Zach Carstensen

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.
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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

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.
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Alan Gilbert on Mahler’s 6th

Alan Gilbert and the NY Phil play Mahler’s 6th Symphony at the end of this month. This short Q&A on the subject comes courtesy of 21C Media Group.

Question: You’ve described the Sixth as possibly your favorite of Mahler’s symphonies. Why?

Alan Gilbert: It’s a very, very pessimistic work that paints a very realistic picture of life’s ups and downs and the search for happiness and meaning. For the particular protagonist in the Sixth Symphony it ends in utter despair, and without hope, which is quite rare in music and art. Usually there is some shred of optimism left! But this piece ends in utter devastation. That’s not what I like about the piece, of course! But the work is such a statement, and is such a powerful expression of life’s experiences; it is an important and indisputably great work.

Q: You’ve already performed the First and Third Symphonies with the New York Philharmonic, and will play the Sixth this week. Later in the season you’ll also do the Fifth. Are you hoping to do all of the Mahler symphonies at some point with the orchestra?
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The Muti era begins

I’m back from a short visit to Chicago. While I was there I had the chance to hear Maestro Muti lead the Chicago Symphony in their first subscription concert of the season. The buzz around Muti and the CSO is intense. Banners with Muti’s mug hang on just about every light pole in the Loop. Bus stop shelters have either audio or video advertisements for the CSO. A week prior 30,000 people ventured downtown to hear Muti lead the CSO in a public concert. All of this attention is expected of course. The CSO is a world class symphony with a world class conductor. The bar for this new partnership is set so high, one wonders whether the CSO and Muti and can meet expectations.

For the first subscription concert Muti reached deep into the bin of neglected scores. What he found was Hector Berlioz’s Lelio or (Return to Life). Lelio is the sequel to Symphonie Fantastique. It is the composer’s story of overcoming unhappiness and a “return to life.” At a basic level, Lelio is Berlioz’s rumination on art, society, and life. In between seemingly random musical interludes are wayward monologues. The monologues themselves are nearly as long as the piece’s music. Compared to Fantastique, Lelio is incongruous, episodic, rambling, and wildly self indulgent.
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Pacific Northwest Ballet opens new season

By R.M. Campbell

Despite the gloom of the economy and its effect on American culture from the Pacific to the Atlantic, Pacific Northwest Ballet opened its current season Friday night at McCall Hall with splendid dancing and splendid choreography.

This is the first year after the company decided, as a means of reducing expenses, to combine opening night, usually on Thursday, with the subsequent Friday night. According to officials, Thursday night was the least attended and the most popular night for trading. Undoubtedly many people complained: No one likes to move involuntarily. Yet, the task was completed and the house looked good. Certainly it was enthusiastic, clapping and laughing at every possible moment.
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SSO opens new subscription season Thursday night

By R.M. Campbell

A world premiere and Brahms symphony aside, the major attraction of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra’s opening gambit Thursday night at Benaroya Hall was pianist Yefim Bronfman.

Unlike some major pianists who rarely grace the symphony stage, Bronfman is almost a fixture. He made his local debut in the 1970’s as part of the SSO Sunday afternoon series dedicated to up and coming artists. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma also made his local debut on that series. He was a teenager while Bronfman had already crossed into his 20s. Just. Young they may have been but obviously brilliant futures were ahead. Bronfman’s vehicle then was Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto. On Thursday, and through Sunday afternoon, it is another Russian composer — Prokofiev.
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Off the shelf: Chicago bound

Next week I take off to Chicago for business and pleasure. The pleasure includes ushering in the Muti era with the CSO and Berlioz’s justly famous (and loved Symphonie Fantastique) and his less known Lelio. The Muti era is sure to build on the successes of Pierre Boulez and Bernard Haitink — the orchestra’s two post Barenboim placeholders. Neither will be gone from the Windy City’s classical music scene however. Boulez is slated to conduct a few weeks while Haitink returns for a series of Mahler concerts toward the end of the season.

Later this month CSO Resound will release a new recording of Verdi’s Requiem. The recording comes from a Muti led concert last season I believe. My favorite recording of the piece has always been Solti’s blazing performance on RCA. I expect this new recording to be as muscular, but with Muti’s signature elan.
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Cappella Romana turns to England

By Philippa Kiraly

As a rule we expect Cappella Romana to enlighten and enthrall us with music of the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches from the Middle Ages to the present day. For its first concert of this season, it turned to the English church choral tradition of the Renaissance in a fascinating, moving performance directed by a guest conductor from England, Guy Protheroe.

Choosing Holy Rosary Church in West Seattle for the venue Saturday night, a place where the choir has sung before, gave the requisite reverberation to allow the music to bloom, though it made words very hard to distinguish.
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Schwarz opened his farewell season Saturday night

By R.M. Campbell

After nearly three decades of association with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz is saying goodbye. This season will be his last as music director, although he will return to the SSO podium in subsequent seasons as conductor laureate.

The annual gala Saturday night at Benaroya Hall, which raises several hundred thousand dollars every fall for the orchestra, was dedicated to Schwarz. The first piece, “The Human Spirit,” was written by him, and the second, a cello concerto written by the SSO composer-in-residence Samuel Jones, was performed by Schwarz’ son Julian. The closing work, a suite taken from Strauss’ opera “Der Rosenkavalier,” was arranged by Schwarz. The only piece on the program which did not bear any involvement with Schwarz, except as a conductor, was Mahler’s song cycle “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.”
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