Noise
Revs Up for Series at Library
By MICHAEL C. BURGESS
VILLAGE NEWS
Some
of us may have difficulty appreciating works by composers of American
academia such as Milton Babbit and Anthony Davis. But there are UCSD
[University of California, San Diego] students totally at home with
this contemporary music that tends to have no obvious rhythm or melody.
"It's
funny to see the audience trying to nod along to the beat when there
isn't one," a student was heard to say on a La Jolla sidewalk after
San Diego New Music's (SDNM's) first concert of this year's Noise at
the Library series at the Athenaeum Music and Arts Library on Sunday,
January 32...
[Anthony]
Davis gave a short talk prior to the concert and explained [his "Goddess
Variations III", performed by the composer in the concert] were
part of a work inspired by the plight of slaves transported from Africa...
...another
Davis composition "Still Waters III, " the pianist was joined
by cellist Reynard Rott and flutist Lisa Cella who is now San Diego
New Music's executive director.
Rott and
Cella are members of NOISE, SDNM's resident ensemble dedicated to the
presentation of contemporary music...
Vocalist
Fiona Chatwin joined...to perform the first item of the evening: "TemA"
by Helmut Lachenmann...
Later, violinist
Mark Menzies replaced Chatwin in the trio to play "Con Voce für
Drei Stumme Spieler" by Mauricio Kagel...
The same
trio was made a quartet by the addition of clarinetist Anthony Burr,
whose solo made pleasing beginning to Milton Babbit's "Composition
for Four Instruments" (1948).
Composer
Nicholas Frances Chase was introduced from the audience to tell how
his art teacher mother brought home a print, the Andy Warhol masterpiece
"Sixteen Jackies," and this encounter so changed Chase's life
that he composed "tw!TcH" to express what he believes Warhol
would have written had he been a composer instead of a painter.
The Chase
work (performed by Cella on flute, Menzies on violin and Charon Rosner
on contrabass) painted a jolly picture with much wood knocking and tongue
clicking that seemed to satisfy Philistines and cognoscenti alike...
(read
the whole
review at Mr. Burgess homepage)
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