Contemporary Classics January 29, 2019 - Celebrating the 2019 Winnipeg Contemporary Music Festival

This episode of Contemporary Classics is celebrating the Winnipeg New Music Festival which is presently occurring in Winnipeg,  Manitoba Canada.  This is a 7-day festival featuring a number of world and Canadian premieres and music by several composers.  The featured composer is Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks who will be presenting the North American premiere of his Symphony #2 and the Canadian premiere of his “Lonely Angel ("Meditation") meditation for violin and string orchestra”.    Tonight we will be featuring some of the works that will be performed at the Festival.

Caroline Shaw’s “Music in Common Time” was originally written for the 8 voice ensemble Roomful of Teeth and the small string orchestra Far Cry, but has been expanded to full symphony orchestra and chorus.  It can be described as post-minimalist as it uses some of the elements of minimalism such as the chordal triad as a central feature, overlapping consonance, the chord-to-chord movement of basic progressions, variation via altered phrase length rather than elaborated melody.  But these are all used in innovative ways.  While the orchestra moves in individual groups, the chorus is more unified.

Missy Mazzoli’s “Vesper Sparrow”. Missy Mazzoli has described her elegiac “Vesper Sparrow”, a setting of a text by Farnoosh Fathi, as an "eclectic amalgamation of imaginary birdsong and my own interpretation of Sardinian overtone singing."  It was developed in collaboration with the acapella  vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth.  

Michael Daugherty’s “Raise the Roof” is a one-movement concerto for timpani and orchestra commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for the opening of the Max M. Fisher Music Center. It was premiered in Detroit, October 16, 2003, with conductor Neeme Järvi leading the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and timpanist Brian Jones. The piece uses medieval plainsong, which is repeated and developed throughout the work, but it also has influences of rock and roll and latin rhythms.  Significant portions of the work uses extended technique in the solo part, including the use of foot pedals for melodic tuning, playing with an upside-down cymbal on the drumhead, and striking the drums with maraca sticks, wire brushes, and even the player's bare hands.

 

Brad Well’s “Render”  was written for his group Roomful of Teeth.  Its origin was in a film that was never produced and I will refer you to the January 8, 2019 Contemporary Classics show and the conversation I had with Brad Wells about this work for the full story. 

 

Harry Stafylakis:  "Brittle Fracture"

The inspiration for Harry Stafylakis’ Brittle Fracture came from multiple sources. Stafylakis wrote “the main theme and my orchestrational approach were inspired by electronic effects typically used in popular music styles.  The principle theme of the work – a 2- to 4-note repeating figure – came about as I was sitting around one day with my electric guitar in hand. I'd been listening to a lot of beautifully-produced metal and pop music at the time, and on a whim put an exaggerated delay effect on my guitar amp.  I fiddled around with the instrument, playing the simplest possible musical ideas and seeing how they were transformed in time by the prominent delay effect.  Eventually I settled on the motive that is heard throughout Brittle Fracture, but instead of relying on electronic manipulation, I orchestrated the delay effect using traditional instruments.”

The title of the work was borrowed from the field of materials science, where a brittle fracture is when there is little or no apparent plastic deformation before failure occurs so that a material breaks before you realize there is any tension applied to the material. Stafylakis wrote “Brittle Fracture attempts to depict this type of structural failure in musical terms.  As musical tension builds to a critical level, a series of fractures occurs, slicing between two contrasting musical surfaces until the inevitable and complete dissolution of their constituent materials.”

 

Judd Greenstein   "A E I O U"    

Judd Greenstein writes “AEIOU was written at Mass MoCA in the summer of 2009, during the first-ever assemblage of Roomful of Teeth. I came up for the second week of their 2-week residency, not knowing what the group was capable of doing — a forgivable sin since the group itself was just beginning to learn their own abilities and capacities. With me, I brought some sketches that I felt could be adapted to whatever sounds I heard the singers produce; these were études of sorts, studies in rhythm and harmony that left a lot of room for different sounds in different places. Once I heard what the group was able to do, I adapted some of these with their varied techniques in mind, creating fully-formed pieces that combined my sketches with the sounds of the ensemble.   AEIOU uses the five basic vowel sounds, in their Spanish configuration, as an ordered set, a “text” of sorts that structures the forward progress of the work, while the sonic landscape is a tapestry of interwoven yodels, throat singing, and straight-tone clarity.”

Pēteris Vasks “Dona Nobis Pacem”

We conclude today’s celebration of the Winnipeg New Music Festival as we began with the music of Pēteris Vasks.  We end with his “Dona Nobis Pacem”.  Unlike his Symphony #2 which luxuriates in emotional tumult, Vasks’ religious music does not deal in overt emotion.  The idiom he chooses for works like “Dona Nobis Pacem” is predominantly contemplative.  But the result never fails to move the listener.