printed program. Regardless, he did an excellent job, easily jumping between roles as soloist and accompanist, and performed with fluid technique and a dynamic tone. He had great command of rock, jazz, and several Latin styles, including long passages in Afro-Cuban styles.
The RIAM PE completed their work with Jose Halec’s Hyperball. O’Donnell began by stating the composer’s intent in this piece was to imitate the African-jazz sound that was popular in the 1970s in such ensembles as the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sun Ra, and other African American jazz artists who were trying to incorporate their African roots into modern jazz. Halec did this through using an ensemble similar to these influences, using African percussion, drum set, saxophone, and transforming a bass part into antiphonal timpani. The saxophone led the ensemble, playing some ensemble passages, but mostly creating improvisation-like passages over percussion vamps. While the effect was interesting, ultimately I was left unsatisfied for one simple reason: the composition was so close to an actual imitation of the original 70s artists that it just made the performance sound like a stale imitation. It lacked the firey passion and reckless abandon of these jazz artists; I would have loved to hear the group, after working hard on this piece, put the music down and simply improvise in the spirit of the style, using the vocabulary they had learned from working on Halec’s composition. That, I believe would have been a more satisfying event. The saxophone soloist, also unnamed, played admirably, but was locked into a strict piece of sheet music. This was not necessarily the fault of the performer, but of the piece itself.
Overall, the RIAM members performed with excellence and maturity, had obviously been taught extremely well by their conductor and mentor, and presented repertoire that all had different connections to the African continent.
The Crescendo Percussion Ensemble, from Holland, took a different approach to percussion ensemble: that of the large percussion orchestra. Two of the works were for 15 or 16 players, and the ensemble literally filled the entire stage with instruments. In most percussion concerts filling the stage is the norm, but that is because multiple pieces are set up next to each other, each claiming a percentage of the larger stage. In these works, the whole stage was used for each piece.
The group started with an adaptation of one of the popular Animusic videos: these are computer videos with bizarre adaptations of normal percussion and rock music instrument played by machines. For this live presentation, the video was shown on two screens, while the conductor, Ria Kornet, conducted to a click. The performers were flawless, remaining aligned with the video throughout, which is no simple feat if you are familiar with this music.
Thomas Gauger’s Gainsborough quintet was a much more familiar percussion ensemble sound, featuring marimba, vibraphone, timpani, and two percussion set ups. The three movements had good diversity: some more rhythmic, some more melodic, but all delightful. The final movement had a march feel at times, and ended exciting.
Dolf de Kinkelder wrote two compositions that Crescendo performed at this concert. The first was Funeral Blues, and the second CrissCross. Funeral Blues was a setting of a poem of the same name by W. H. Auden, whose four strophes are recited in Dutch and English, via recording, at four points of the work. The piece began with a 50-second sound mass, a deafening scream of noise performed by the sixteen players hitting drums and 55-gallon oil drums. The volume was reminiscent of the opening of Verne Reynolds’ Scenes. The composer told me afterwards that this opening was intended to create a “nasty feeling” in the listener, a goal that was certainly achieved. As the sound died down, players presented individual swells, representative of “anger-filled swells of emotion.” The piece is actually a saxophone concerto, today performed excellently by Egon Smit, who was dressed in a flashy gold suit. After the long opening, the saxophone sang a beautiful lament for the lost soul, weaving long lines over the top of percussion textures. Smit adeptly handled the demanding technical challenges of extended altissimo passages and having to project over a large ensemble.
CrissCross was certainly the high-light of the entire concert. The eighteen-minute work for fifteen percussionists was written not only for Crescendo PE, but for the specific members of the ensemble. The score has all of the names of the players on the left of each page replacing where instrument names would normally be found. Kinkelder said that he had worked with the performers for several years and that he had learned all of the strengths of each performer. This was very clear in the performance: the ensemble was in complete unity, and there were no weak links in any way.
The piece featured large numbers of drums, three marimbas, two xylophones, gongs, oil drums, giant sawblades, and a visually-striking collection of wash basins on a table the entire width of the stage. Dramatic hits and silence began the work, slowly transitioning to mallet chords, with each instrument being performed by two players from opposite sides. Unison gestures were often employed, creating a powerful and commanding sound. The most striking element of the piece were the several minutes where all fifteen players stood at the front table, performing rhythms on tin cans, bus-boy bells, and gravel-filled basins. These instruments created sounds that I have never heard on a stage before: very refreshing. As the cloud of dust from the gravel began to wisp up into the ceiling, the drummers moved back to snare drums or mallet instruments. By the end, all fifteen musicians were playing fifteen snare drums, and dramatic gestures closed the piece similar to how it opened. One surprise was that Kinkelder instructed the conductor to bow to the audience before the final note of the piece causing quite a surprise for everyone in the audience.
Crescendo performed with amazing energy and skill. Ria Kornet has created a brilliant ensemble that is a strong role model, and has recruited and taught her ensemble members to play with great sensitivity and uniformity of sound. It was fortunate that those of us from outside of Europe could have the opportunity to see such a presentation. A special thanks to Adams Percussion for their generous loaning of enormous amounts of percussion for this concert and the whole WASBE festival.
Louisville Gives a Distinguished Performance
Concert #4 (Monday)
On the second evening of the conference, delegates and concert goers from across County Kerry were treated to an exciting performance by the University of Louisville Wind Ensemble under the direction of Frederick Speck. The program, at first glance, resembled a Rick Steves podcast library: short, pithy works by composers from far and wide. Notable, however, was the appearance of two European premiers—Karl Husa's Cheetah and Matthew Tommasini's Three Spanish Songs.
By the end of the first half of the performance, the members of the ensemble had distinguished themselves with a presentation of assertive musicality and powerful precision. The concert opened with Bright Sheng's colorful fanfare La'i, which promised the audience would wont neither for horn nor trumpet sound in the program to follow. The flexible Louisville band proceeded with a number of chamber compositions, beginning with the Three Spanish Dances.
Tommasini's setting of works by several notable Spanish poets was sung with great passion and command by Edith Davis Tidwell. The piece was originally a cycle for voice and harp, but was reworked for a new palette at the urging of Michael Haithcock. The ensemble—Flute, Oboe/English Horn, Clarinet/Bass Clarinet, Horn, Trumpet, Trombone, Piano, and 4 percussion—performed with tremendous sensitivity and stylistic empathy. The work takes full advantage of the colors available to these instrumentalists, the piano making its thunderous presence known to good effect in the second movement. The third movement closes with a bit of text-painting as rising layers of ostinati depict the apparition of a floating child.
Dr. Speck's program continued with a back-to-back presentation of Penderecki's Entrata and Takemitsu's Day Signal. These, again featured excellent brass ensemble and solo playing.
The conductor's own Night Moves brought together his chamber ensemble with marimba soloist Greg Byrne and cellist Paul York. Excellent timing among the marimba, harp, bass and piano players contributed a wonderful Latin feel to the composition. The cello provided a beautiful soaring lyric to contrast with the rhythmic energy.
The second half of the program featured a work completed last year with the rather un-Husian title, Cheetah. The 1999 commission for the piece was intended for reduced forces, but the composer felt his ideas could be better realized with a full-band scoring. The result is less a narrative than a structured 'impression' that evokes the building energy of the chase and concludes as our imagined protagonist has been unsuccessful in the kill. Still, from our perspective a satisfying work, especially with tonight's performance, very capably concluded with a whisper of sustained octaves in the upper woodwinds.
The balance of the program, comprised of decidedly less weighty material, offered a sampling of American composers including Joan Tower, Morton Gould, Steve Rouse and an audience-pleasing Charles Ives offered by guest conductor Dennis Johnson.
By the end of the evening the University of Louisville Wind Ensemble had demonstrated an exciting and joyful, yet earnest conviction to an interesting and challenging program.
Drei Junge Dirigenten — Meisterklasse mit Gerhard Markson
Das WASBE Internationale Jugendblasorchester (IYWO) bot eine hervorragende Plattform für den Dirigenten-Workshop mit Gerhard Markson. Gleich drei Dirigenten-Studenten aus Canada, Bulgarien und Irland stellten sich dieser kritischen Beobachtung durch Gerhard Markson und den den zahlreich erschienenen WASBE-Gästen. Gearbeitet wurde an Takten aus Morning Music von Richard Rodney Bennett. Gerhard Markson ist seine Aufgabe mit viel Geschick und Gespühr für angegangen. Schnell wurde klar, dass hier eine ausgesprochen kompetente und erfahrene Persönlichkeit an der Arbeit ist. Der in Bensheim geborene Gerhard Markson studierte u.a. an der Musikhochschule in Frankfurt und durchlief den klassischen Weg als Kapellmeister. Nach Stationen in Europa, China und den USA ist er heute Chefdirigent des Irisch Nationalen Symphonieorchesters. Reichlich mit Beispielen und Episoden geschmückt, ist Gerhard Markson immer wieder neu auf die individuellen Reaktionen und Bedürfnisse eingegangen.
Wurde vorwiegend im dirigiertechnischen Bereich gearbeitet, so konnten die Kandidaten doch verschiedene Varianten von Verbesserungsvorschlägen ausprobieren. Liess dann die Konzentration der Musiker auch Mal nach war das eine gute Gelegenheit zu vermerken, dass auch die Orchestermusiker ihren Teil leisten müssen und der Dirigent niemals alles machen kann. Markson hat anschaulich in Erinnerung gerufen, dass sich die Dirigenten immer gleichzeitig in den drei Zeitepisoden Zukunft, im Jetzt und in der Vergangenheit befinden. Für einmal aus der Distanz betrachtet war es interessant zu sehen, wie bestimmte Zeichengebungen verschieden auf die Musiker wirken. Machte es der Chef dann gleich Mal selbst vor – sei es mit wirkungslosen oder mit effizienten Bewegungsabläufen – hatte diese Lektion zusätzlich eine amüsante Note bekommen. Damit wurde diese Meisterklasse sowohl für die Kanidaten als auch für uns Zuhörer und Zuschauer zu einem tollen Erlebnis.
©2007 WASBE