Earplay: Bennett’s Second Reflection on Ives

Bruce Bennett, Margaret Halbig, Terrie Baune, Ellen Ruth Rose, Thalia Moore, and Tod Brody performing Bennett’s “answer” to Ives’ “Question” (screen shot from last night’s YouTube’s video feed of the Earplay recital)

Last night the Earplay chamber ensemble returned to the Noe Valley Ministry to present the second concert in its 41st season. Some readers may recall that the overall title of the season is Answering The Unanswered Question, inspired by Charles Ives’ enigmatic orchestral composition, “The Unanswered Question.” Bruce Bennett composed an arrangement of this music to begin last month’s concert, and last night saw a second arrangement. This one involved flute (Tod Brody), clarinet (Peter Josheff), violin (Terrie Baune), viola (Ellen Ruth Rose), cello (Thalia Moore), organ (Margaret Halbig), and synthesizer (Bennett).

In Bennett’s first arrangement, the question was posed by clarinet and answered by piano. Last night each of the instrumentalists had an opportunity to play the “question-asking” motif. This was an engaging way to introduce the ensemble to the audience, providing an overall context for the subsequent combinations of instruments in the following compositions. Those offerings were, as follows:

• “Searching the Way” by Hyo-shin Na: flute, clarinet violin, and cello
• “Haikus Notebook” by Benet Casablancas: flute (alternating with both alto and piccolo), clarinet (alternating with bass), violin, cello, and piano
• “Loki’s Lair” by Mark Winges: flute (alternating with alto), viola, and cello
• “The Wild Party” by Shuying Li: flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano, soprano (Chelsea Hollow), and conductor (Mary Chun)

This made for an impressive diversity of repertoire. Each of the composers found just the right duration to make sure that the listening experience would not overstay its welcome. Taken as a whole, the program was a throughly engaging journey through a wide variety of sonorities. The only real difficulty I encountered was that I was never able to make out any of the text that Hollow was singing. Since I livestreamed this performance from home, I have no idea whether the program book included the text by Joseph Moncure March.

Nevertheless, it was the music itself that mattered, and there was more than enough substantial listening to keep me occupied in this second “response” to the “Ives question.”

LCCE to Join Forces with Volti Next Month

Composer Shawn Okpebholo (from the Gallery Web page on his Web site)

Those that have been following the 47th season of Volti probably know by now that the choral ensemble will share the stage in the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (LCCE) next month. The program will begin with the world premiere of “Babel,” composed by Chris Castro for narrator and instrumental ensemble. The narrator will be storyteller Susan Strauss. This will be followed by selections from Robert Schumann’s Opus 12 Fantasiestücke and Mark Winges’ “Seasons Falling Through the Clouds.” LCCE will then conclude the program with Shawn Okpebholo’s “Fractured Water.”

The performance will take place at the Noe Valley Ministry, which is located in Noe Valley at 1021 Sanchez Street. The performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, March 20. LCCE has created a Tix Web page for online purchase. Standard admission will be $40 with a discounted $15 rate for students. Those affiliated with Arts Access can purchase tickets for $5.

Earplay’s “Second Answer” to Ives

Some readers may recall that last month saw the beginning of Earplay’s 41st season, entitled Answering The Unanswered Question. I described this series of three programs as inspired by Charles Ives’ enigmatic orchestral composition, “The Unanswered Question;” and each program would feature a new composition serving as an “answer,” commissioned by Earplay. For the second of these programs, the “answer” will be provided by composer Hyo-shin Na. The title of her work is “Search for the Way;” and she scored it for flute (Tod Brody), clarinet (Peter Josheff), violin (Terrie Baune), and cello (Thalia Moore).

Once again, the “answer” will follow a performance Bruce Bennett’s arrangement of “The Unanswered Question,” this time with a slight change in instrumentation. The instruments will again include flute (Tod Brody), clarinet (Peter Josheff), violin (Terrie Baune), viola (Ellen Ruth Rose), and cello (Thalia Moore). This time, however, Margaret Halbig will add keyboard work alternating between organ and synthesizer.

Composer Shuying Li (from the Earplay Web page for next month’s concert)

The program, entitled Kaleidoscopic, will conclude with another world premiere performance. This one involved an adaptation of a text by Joseph Moncure March provided by Jeffrey Hastings. This will be a full-ensemble offering entitled “The Wild Party,” composed by Shuying Li. Brody, Josheff, Baune, Rose, Halbig, and Moore will again perform. They will be joined by soprano Chelsea Hollow with Mary Chun conducting. “Haikus Notebook” by Benet Casablancas, which won Earplay’s 2025 Donald Aird Composers Competition, will be given its United States premiere performance by flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. This will be followed by Mark Winges’ “Loki’s Lair,” which he composed in 2018 for a trio of flute, viola, and cello.

This concert will take place on Thursday, March 12, again begining at 7:30 p.m. at the Noe Valley Ministry, which is located at 1021 Sanchez Street, between 23rd Street and Elizabeth Street. As usual, there will be a pre-concert talk at 6:45 p.m. General admission will be $32 with a $10 rate for students. Tickets can be purchased through a ThunderTix Web page.

Volti to Conclude Season at Z Space

Poster design for the event being discussed illustrating a “musical reflection” on Yggdrasil (from the Web page for purchasing tickets)

Next month will begin with three performances of the final program in the 46th season of the Volti vocal ensemble. The major work on the program will be the completed version of “The Guardians of Yggdrasil” by composer-in-residence Mark Winges. For those unfamiliar with Norse mythology, Yggdrasil is the great tree of all life. The narrative of the libretto that Lisa Delan prepared for Winges’ music explores what happens when the protectors of the tree become restless and negligent, serving as a metaphor for the many ways in which contemporary behavior has neglected the stewardship of our own planet.

There will be only one other work on the program. This will be a reprise performance of Caroline Shaw’s “Ochre.” Those familiar with the previous performance probably already know that Shaw set a text that similarly addresses how our actions in the present will affect the planet in the future.

This program will be given three performances beginning at 8 p.m. on Friday, June 6, and Saturday, June 7, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, June 8. The venue will be Z Space, located in NEMIZ (the North East Mission Industrial Zone) at 450 Florida Street. Ticket prices range from $15 to $75. They may be purchased through a Z Space Web page. Volti can be reached by telephone at 415-771-3352.

Volti Begins 46th Season with Digital Electronics

Last night at the Noe Valley Ministry, Volti launched its 46th season with a program entitled Electronics & New Music. Composer-in-Residence Mark Winges presided over electronic gear most (all?) of which was digital. The program began with the world premiere performance of “Becoming Within” by Anne Hege. The Volti vocalists also manipulated a Rope Instrument designed by Hege, which seemed involve laptop technology and apparently some level of supervision from Winges’ facilities. The result was an integration of vocalization and choreography for which viewing was as important as listening.

A more analog approach to electronics figured in Angélica Negrón’s FONO, a four-movement suite with each movement having a lexeme for a title. In many ways this struck me as “middle ground” between more traditional vocalization and sonorities based on those lexemes identified by the movement titles. Somewhat in the spirit of serial music, it also struck me that permutation contributed to Negrón’s approach to composition. While all of this may sound abstract, there was no shortage of expressiveness in Volti’s performance.

“Becoming Within” was commissioned by Volti, but the program featured two other world premieres. The second half began with Victoria Fraser’s “Lux Aeterna.” This struck me as a reflection on the relationship between light and time, particularly since the vocalists performed against a ticking media track. The overall structure involved a bit of playing around with mathematics, but I found the overall flow of the sonorities to rise above any structural details.

Set design by Josef Hoffman showing Yggdrasil in the first act of Die Walküre (photograph by Viktor Angerer, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

The other introductory offering was actually a “world premiere preview.” Winges is currently working on s multi-movement composition inspired by Norse mythology entitled Guardians of Yggdrasil. Yggdrasil is a sacred tree in Norse mythology. It is the one that holds the sword that Siegmund appropriates at the end of the first act of Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre. That may establish the context for the title of the first movement, “Yggdrasil, Held,” which has no verbal text for the choral performance. There was also a preview performance of Winges’ third movement, “Wanting More” (which may describe the rest of us waiting for him to complete his composition).

In the context of the entire evening, I was struck by the fact that the earliest work on the program was composed in 2001. This was Kaija Saariaho’s “four seasons” cycle, entitled Tag des Jahrs. These were settings of late poems by Friedrich Hölderlin, which he published under the pen name Scardanelli. The chorus performed with electronic accompaniment, including taped recordings of the human voice and natural surroundings.

From a personal point of view, I felt a bit overwhelmed by the prodigious diversity of approaches to choral performance in this program; but I was definitely impressed that there was never a dull moment.

Nicholas Phillips Second SFIPF Recital

Yesterday afternoon Nicholas Phillips presented his second solo piano recital in the fifth annual season of the San Francisco International Piano Festival (SFIPF). While the first recital was devoted entirely to three works by Charles Tomlinson Griffes, the second showcased works by eight composers, all born during the second half of the twentieth century. Furthermore all the music had been composed during the current century, the oldest having been written in 2009. Finally, the program concluded with selections by three composers involved with the Bay Area, Mark Winges, Sahba Aminikia, and Gabriela Lena Frank. The host for this performance was Old First Concerts, allowing Phillips to perform for both the audience in Old First Presbyterian Church and those viewing the video stream.

Winges was one of three composers on the program whose music was given its world premiere performance. His piece was entitled “Year End Nocturne;” and, as might be guessed, he worked on it at the end of last year. I must confess that this was my first encounter with Winges’ solo piano music, since my primary exposure to his work has been through the Volti a cappella vocal ensemble. More recently I had written about the world premiere of his “Spun Light,” an ingenious conception of a “distanced concerto,” scored for violin accompanied by flute, viola, cello, bass, and piano. Presented by the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, this involved separate recordings (video as well as audio) made by all six performers, which were subsequently mixed and presented through split-screen displays.

In such a context I was curious as to how Winges would approach solo piano music, composed under the same pandemic conditions that had inspired “Spun Light.” The music definitely took its own unique approach to the “nocturne” title, which has allowed for considerable flexibility where genre is concerned. Winges’ own note for the program book described the piece as “a hopeful contemplation of the year’s turning;” but, from the listener’s point of view, the music established itself through a subtle rhythm of quietude, which served effectively to calm the mind in the midst of tumultuous thoughts about dealing with COVID.

Winges’ “Year End Nocturne” was followed by Aminikia’s “Lullaby,” a perfect successor in an overall context of such quietude. However, Aminikia’s piece was longer in duration. Thus, he could take a single dispositional stance and then unfold a variety of thematic settings, each of which “examined” that stance from a different “point of view.” As a result, the juxtaposition of these two pieces had all the aesthetic judgement of a fine wine-pairing.

Frank’s “Karnavalito No. 1” then concluded the program with a livelier rhetoric. In her note for the program book, Frank declared her interest in cultures that “can co-exist without one subjugating another.” My favorite metaphor is that of a well-cooked gumbo in which one can recognize every contributing flavor while also appreciating the overall blend. Since Frank’s background is Andean, I realize that she might object to gumbo-as-metaphor. However, the virtue of that metaphor is that mind is required to tease out the individual flavors in gumbo; and the same can be said of recognizing the different layers of expression in Frank’s score. This is music that deserves multiple listening experiences and a freshness of attention not worn down by an entire concert program.

The other premiere offerings were not quite as engaging as “Year End Nocturne.” One was the recently completed “Sonata ’21” by Quinn Mason. Mason’s program note suggested that this was a response to the challenge of composing a piano sonata for the current century in the context of a genre that emerged in the eighteenth century. Personally, I found little to engage in Mason’s contemporary perspective. It seemed as if he was more interested in the legacy of durational scale than in guiding the attentive listener through the resulting durations of the individual movements.

The other premieres involved three short pieces by Mark Olivieri, all of which were probably composed under pandemic conditions. Here, again, there was little to draw or cultivate attention, although, to be fair, this music may hold up when one has the luxury to listen to it more than once. More appealing were the first two selections by Reena Esmail and Mary Kouyoumdjian, respectively. Each of these involved a personal reflection on the composer’s cultural background. In both cases that reflection emerged through well-defined thematic material and easily appreciated development techniques. I suspect that a similar cultural background sustained the Appalachian-inspired “She Steals Me” by Carter Pann; but the nuts-and-bolts of his own development techniques were never as engaging as the selections by Esmail (“Rang De Basant”) and Kouyoumdjian (“Aghavni”).

LCCE Premieres Winges’ New Violin Concerto

Last night the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (LCCE) live-streamed the world premiere of “Spun Light,” a “distanced concerto” for violin with quintet accompaniment. What made the concerto “distanced” was that all six performers recorded their respective parts individually; and the composition was as much a product of skilled mixing of the recorded content as of the score written by composer Mark Winges. Indeed, the solo violinist Hrabba Atladottir was so “distanced” that she recorded her part in Reykjavik, capital of her native Iceland. (Atladottir lives in Berkeley but seems to be waiting out the pandemic in Iceland.) The other five parts were recorded separately by Stacey Pelinka (flute and alto flute), Phyllis Kamrin (viola), Leighton Fong (cello), Michel Taddei (bass), and Allegra Chapman (piano and toy piano).

A “full ensemble” image of performers (clockwise from upper left) Hrabba Atladottir, Michel Taddei, Stacey Pelinka, Leighton Fong, Phyllis Kamrin, and Allegra Chapman (from the YouTube video of the performance being discussed)

What made the performance particularly interesting is that all six of the performers were recorded on video, as well as audio. Guðrun Olafsdottir in Reykjavík and Taylor Joshua Rankin in Oakland then collaborated on realizing Winges’ score through imaginative editing of the musicians playing their respective parts. Initially, the viewer might have thought that this would amount to little more than a Zoom-like viewing experience; but the result of all that editing was far more compelling. The “windows” of the individual players were deployed in a variety of layout configurations, each of which reflected a different aspect of the relationship between soloist and ensemble.

The duration of the concerto was less than twenty minutes. It was divided into three movements, entitled, respectively, “The Pink Echoes of a Sunrise,” “Seeking the Moon Dust,” and “We have Danced This Dance Before.” I have to say that the titles themselves were not particularly reinforced by the video account; but I definitely appreciated that the dimmer qualities of moonlight were realized through black-and-white imagery, contrasting with the “natural” colors of the outer movements. I might go as far as to say that the video content had less to to with any reflections on light suggested by the titles and more do to with capturing (or, perhaps, synthesizing) the immediateness of interaction among all six of the performers. This probably had as much to do with audio editing as with video design; but there was a clear sense of the immediacy of a chamber ensemble, even if that immediacy turned out to be an artifact of skilled editing.

The good news is that the live-streamed performance has now been uploaded as a YouTube video. It is one of those artifacts that deserves multiple viewing experiences. Through the imaginative editing, one can appreciate the techniques through which the layout of the images reflects the performance element of realizing the marks that Winges committed to paper (a few of which make an appearance towards the end of the final movement). The entire “product” is the result of highly imaginative approaches to composition, capture, and editing, suggesting that a new genre is emerging in which “distanced performance” is more about performance and less about distance.

LCCE to Premiere “Socially-Distanced” Concerto

Violinist Hrabba Atladottir (from the LCCE event page for the concert being announced)

Readers may recall that Long Distance Call, the program originally scheduled for performance by the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (LCCE) this coming Monday, was rescheduled for performance on May 3. By way of compensation, LCCE has added a special performance of another “long distance” work, which will take place at the beginning of next month. Local composer Mark Winges has written “Spun Light,” a “distanced concerto” for violin and a quintet consisting of flute (Stacey Pelinka doubling on alto flute), viola (Phyllis Kamrin), cello (Leighton Fong), bass (Michel Taddei), and piano (Allegra Chapman, doubling on toy piano). The violin soloist will be Hrabba Atladottir.

Social distancing was achieved by having all performers record their respective parts individually. While Atladottir is well known to Bay Area concert performances, she recorded her part in Reykjavík, capital of her native Iceland. Her recording engineer was Ólafur Elíasson, while all the other parts were recorded by Jeff Kolhede at the 25th Street Studios in Oakland. Kolhede was then responsible for mixing all of this content to create a chamber music variation of the concerto form with a decidedly different take on how musicians collaborate. The performance of this three-movement composition will then be supplemented with video created by Guðrun Olafsdottir in Reykjavík and Taylor Joshua Rankin, who was responsible for the final mix.

The world premiere of this concerto will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, February 8. There will be no charge for admission. The streaming site has not yet been finalized. However, once it has been created, a hyperlink will be added to the event page for this performance on the LCCE Web site.

The Latest Volti Album from Innova

courtesy of Volti

Three weeks ago Innova released the latest album of performances by Volti. Based in San Francisco, this group is an a cappella vocal ensemble that specializes in new music, much of which is commissioned by Volti itself. The new album, given the rather lengthy title the color of there seen from here, marks the ensemble’s 40th season. The back cover of the album proudly displays the ensemble’s motto, updated for this special occasion: “Singing Without a Net for 40 Years.”

The album itself consists of five premiere recordings, each by a different composer, all currently living in the United States. In order of appearance, those composers are Forrest Pierce, Tonia Ko, Robin Estrada, Mark Winges, and Žibuoklė Martinaitytė. Only the Martinaitytė composition, “The Blue of Distance,” was not commissioned by Volti; and Winges is the ensemble’s resident composer. Through my own listening experiences, I have encountered three of these composers, Estrada, Winges, and Martinaitytė; but the only one of the selections that I have listened to in performance is Estrada’s “Cæli enarrant,” which was performed at the final program of the 39th season in May of last year.

One of my great regrets is that I do not get to enough Volti concerts. Mind you, I have yet to go to one in which I have listened to a composition that I had previously encountered; so I always come away from these occasions feeling a bit overwhelmed by all of the newness. Nevertheless, there is always considerable diversity across the entire program, meaning that there is no “Volti sound” or “Volti style” that would establish some basis of predictability. For that matter, such diversity is evident in the only multiple-movement composition on the album, Ko’s “From Ivory Depths,” whose two movements require significantly different technical skills. That diversity is clearly established throughout the new album, but it affords the advantage of enabling multiple listening experiences for each of the compositions.

In my case I suppose that the deepest impressions come from composers that approach phonemes as “component sound sources,” often with an attention to the synthesis of lexemes from the conjunction of phonemes that is deliberately secondary. Listening to “Cæli enarrant” in concert, I was struck by the incomprehensibility of the text as the basis for a mystical experience. This was not so much a negative reaction as it was the impressions of an atheist speculating on the nature of religious experience. To some extent this rethinking of the role of linguistic building blocks was reinforced by the Martinaitytė composition performed on the same program as “Cæli enarrant.” The title of that piece was “Chant des Voyelles” (incantation of vowels), which seemed to have reflected her interest in an Egyptian prayer consisting only of vowels.

According to my records, this is the third time I have set myself the task of writing something that makes sense about a new Volti recording (not counting their contribution to a Christmas “sampler” album). In each case I have returned to the album several times after having written about it. Since each album tends to involve a different collection of composers adding to the Volti repertoire, I feel as if I am “growing a new mindset” with each new album. As a result, I am not embarrassed to admit that, as has been the case with past albums, the growth of the mindset for the color of there seen from here is still “work in progress.” Nevertheless, just like my encounters with extensive newness every time I attend a Volti concert, I know that the work will progress; and I have every reason to believe that the results will be satisfying!

Earplay’s All-Premieres Program Wraps Season

Last night in Herbst Theatre, Earplay concluded its 33rd season, entitled music without beginning or end, with the last of its three concerts. The title of the program was The Way Things Go, which was also the title of Richard Festinger’s contribution in his capacity as featured composer of the season. While it was composed in 2006, Earplay was presenting the West Coast premiere of “The Way Things Go.” That performance was preceded by two United States premieres, which, in turn, were preceded by two world premieres, one of which was written on an Earplay commission.

There is always an element of risk in bombarding even (if not especially) the most attentive listener with so much novelty. However, the Earplayers presented an evening in which each of the selections tended (for the most part) not to overstay its welcome while, at the same time, establishing its own identity through its own distinctive features. Furthermore, each performance was introduced with a few informative observations to orient the lister; and four of the five composers were on hand to provide more extended accounts prior to the beginning of the concert.

The commissioned composition was also the newest, Jon Yu’s “Pnema,” a duet scored for clarinet (Peter Josheff) and violin (Terrie Baune), was just completed. The title is one letter short from “pneuma,” which is the ancient Greek word for “air in motion,” which can also be translated as either “breath” or “wind.” It would therefore be fair to say that “Pnema” is a study of different perspectives on pneuma. The clarinet provides the more direct perspective, since the sounds it makes are, for the most part, controlled by the breath of the player. On the other hand the vibrations of the violin strings are also setting “air in motion;” so, as Yu put it in his program notes, the two instruments stand for “two sound worlds.”

“Pnema” may thus be taken as a study of an encounter between these two “sound worlds.” It is a study in which distinctions can either oppose or engage with each other. As a result the listener encounters an obligation to allow attention to oscillate between the subtle details of the sound sources themselves and the “wider perspective” of how those sources blend, harmoniously or otherwise. Achieving this effect clearly demands meticulous precision on the part of the performers; and both Josheff and Baune did an impressive job of bringing the ideas behind “Pnema” to an engaging state of fruition.

The other world premiere was of a decidedly older piece. Mark Winges originally wrote “Night-Voiced” for viola and organ in 2011. However, he explained to the audience that, while composing the piece, he worked on a version for viola and piano at the same time. He had been writing compositions for what he called a “viola-centric chamber music CD,” the focus of which was the body of sonorities that distinguish the viola from other instruments in the string family.

In “Night-Voiced” the driving sonorities, so to speak, come from the C string, the lowest of the viola’s four strings. Like the G string of the violin, this produces the instrument’s darkest tones; and the lower pitch in a larger frame makes for richer qualities in those dark sounds, particularly when the full length of the string is vibrating. One could appreciate why the composer would turn to organ pipes to match those sonorities; but, probably appreciating the difficult of arranging performances for viola and organ, Winges wrote the piano version almost simultaneously with the organ version, shifting his thinking to how those viola reverberations would play off the sound of a piano.

Last night that piano version was played for the very first time. Having not heard the organ version, I am not in a position to compare and/or contrast. However, the viola is definitely the focus of attention; and Ellen Ruth Rose, to whom the piece is dedicated, provided an excellent delivery of the full richness of the sonorities that Winges had sought to evoke. At the piano Brenda Tom knew exactly how to allow her own sonorities to expand the scope of the mix, so to speak. All of this took place within the durational scope of a lyric poem (such as the one with a phrase by Carolyn Forché that inspired Winges’ title), making for a thoroughly absorbing listening experience.

The viola also took a leading role in the United States premiere of “and all the phonies go mad with joy,” a string trio with an eccentric nod to J. D. Salinger composed by Pablo Ortiz in 2009. Rose and Baune were joined by Thalia Moore on cello. While the viola may have been the intended focal point, much of the interest in this piece involved the composer’s imaginative approach to working with different subsets of the group in different sizes. What resulted was a background of duos and trio work that served as a context for that “leading role” of the viola. It is also worth noting that this piece, like “Night-Voiced,” involved an exercise in changing instrumentation, since it grew out of an earlier piece Ortiz had written for viola and marimba.

“The Way Things Go” complemented the opening duo for viola and piano with a duo for flute (Tod Brody) and piano (Keisuke Nakagoshi). This was probably the most “classical” piece of the evening. It was structured in three movements consisting of a set of variations on a very short theme, a recitative in the middle, and a high-spirited conclusion. Each of these movements lasted only long enough to make its point, while the work as a whole demonstrated that one could still find innovative ways to depart from traditional concepts.

The only real disappointment came from the United States premiere of the music of Turgut Erçetin. Currently based in Berlin, much of Erçetin’s training came from the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University. This led to his working on a series of pieces called Resonances, the second of which, “Tella,” was composed in 2016 and performed last night. The piece was scored for both E-flat and bass clarinet (both played by Josheff) performing with a string trio.

Erçetin did not do himself any favors by writing a note for the program book that consisted of two paragraphs of unabashed techno-babble. This was one of those pieces that threatened to require more time to explain itself than to be performed. Sadly, it was also the one piece that felt too long, even if that was not necessarily true of its clock-time. From the viewpoint of a “first contact” listener, the strongest impression was that the music, as it was written, seemed to have almost nothing (if not absolutely nothing) to do with resonance. Rather, it was a grab-bag of alternative performance techniques for all four of the performers, allowing the clarinetist to explore the domains of two different extreme registers.

The title was that of a made-up name of a young Turkish girl who wanted to give up her birth name. This allowed Erçetin to expand his written commentary to relate his techno-babble to gender issues in Turkey. For my part, I would have preferred a performance that did not have to labor under the weight of so much extra-musical baggage.

Earplay will Conclude Season with Five Premieres

Earplayers conductor Mary Chun, cellist Thalia Moore, violist Ellen Ruth Rose, pianist Brenda Tom, and violinist Terrie Baune (standing) and flutist Tod Brody and clarinetist Peter Josheff (seated) (courtesy of Earplay)

At the end of this month, Earplay will conclude its 33rd season, entitled music without beginning or end, with the last of its three concerts. As in the first two programs, Richard Festinger will again be the featured composer; and all five of the pieces to be offered will be given a premiere of one form or another. That includes Festinger’s contribution, “The Way Things Go,” which will also be the title of the program. Festinger composed this piece in 2006 for flute and piano; but the Earplay performance by Tod Brody and Brenda Tom, respectively, will mark its first performance on the West Coast.

The final work on the program will also be the newest. Jon Yu’s “Pnema,” scored for clarinet and violin, was completed earlier this year and is the latest piece to be written on an Earplay commission. It will be one of two world premiere performances, the other being that of “Night-Voiced,” composed in 2011 for viola and piano by Mark Winges. Finally, there will be two United States premieres. The program will begin with the second piece by Turkish composer Turgut Erçetin to be given the title “Resonances.” This one has the subtitle “Tella.” The earlier piece was scored for three wind players and two brass players, while “Tella” was written for clarinet and string trio. The other United States premiere was composed only for string trio in 2009 by Pablo Ortiz, given the title “and all the phonies go mad with joy.”

This concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, April 30. The venue will be Herbst Theatre, whose entrance is located on the ground floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. General admission will be $25 with a $10 rate for students. There will also be a premium rate of $35 for preferred seating in the first two rows. Tickets may be purchased in advance online through a Brown Paper Tickets event page.

Innova Releases Another Album of Performances by Volti

Volti is an a cappella choir of professional singers led by founder and Artistic Director Robert Geary. The group gives regular concerts that provide San Francisco audiences with a generous exposure to the latest efforts in choral composition. In March of 2010 Innova released its first recording of the group entitled Turn the Page: New Directions in American Choral Music. The end of last week saw the release of a new album, This Is What Happened: More new directions in American choral music.

Keeping up with Volti is no easy matter. This is not because their concerts are poorly publicized (speaking as one determined to get out the word for each one of them). The problem, instead, has to do with the density of concert programming on any given date, particularly in the period between February and June.

However, getting there is only part of the problem. Geary casts such a wide net in preparing each Volti concert that only the most dedicated members of the audience manage to avoid the risk of cognitive overload. Put another way, when so much novelty is trying to work its way into mind, the result tends to be that no individual piece succeeds very well by virtue of being crowded out by the others. Thus, when I checked my concert-going records, I realized that I had probably heard every selection on this new CD in concert and then sheepishly acknowledged that I had recalled none of them! I realize that this sounds a lot like that it’s-not-you-it’s-me cliché; but there it is.

The good news is that I already have a copy of another Innova recording of Volti, released in July of 2012 (between the first and the latest albums), entitled House of Voices: More new directions in American choral music. While I did not enthusiastically embrace it during my initial encounter, I stuck with it. I would return to it from time to time, more to remind me of the Volti aesthetic than for the sake of building up stronger perceptions of any of the individual compositions. One result has been that, whether in concert or on recording, my listening experience has acquired certain expectations associated with Volti performances. Through those expectations I have come to deal with a variety of different idiosyncratic techniques for expressing texts through music (not to mention some eyebrow-raising processes of selecting texts in the first place).

I would also suggest that the foundation of those expectations is built from the solid execution technique that Geary has cultivated in his singers. To draw, once again, upon that distinction that Igor Stravinsky emphasized, listening cannot take place unless the stimuli of hearing are experienced with a minimum of noise, if not its entire absence. On the basis of the Volti concerts I have attended, I have the greatest admiration for Geary’s ability to provide me with “noise-minimal signals;” and that ability is just as evident in the engineering that goes into the production of his Innova recordings. Anything else has to do with the how my mind acclimates to making sense of those signals, regardless of who the composers are or the texts they have chosen to set.

For the record, the composers represented on this new album are, in order of appearance, Robin Estrada, Stacy Garrop, Mark Winges, John Muehleisen, and Shawn Crouch. Of these five, the only one to have made much of a dent on either sensemaking or memory has been Winges. This is because he has been Volti’s Resident Composer at least from the time when House of Voices was released. Geary has thus given his work a generous amount of attention; and, as a result of that exposure, I have come to feel that such attention was well-deserved. On the other hand my only knowledge of Garrop comes from the 2015 release of her Mythology Symphony on Cedille Records; and any subsequent listening experiences of that piece have been about as uncomfortable as the “first contact.” Nevertheless, I have high hopes for future listening experiences of all six of the pieces on This Is What Happened, just as I shall continue to seek out opportunities to squeeze Volti recitals into my schedule.