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CONTENTSCONGRATULATIONS
TO . . ., 3 LIVE EVENTS I
Hear Museum Art (B.L.C./Greenfest) <> Mad Dreams and Brits
(Hickey), 6 DOTTED NOTES
INTERVIEW SPEAKING OUT!
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PUZZLE CORNER: COMPOSER INDEX, 34 BULLETIN BOARD, 35 WEB SUPPLEMENTLive EventsEquinox
Chamber Players In Concert for Impact CD ReviewsHarrison
Birtwistle: Refrains and Choruses ObituariesArthur
Berger (1912-2003) |
Review of Concert NEC Percussion Ensemble: Premieres for PercussionSunday,
April 13, 2003, 7:30 PM by David Cleary Of the seven works heard on this "Premieres for Percussion" concert, only two items actually merited the labeland they constituted the best and worst of what was heard. The musical materials in DNA by Joan Tower are inspired by the dual nature of the double helix; one can in fact best characterize the selection as a sophisticated "game of pairs" involving its five percussionists. It makes inventive and subtle use of spatial writing, is stuffed full with driving energy, and has a good, non-prescriptive feel for form. In a word, wonderful. Stanley Leonards Sacred Stones unfortunately is much less successful. Its ritualistic, atmospheric writing comes off as pretentious, and the piece proves structurally scattered and harmonically inconsistent. There was disparity in listening pleasure to be had with the two marimba quartets encountered as well. Omphalo Centric Lecture by Nigel Westlake is a neo-process delight, perky in mood and mildly jazzy in sound, that nicely clumps its patterned material into convincing larger sections. And it sounds great for its wood-plank foursome. Daniel Levitans Marimba Quartet, however, seems a bit stodgy and uninspired in gesture despite a fetching sonic world thats even more strongly indebted to jazz idioms than the Westlake. Its warm tremolo middle section is its best feature. The lengthiest opus presented was Michael Colgrasss Fantasy-Variations. But despite clocking in at nearly 20 minutes, one never thought "enough already!" For roto-tom soloist and six percussionists, the work is loaded with variety of texture and mood. Dramatic and substantial, it proves most effective even though it expresses variations in a stop-and-start manner. Mudra by Bob Becker integrates its featured player more closely with the four battery mates that surround him. It adapts Indian musical techniques to Western ends, essentially deriving its fabric from an initial upward chord progression. Its nice enough to hear if not all that convincing in unfolding or architecture. Edgard Vareses Ionisation is of course the distinguished ancestor of all else heard this evening, and it remains a splendid, riveting listen after all these years. The New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble, ably led by Frank Epstein, gave it a deliberate presentation that did not skimp on excitement. And they played everything else on the program exceedingly well. Soloists Jeff Means (in the Colgrass) and Matt Grubbs (in the Becker) were charismatic and highly capable. |