Month: October 2010

Robert Spano returns to Benaroya Hall

By R.M. Campbell

Robert Spano is a familiar figure in Seattle, not only at Seattle Opera, where he conducted the 2009 “Ring,” but also the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, which he conducted Thursday night at Benaroya Hall.

Music director of the Atlanta Symphony, Spano is a highly regarded conductor particularly known for his advocacy of contemporary music. His program at Benaroya was hardly brand-new but all four works were born in the 20th century and became some of the most famous and celebrated music of the era. The original order was Copland’s suite from “Appalachian Spring,” followed by Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” Ravel’s Piano Concerto in D and Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements. By opening night that had changed, with Stravinsky opening the program, the Gershwin ending it, and the Ravel and Copland in the middle. Certainly the motivation was to ensure that people would stay through the second half — Stravinsky is still a bogey-man for some — but the result was felicitous.
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John Cage and the Seattle Percussion Collective at Gallery 1412

John Cage’s music is a source of great frustration for me. It Is paradoxically rigid and fluid. Unpredictability reigns with decisions left to chance and the whims of musicians. Cage’s instruments are familiar — often used in unfamiliar ways. Just as often, Cage doesn’t use instruments at all but relies on ordinary objects to create the sounds that populate a work. Nevertheless, Cage’s music is capable of conjuring a powerful, elemental reaction. Every Cage piece I’ve heard generates extreme feelings of awe and deep spiritual awareness.

This was the case recently with the Seattle Percussion Collective. The ensemble presented a series of late Cage pieces last Friday at Gallery 1412 at the Capitol Hill and Central District collision. The Collective is not quite two years old. Since setting out in 2009 the group has garnered critical praise and accumulated a loyal following. Percussion music, like Gamelan music, tends to cater to a niche audience. But the Collective seems to reach beyond their niche audience.
Continue reading John Cage and the Seattle Percussion Collective at Gallery 1412

Seattle Percussion Collective plays Gallery 1412

Seattle Percussion Collective Plays John Cage from gatheringnote on Vimeo.

Last night the Seattle Percussion Collective played a show of late John Cage percussion works at Gallery 1412 at the collision of Capitol Hill and the Central District. I’ll be writing a longer post about the experience later today.  In the meantime I urge you watch the video above — a performance of two composed improvisations played simultaneously. If you have even a passing interest in percussion music the Collective is playing another show tonight at the Good Shepherd Center’s Chapel Performance Space. The music won’t be Cage, but there will be a number of premieres for percussion and other instruments, including Greg Sinibaldi’s Quintet for Percussion and Piano. Since they formed in 2009, the Seattle Percussion Collective has generated a loyal following. Gallery 1412 was almost completely full. Dale Speicher told me last night that their Chapel performances have always generated big crowds. If you go to their Chapel performance, it would be wise to get their early.

The show starts at 8 PM. The Chapel Performance Space is located in the Wallingford Neighborhood at 4649 Sunnyside Ave. N, 4th Floor, Seattle, WA.

World premiere plus Dvorak’s 7th from SSO

Violinist Elmar Oliveira

By R.M. Campbell

The Seattle Symphony premiered another work, this time by Aaron Jay Kernis, in the Gund/Simonyi set of commissioned works to celebrate the final year of Gerard Schwarz’s directorship of the orchestra, Thursday night at Benaroya Hall.

Unlike some of its predecessors in the series, Kernis’ “On Wings of Light” is bombastic, urgent, bright. It is over seemingly moments after it starts. If ever a piece was a curtaion-raiser, this is one. Kernis writes in the program that the piece was inspired by words of the 18th-century philospher and scientist Johann Heinrich Lambert: “I take on wings of light and soar through all spaces of the heavens. I never come far enough and the desire always grows in me to go farther.” Perhaps, but I got little sense of wings of light and soaring through the heavens. Rather the work is more like blasting your way to any destination. There may be little poetry or subtlety, but it was fun to be along for the ride.
Continue reading World premiere plus Dvorak’s 7th from SSO