Post-Genre and Other Isms
Present, Future and Past (in that order!)

What: Opus 21 Concert, VOX, Wall to Wall Opera
Location: Symphony Space, The Skirball Center
Date: 4/28/2007; 5/12/07; 5/19/07
Cost: $15, Free and Free!
Bohemian Factor: medium, high, and low (once again, in that order)
Geek Factor: N/A (music geeks in full force; other kinds - too dilute to say...)

Oh, how quickly time flies!

Alas, due to lack of time and lack of space, I can only comment briefly on some of my activities the last month, nearly all of them classical music related. For those of us with yen for contemporary music, and/or opera, May was a good month!

First off was Opus 21’s concert celebrating the minimalist tradition at Symphony Space, which has been needled by the press of late (TimesSelect prevents me from putting the link here, but look for the April 27th article by Dan Wakin) for its lack of identity. But I, for one, believe the upper west side cultural venue does indeed occupy a unique niche – it fuses the quirky with the intellectual in a way that even extends even to its bar menu, which features both sliders and scallops (Plus, how many multipurpose arts centers even have a bar menu? As much as I love ya, HERE arts center, the loss of the café – loung-y area is still felt dearly.)

There’s been a lot of minimalism fanfare these days, given Steve Reich’s recent birthday bashes, but the Opus 21 event, showed that there’s still plenty of appetite for surveying the genre. Particularly for those of us who are enthusiasts but not experts in modern music, the concert was an easy mini course in the ways that the tenants of minimalism can be adhered to with draconian rigor, or – especially with some of the more recent composers- a little creative embellishment. Minimalism in its purest state generally means constant repetition of simple motifs, lots of reliance on steady rhythmic beats, and only gradual changes in harmony and tempo. As a rejection of some of the atonal music coming out of the Ivy Tower in the 60’s and 70’s, minimalism has an obvious crossover appeal to the listeners of pop music because of the prominence of rhythm. These days, composers can put more emphasis on emotional expressivity and still hang their work under the minimalist umbrella. (Composer Dennis DeSantis, whose work “One Trick Pony” premiered during the evening summed it up best when he quipped “We’re like post-genre now, but that’s cool.”)

Bill Ryan’s Rapid Assembly and Louis Andriessen’s Klokken voor Haarlem (a New York premiere), made a more persuasive case than others that multiple ideas and textures can be interwoven into the same piece without violating the basic tenants of minimalism, or turning it into its high-baroque opposite. I particularly liked Richard Adams’ “Free Fall.” The founder of Opus 21 created a melodic line that steadily accelerates, as its title suggests, that makes for a compelling listen that ultimately rises above its underlying gimmick.

But it was of course, the master himself that reminded us that there was plenty of complexity to be hand in a simple concept. Steve Reich’s New York Counterpoint, for one clarinet, played by Bradley Wong, riffing with multiple other clarinets on an amplified recording, was breathtaking in its virtuosity (and showed how undervalued that instrument can be – a wind instrument with sex appeal, who’d a thunk it?)

It was written in 1988, too early to be post-genre, and yet still very cool.

Later in May was City Opera’s VOX Festival, which gives opera composers the chance to hear a 15 minute excerpt of their work performed with a full orchestra and first-rate singers. I’d be a little wary of gauging the future of the art form from this roster alone. The four excerpts I caught were all engaging, but compelling musical ideas, performed in a concert staging, can be misleading when it comes to ascertaining what will work well dramatically when the context is a fully staged opera. Canadian composer Brian Current’s Airline Icarus, a sort of oratorio generated by the passengers of an airline flight, was absolutely riveting, musically speaking, but I wondered what kind of staging would keep the action – a series of interior monologues – moving along in a fully realized production. (Plus, who among us hasn’t felt a tragedy of epic proportions unfolding when relegated to coach on a delayed flight surrounded by crying children?) Similarly, The Rat Land, Gordon Beeferman’s ode to family dysfunction in suburbia (is there any other kind?) was more radical in terms of the palate of sounds, but even that looked like Mozart compared with The Endings by Jenny O. Johnson and John Zorn’s La Machine De L’Etre. The former, based on Phillip Pullman’s novels, invoked the ethereal through such devices as musicians running their fingers around the rims of bowls. Unsurprisingly, it came with a (obscure, artsy) video accompaniment, confirming my suspicions that staging such a piece with traditional theatrical devices would be impossible. But the human imagination is capable of quite a bit without the aid of any technological assistance at all, as demonstrated by soprano Kiera Duffy’s Olympian solo in the Zorn piece, which was based not on a literary or film source, but on a drawing created by theatrical revolutionary (and bad boy of the avant garde Antonin Artaud) when living in an asylum. Fans of the downtown music scene were happy to find no shortage of genre bending virtuosity and just plain weirdness, (Weirdness in a good way!). And that the otherworldly and ethereal can be generated entirely without resorting to grainy video.

Although not all the singers at Wall to Wall Opera (Yes, Symphony Space again) were top notch, it seems downright curmudgeonly to hold it against this warm fuzzy event, which smartly divided up its grab bag of arias by periods in history. I attended the middle section (1750-1950, conveniently encompassing Mozart, Bizet, Verdi, Strauss and Wagner) with a few more contemporary items thrown in. Kudos to the programmers for including, in one instance, an excerpt from the new opera “Margaret Garner” based on a Toni Morrison novel, amid a sea of chestnuts to instill some appetite for the new in an otherwise conservative crowd. The New York City Opera Orchestra Orchestra was in fine form, the audience was enthusiastic, forgiving, and ready to turn everything into a love-fest especially when one baritone (But who? How I wish I had saved the program) brought down the house with his rendition of “Largo al factotum della città” , and impresario-conductor Gerald Steichen managed to keep everything fast-paced and charming even when he had to prompt soloists for their names while introducing them. The format also made it easy to leave and come back whenever one felt like they were overdosing from the intensity. I believe it's a lot easier to make converts when opportunities for the newbies to take breaks are many... Open-house Wagner, anyone?