Matthew McCright

So it was an interesting departure for McCright that his latest recording project was of music by Gene Gutche (1907-2000), a German immigrant who wrote some rather vivid works but did hew to a rather old school tonal idiom.  So I asked McCright to tell the story of how he became connected to Gutchë’s music and why he was passionate enough to devote an entire disc to it.

I first moved to Minneapolis in 2002. As a specialist in new music I began to become involved in the contemporary music scene in the Twin Cities. Naturally I met lots of composers and began playing their music (Mary Ellen Childs, Judith Zaimont, et.al.). They in turn connected me to other composers, and on and on it goes.

I eventually made the acquaintance of Abbie Betinis, composer-in residence at the Schubert Club (an national arts organization based in St. Paul, the twin of Minneapolis). It was through her that Gene Gutchë’s music entered my life. The composer and his estate placed the Schubert Club as the keeper of both his archive and legacy money left to create a performance incentive fund. Thankfully I was awarded money from the fund to perform a few pieces by Gutchë for concerts in the region.

I became quite taken with this music and as I researched more about the composer I discovered that none of the piano music has been recorded. In fact, very little of his work had been recorded despite the success he enjoyed during his life including several prominent orchestras programming his pieces. I decided to take on the task and eventually found that Centaur Records also had an interest in capturing this music for future generations. After some generous funding from the Ditson, Copland, and again the Schubert Club funds, the project has reached its finish.

So much of my work has been about the journey into a composer’s universe; trying uncover the authentic nature of their sound world. In the case of contemporary music, there is not a 200 year performing history to help guide you through the process. This is very much the same with Gutchë.

Although he is recently deceased, his music remains unknown to many. It has been a remarkable process to discover this music and share it with the world.

– Matthew McCright

Previously on MyBigGayEars:

Matthew McCright is Minnesota Proud

Robert Wood,

“Positions 1956” uses various 1950’s instructional manuals, all dealing with “positions”  (sexual, physical exercise, partner-dancing) as source material for a three-part 90-minute musical theater work that follows a year in the life of a newly-wed couple, capturing the end of post-war American idealism as it gives way to the looming uncertainty of the 1960’s. The work has an appealing semi-narrative structure.  There’s an overall sense of going from point A to point B, but with a distinctly non-narrative feel as various series of positions are explored. Part 1 “Marriage Manual” features 13 songs/numbers that deal with sexual positions (“Sideways,” “Doggie and Astride,” “Anal Intercourse”). Part 2 “Physique” uses various exercises as its structural elements (“Washboard Abs,” “Leg Extension”), and Part 3 “Social Dancing” is organized around a series of dances, starting with the tango, and ending with a hint of rock-and-roll.

Cummings’ music uses repetitive structures to great effect, deftly combining minimalist gestures with historical nods to Baroque music, marches and military music, and popular dance forms. There are wonderful musical moments, and some truly creative, funny musical juxtapositions.  Yet this is very much a libretto-driven opera, and what the music does best (as good theater music should) is illuminate the lyrics and the drama, and otherwise keep a low profile.

The lyrics by Korie are masterful. There are moments of great poignancy (“Missionary Position” in Part 1, where The Bride, in a dreamy haze, really does “lie on her back and think of England”) and also some hilarious touches (“Doggie” and “Neck Development”). The best of the rhymes rival those of Sondheim. Two that I particularly remember were: “Foreplay: some want less play, and some want more play,” and “Press your dress and shine your shoes, when you’ve got postpartum blues.”

The singers did a good job with parts that were not easy, both musically and physically. The Bride & The Groom (Amedee Moore and Jesse Blumberg) have to romp around in bed while singing, and Blumberg somehow managed to sing while doing pushups. Their characters don’t develop very much, but that seems about right for young newlyweds in 1956: they’re appropriately clueless. The other two characters, both nicely sung by Vale Rideout, are more nuanced and each sad in his own way: the closeted Trainer at the gym, and the could-have-been dancer now Instructor at the Arthur Murray studio. Stage Director Noah Himmelstein put a fine touch on the whole: there was a lot of physical action to be worked out, and it was done well, particularly in a small space that never felt cramped.

Problems? Sure, there were a few. I thought the musicians (violin, cello, one wind player, and electric keyboard) were under-rehearsed. Some of Conrad Cummings’ music is rhythmically very complex, and it didn’t always come out cleanly. While researching this review, I came across a YouTube video of a 1996 performance of “Sitting Position” (a song that appears in Part 1 of the opera) which made me realize how much better this music can sound when played with precision. There was also the issue of amplification: all the singers and musicians were miked and run through a mixer with added effects. Of course the keyboard had to be, but it would have been interesting to hear the others unamplified. I’m just not sure it’s helpful in such a small space, and it’s disconcerting to be sitting six rows away from singers but hear their voices coming from speakers rather than their mouths. That would also have eliminated another problem: the occasional nasty static when the remote mics worn by the singers got caught in their costumes or in the sheets.

But overall, “Positions 1956” is a good work that deserves more performances in coming years. UrbanArias’ first commission is a success.

– Scott Pender

Previously on MyBigGayEars:

Share the “Positions 1956″ with Conrad Cummings and Michael Korie

View excerpts of Conrad Cummings’ opera “The Golden Gate”

LIAISONS: Off to a Good Start

Saturday April 2
University of Maryland

Anthony de Mare kicked off his American tour of LIAISONS: Re-imagining Sondheim from the Piano at the University of Maryland’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center with fine performances of 14 new works. LIAISONS will eventually include short piano pieces written by 36 stylistically diverse contemporary composers, each work based on a Steven Sondheim song of the composer’s choice.

De Mare explains in his program note that Sondheim’s music has been a part of his own life as far back as he can remember, and that he had imagined something like this project for a long time. His comfort with and knowledge of Sondheim’s output is clear, not only in his well-crafted performances of the new works, but also in his refreshingly informal remarks from the stage between pieces. (By the way, can I just say here how much I appreciate the continuing trend of helping concert music audiences feel at home and relaxed with an informal attitude toward what performers wear and how free they feel to actually talk to an audience during a performance? Thanks to Anthony de Mare for keeping this trend going!)

The new pieces run the gamut from fairly straightforward presentations of the original tune (think Gershwin’s own arrangements of his songs) to clever de-constructions to  full-fledged virtuostic paraphrases (think Liszt).

Two standouts for me were the pieces by Bernadette Speach (“In and Out of Love” based on “Liaisons” & “Send in the Clowns” from A Little Night Music) and Fred Hersch (“No One Is Alone” from Into the Woods). Proving the old adage that “simple is best,” these two inherently pianistic works treat the original material in a tender, thoughtful manner that honors their integrity while showing us something new about them.

I was also glad that in “The Demon Barber,” composer Kenji Bunch tackled The Ballad of Sweeney Todd, long one of my favorites of all Sondheim works. Bunch says he was trying to pay “homage to the seething, menacing” original: mission accomplished.

William Bolcom’s “A Little Night Fughetta” nicely combines the title song from Anyone Can Whistle as a fugal subject with “Send in the Clowns” as its countersubject. Steve Reich’s take on “Finishing the Hat” from Sunday in the Park with George provided a welcome change from the solo-piano texture with a two-piano work, rendered Saturday night by live Anthony de Mare playing along with pre-recorded Anthony de Mare.

I also can’t help but mention the very entertaining “You Could Drive A Person Crazy” (from Company) by Eric Rockwell. This clever piece of theater demonstrates several things that might drive a pianist crazy, including 14-flat key signatures, chords requiring more fingers than most humans possess, and the interference  of a clueless, possibly malevolent, page turner (wonderfully overplayed by Amir  Khosrowpour).The piece brings the best of Victor Borge into the 21^st century.

What I found so interesting about all the pieces is that, despite the compositional processes applied to the original Sondheim material (including some pretty strenuous melodic fragmentation, rhythmic re-thinking, and re-harmonization), there’s no mistaking that the original material is Sondheim. (And this is all without the lyrics, which I’ve always thought were as original and inventive as Sondheim’s notes.) How is this possible?

I don’t know. If you can answer that question, you’ve just explained the genius of one of America’s most gifted composer/lyricists of all time.

Scott Pender is a Washington DC-based composer.

Previously on MyBigGayEars:

Speak, Tony! Speak!

Happy 80th Birthday Stephen Sondheim

Anthony de Mare, Power Pianist

A true American original, Harrison was a composer of great lyric gifts and a maverick who espoused “world music” before we called it that. He was also an ardent environmentalist and pacifist, a poet and Esperanto scholar, an accomplished calligrapher and painter, and an out, gay man in a time when that was not an easy thing to be.

This “mini-festival” was amazingly well attended — it was a great antidote to the commonly heard refrain “classical music/contemporary music is a dying art form which audiences no longer support.” If a series like this can prosper in DC, not always known for embracing new and different things, it’s a good sign!

The first program featured a preview screening of a new documentary by filmmaker and Harrison friend and collaborator Eva Soltes. The film “Lou Harrison: A World of Music” is informative and entertaining, and features interviews with Harrison, Merce Cunningham, and Dennis Russell Davies, among others. It also captures some very touching moments shared between Harrison and his lover Bill Colvig. It’s difficult to portray a life in 90 minutes, but I left this screening with a very strong sense of the man and the life he led. The documentary is not yet commercially available, but plans are in the works to release it on DVD.

The second event, a look at the influence of Indonesian gamelan music on Harrison’s work, featured fine performances by the Wesleyan University Gamelan Ensemble playing the instruments housed at the Indonesian Embassy. Unfortunately, the keynote address delivered by composer and Harrison scholar Bill Alves, plagued by audio troubles throughout, presented a chronological biography of Lou Harrison instead of focusing on the evening’s stated theme: the relationship between Harrison and gamelan. (The next night, Alves was much more comfortable and informative delivering extemporaneous remarks during stage changes at the concert.)

The concluding night’s concert was divided into two parts. The first half featured the Wesleyan gamelan players again, led by their music director Sumarsam, in two Harrison works combining traditional gamelan forces with non-Indonesian instruments. Pianist Lisa Moore gave a sturdy rendition of the first movement of the “Concerto for Piano & Javanese Gamelan,” a very non-Western concerto in which the piano, tuned to the gamelan’s tuning, participates more as a member of the ensemble than a stand-alone soloist. “Burbaran Robert” for trumpet and gamelan gave piccolo trumpet soloist Chris Gekker a chance to walk to various positions throughout the auditorium, playing Baroque-inflected figures from different locations. I found the theatrical effect of the lone trumpeter playing throughout the hall strangely touching: at the end, he simply walked down the aisle and disappeared.

For the second half, Angel Gil-Ordóñez led the Post-Classical Ensemble in two more substantial works. The first of these was the highlight of the evening: the monumental 1985 “Piano Concerto,” played with great intensity and beauty by pianist Benjamin Pasternack. Although this concerto was recorded in 1988 by Keith Jarrett (who commissioned it), live performances of it are rare. That’s a shame, because there’s a lot to like here. Memories of Brahms, Schumann, and even Beethoven work their way into the Eastern-influenced material in a truly original way. Pasternack brought a fresh interpretation to the piece (including an improvised cadenza in the first movement), and I also was able to hear things from the orchestra that I’ve never heard on the Jarrett recording. The virtuostic second movement “Stampede” is not to be believed: a crashing athletic game of chase between a drummer and the pianist, who needs the help of a felt-covered wooden “octave bar” to facilitate the incredibly fast cluster playing Harrison calls for. After the gorgeous time-suspending slow movement, the perpetual-motion finale was given an appropriately relaxed reading, quietly spinning itself out of existence.

The concert concluded with the “Four Strict Songs.” This 1955 work is based on four poems by Harrison himself, modeled after Navajo nature-praise songs, each set to a different five-tone scale (part of the “strictness” of the title), but achieving surprising variety as a set. They were given a fine performance by The George Washington University Chamber Singers.

The works of Harrison should be heard more often. They’re audience-friendly without ever being simplistic, they feel relevantly modern in a way that a lot of the music of the 20th century doesn’t, and they’re well written. If the audience for this festival was any indication, the interest is there, waiting to be satisfied.

Scott Pender is a Washington, DC-based composer.

Previously on My Big Gay Ears:

Harrison documentary debuts at National Gallery on February 26

CD Review: Lou Harrison, Scenes from Cavafy

Remembering Lou Harrison’s gentle queer spirit

The contemporary performing arts in New York have no better friend than GWEN DEELY.

A former staff member of the music publisher C.F. Peters and also Composers Recordings, Inc., Gwen wrote her masters thesis at Hunter College on John Cage.  For 22 years she coordinated an annual New Year’s Eve marathon reading of Gertrude Stein’s massive novel “The Making of Americans” at the Paula Cooper Gallery.  She also founded the annual John Cage Birthday Tribute, which has been going for 17 years now.  Gwen is in her fifth year as a member of the Stonewall Chorale and also currently sings with the Dessoff Symphonic Choir and at St. Joseph’s Church.

So for the rest of this post, I turn it over to Gwen and Her Big Gay Ears (and eyes, as well, since most of the photos are her own)…

WHAT BETTER PLACE ON EARTH to go to concerts than New York City? None, I say! Since I don’t particularly like my job, I spend much of my days planning my nights — at concerts!

Here are some 2009 highlights, great and small:

THE YEAR STARTED with Robert Ashely’s trilogy of operas at La Mama, an exquisitely intimate environment for his “Dust,” “Celestial Excursions,” and “Made Out of Concrete.” Done with minimal sets and maximum musical talent — Sam Ashley (Robert’s son), Robert Ashley, Thomas Buckner, Jacqueline Humbert, and Joan La Barbara, with Blue Gene Tyranny on keyboards in Dust. The operas evoke Gertrude Stein in rhythmic repetitions with mesmerizing layering of voices and the ensemble often swirling around the ruminating voice of the narrator. The audience itself was filled with luminaries, and it was a terrific start to the New Year.   (Steve Smith’s review for the Times: “Layered Dialogues on Effects of Old Age”)

IN FEBRUARY, pianist Nurit Tilles performed at Tenri, an art gallery friendly to musicians, with flutist Don Hulbert and cellist Arthur Fiacco. Their program included two songs related to animals, the quirky “Secret Life of Fish” by Gerald Busby and the equally quirky “(Unlikely) Aspirations” for flute and imaginary creatures by Kirk Nurock (who has also written pieces like Sonata for Piano and Dog). But the tour de force performance of the evening came in Alexandre Tansman’s Sonata No. 2 for piano, a knockout piece requiring exceptional musical chops of which Nurit has plenty! The audience literally gasped throughout at her technical wizardry.

IN MARCH, Meredith Monk’s “Ascension Variations” was performed at the Guggenheim Museum. I had the enormous good fortune to be part of it all because the Stonewall Chorale (the nation’s first gay and lesbian chorus) was invited to be part of the chorus (we have performed with Monk several times). The piece was performed twice in one day and we had several rehearsals at the Guggenheim when it was closed. (Night at the Museum-esque! It was rather surreal.) Monk referred to it as her “Ben Hur experience” since there were 120 participants including chorus, instrumentalists, dancers, a string quartet, performance artists, and her own ensemble.  Here she is with the Stonewall:

The experience defies description.  Working with Monk is exhilarating and life altering. She is as vibrant and creative as ever. It was rough rehearsing in the museum as we were all spread out through the spiral levels, but it came together without a hitch and was a glorious event for both audience and participants. (Gia Kourlas’ review for the Times: “Guggenheim Spirals, in Sound and Motion” And for photos, go to Flickr.)

APRIL WAS A STELLAR MONTH for events with BAM a beehive of activity for “Merce Cunningham at 90.”  Forever young, Merce invited Sonic Youth and John Paul Jones to join him (he performed with music of Radiohead and Sigur Ros a few years ago). There was a gigantic pod-like structure on the stage for the musicians, which seemed to dwarf all else, but it was an amazing experience nonetheless. Merce took bows in his black velvet jacket from a wheelchair. (Review and great photos at Brooklyn Vegan.)

Also at BAM was Jonathan Miller’s unorthodox stage production of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, sung in English (Robert Shaw’s eminently singable translation) with the finest freelance choral singers in the city who were dressed in casual clothes with the 2 choirs facing each other.  The listener is drawn into the drama of 2000 years ago as though it were taking place for the first time in front of their eyes.

AND AT CARNEGIE HALL in April, Terry Riley’s “In C” was performed for its 45th anniversary.  I had a bird’s eye view from a box seat. Let me tell you, there were a lot of leftover hippie men (bald with ponytails!) in the audience and on the stage. The highlight for me was watching the luminaries perform. Having been specially gathered by the Kronos Quartet in honor of the 45th Anniversary of the piece, they included Philip Glass, Jon Gibson, Terry Riley, Lenny Pickett, Stuart Dempster, and Wu Man, among many, many others. The main keyboardist, Katrina Krimsky, was decked out in her notorious long black gloves, and was the original pianist in 1964. She didn’t miss a beat, which is not easy to sustain for 94 minutes straight.  (Steve Smith’s review: “Complex Patterns Within a Simple Key”)

I HAD THE PRIVILEGE in June of singing in Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with the New York Philharmonic as a member of the Dessoff Symphonic Choir.  It was Lorin Maazel’s last concert as the orchestra’s conductor. There were many tedious rehearsals leading up to it; James Bagwell is a demanding and exacting rehearsal conductor, but also one I respect tremendously. The work is actually so demanding that during one rehearsal he strained his arm so much that he had to use ice and a bandages for a few weeks afterwards. Yet that is how strenuously we all worked. The dress rehearsals were quite amazing (the stage was extended, it is after all the “symphony of a thousand”) and witnessing Maazel’s last rehearsal and last concert was historic. A conductor of great technical expertise and calm demeanor, we had only to watch the tip of his baton and all was revealed. Though we sang the symphony four times, I never tired of it.  Here’s a photo from one of the rehearsals:

THE GREAT MERCE CUNNINGHAM passed away on July 26. The week after that, the MCDC performed two free concerts in the River to River festival. Hundreds of people (many of them alumni of the dance company) flocked to witness what was an extremely emotional event. There were two platforms for the dancers, but if you sat in the right spot you could see both platforms at once (like his recent events at DIA Beacon). The dancers themselves were obviously shaken but resolved to perform. In the middle of the site-specific event, they performed 4’33” in honor both John Cage and Merce Cunningham. It was a stunning and emotional tribute.

IN AUGUST, Rhys Chatham’s “Crimson Grail” was finally performed in a free concert in Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park.  (Last year it was canceled due to torrential rains, when I alone sat in the downpour and waited and waited but to no avail.) The work is massive — scored for 200 guitars plus one high-hat, which kept everyone locked on the same rhythmic strums. There were also four conductors placed strategically throughout the vast space. The audience (it was) was maxed out and overflowed into the streets. It was visually as well as aurally spectacular because the stage was swathed in pink (ie crimson) lighting. It was a quintessential New York City event.  (Review and photos at the Brooklyn Vegan.)

ON JOHN CAGE’S BIRTHDAY (September 5) the 17th annual John Cage Birthday Tribute took place at St. Mark’s Church, in association with the Danspace Project. This year was elegantly simple: guitarist Kevin Hufnagel performed an improvisational piece for prepared guitar, Nurit Tilles performed the legendary 4’33,” and then David Vaughan (Merce Cunningham’s archivist) gave an eloquent introduction to the evening’s full length film “Cage/Cunningham” by Elliot Caplan.  The heat and humidity did not prevent the space from being filled to capacity, with people waiting outside for the opportunity to get in if anyone left. It was a fitting celebration in honor of two legends who spanned two centuries.  Here’s a video of Kevin’s performance.

GOD BLESS BETTY. They’ve been around over 20 years performing an idiosyncratic fusion of rock, jazz, and blues and are still going strong in spite of some members’ health setbacks. I saw them once again on September 24 at the Highline Ballroom. Gloria Steinem (braless!) was on hand to introduce them and Lesley Gore made a brief guest appearance singing the theme from the “L Word.” It was an absolute hoot. The highlight of the evening, however, was the encore where they invited an older woman from the audience onto the stage while they sang the Beatles tune “I Wanna Be Your Man.” I almost died laughing, enjoying it so much.

WE ROSE AGAIN IN OCTOBER as Meredith Monk’s “Songs of Ascension” had another performance, this time at BAM. The space was very different and it required a different mindset from the Guggenheim performance, but was equally as transformative. Video projections by Ann Hamilton enveloped the audience as well as the contemplative sounds of the percussion, Todd Renolds’s String Quartet, and the Monk Ensemble. (Allan Kozinn’s Times review: “Bending Melodies on the Way to an Otherworldly Quest”)

DURING NOVEMBER Bang on a Can’s co-founder Julia Woolf celebrated her CD new “Dark New Ride” in a unique way: working her way from downtown to uptown, playing selected pieces from the CD in different venues — for free and all on the same day. I was able to get to the last stop, Faust Harrison Pianos on West 57 Street, for her piece for six pianos, based on a tiny piano riff from the opening bars of Aretha Franklin’s classic hit, Think. It was an intensely physical performance with its relentless driving rhythms of rock. The piece was over 20 minutes long, the audience was ecstatic.

Also last month, Bora Yoon gave a phenomenal concert at the historic Church of the Ascension with New York Polyphony. Tracing the transcendental properties of sound from early music to today’s experimental new music, Bora uses a huge battery of instruments:  vox aeterna, shruti box, mutant horned, Stroh violin from the turn of the century, organ, carillon church bells, lyrical voices, sonic sundries, and all of music between. If you’ve never heard her, run do not walk  to anything she does.  (Here’s a review by Harry Rolnick from ConcertNet)

AND FINALLY there was Phil Kline’s reinvention of holiday ritual, “Unsilent Night.”  As is tradition, we met at the arch at Washington Square Park, boom boxes and iPods in hand. But this year we were delayed because Phil left his daughter’s stroller somewhere by mistake and had to find it.  Once things got going, the magic was everywhere. Phil’s been doing this event since 1992 and this year we even had a police escort.  Here’s a good video montage of the experience from YouTube:

The crowd was quite big, and we wended our way through Washington Square Park, eastward down 8th Street, and into Tompkins Square Park. The best way to describe the event, which anyone can join, is that the crowd becomes a walking sonic sculpture with cascading shimmering bell-like effects plus a hint of cantus firmus. And, I admit, I like my cantus firm!

Happy New Year everybody!!!