source file: m1427.txt Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 22:23:52 -0700 Subject: review: American Festival of Microtonal Music '98 From: Xou Oxno American Festival of Microtonal Music MicroMystery Tour '98 May 7-8, 1998 St. Pauls Chapel, Columbia University, NY, NY. day one Dubbed "MicroMystery Tour '98" by festival director and founder Johnny Reinhard, this years American Festival of Microtonal Music festival was held at New York's Columbia University, St. Paul's Chapel. Microtonal are the intervals smaller than a half step and every year the festival spotlights microtonal music from around the world. In contrast to recent years, most of this years pieces were in just intonation - intervals of whole number ratios. Atom Turning In The Heart Of The Sun by Sasha Bogdanowitch was a half hour epic journey. Sasha sang in an expressive invented language, danced across and around the musicians while he illustrated his tale. In a 20 tone 7 limit tuning in various instrumental combinations the musicians provided a backdrop for his performance. Extensively studies in eastern musical traditions like gamelan and North Indian singing as well as Western composition show as influences in the work. I'm *just* a sucker for the instrumentation and this is the one piece that totally knocked me out this year. Sasha Bogdonowitch - voice Elizabeth Panzer - harps John Schneider - just intonation guitar Judith Hershman - just intonation marimba Andrew Bolotowsky - flute Jennifer Devore - cello Johnny Reinhard - conductor Virgil Moorfield's (Slight Return) tread the same territory as his Tzadik release "The Temperature in Hell is Over Three Thousand Degrees". Using a 48 tone equal temperament tuning in a "coloristic" way, he still attacks the keyboard like the drummer he is. The band was in attack mode too: Cellist David Eggar and violinist Tom Chiu aggressively bowed their instruments, guitarist Steven Antonelli played lines full of large interval jumps. At one point, Eggar picked up a bass guitar and after a burst of dissonance, proceeded to bow the instrument with an ebow and tune the strings down. By the end of the work, the whole band was bending notes, unwinding strings, sliding all over the place. Before performing the piece with his ensemble, the composer informed us that although the he was going to explore a psychoacoustic phenomenon called Just Noticeable Difference, the piece was really inspired by a beetle that flew into his ear once. Virgil Moorfield Ensemble: Tom Chiu - violin David Eggar - cello Evans Wohlforth - guitar Tim Otto - baritone saxophone Virgil Moorfield - synthesizer John Schneider played Lou Harrison's Suite #2 for Guitar. Each of the five movements required a different tuning. Schneider handled this with two guitars, one with interchangeable fingerboards. Suite #2 for Guitar is related to the Suite #2 on the Just West Coast cd - Threnody and Waltz for Evelyn are the common movements. As always, Harrison's music is a joy to hear, much of his music is lush and beautiful and stylistically is influenced by both European and Asian music. Schneider, of course, did extreme justice to the music. Schneider also performed his arrangement of Fratres by Arvo Pärt, was rearranged for viola, guitar and cello in just intonation. With the trio spread out a bit - the cello drone was a few feet back , the musicans arranged in a diamond - the chapel bounced back a lot of the pitch creating a shimmering cloud of meditation. Anastasia Solberg - viola John Schneider - just intonation guitar Jennifer Devore - cello Rumanian composer Violeta Dinescu's Din Cinpoiu was performed on viola by Anastasia Solberg. Spikey post-classical modern music. Quarter tones. Yipes! Like last years Odysseus Cello Concerto by AFMM's Johnny Reinhard, Adam and Eve is a new kind of theatre. Musicans act out the parts and improvise polymicrotonaly all over the chapel. Of note: While Paul Savior dramatically intoned the part of God into a microphone and guitar amp, ji guitarist Jon Catler picked a couple of chords for the opening section that made the hair on my arms stand up. Combine the sum and difference tones with St. Pauls ambience - there's more then a few seconds of reverb there, the resonance of the room probably added a few extra notes - and the result is a dense consonant chord. The effect was so stunning that some listener's later complained that the guitar was too loud. A tiny amp with the volume set to three: Lightweights! That was God talking, what did you expect??? Michiyo Suzuki was the perfect snake: crouching down, pointing her clarinet up, then down, standing up, wearing flowing legato clothing. Christina Coppola, who danced in last year's Odysseus as a Siren, returned as Eve. Her performance was equally expressive this year. Tree of Knowledge David Eggar, cello wore a mask while abusing his cello and Forbidden Fruit Ron Kosak, english horn, skronked some serious harmonics. Joshua Pierce produced rain by playing the inside of the piano. The inside of the piano is always fun and the AFMM director sez that 12tet is microtonal! Tom Chui and Matt Maneri, violins talked back and forth as cats. Even as a cat fight! A double role was filled by Skip La Plante: as Giant Sloth on double bass and Anteater, using a long tube as a bass didjeridu, pointing the instrument towards the floor, the sky, even the stereo mikes recording the entire event. Johnny Reinhard as Adam, the dancing bassoonist. I realise that there aren't too many bassonists that dance at all. In high school, I played bassoon for a few months before the end and there was a guy trying to get me to play in marching band! JR danced his way into history with his light footed performance and new works like this should be performed more often. Pretty funny too! Of course Reinhard's solo was mind blowing too. Dyads and triads on the bassoon. Everybody should do that kind of stuff on their horn. Eve - Christina Coppola: dancer, choreography Adam - Johnny Reinhard: bassoon God - Paul Savior: actor, Jon Catler: electric just intonation guitar Tree of Knowledge - David Eggar: cello Snake - Michiyo Suzuki: clarinet Forbiden Fuit - Ron Kozak: English horn Fate - Frank Malloy, Orlando Colon: djimbe Antelope and Sound - Don Conreaux: shofar, gong Wart Hog, Kudu - Tom Horgan: contrabass racket, bass sordon Birds - Andrew Bolotowsky: lutes Cats - Tom Chiu, Matt Maneri: violins Whale, Deer - Steven Antonelli: slide guitar, mandolin Giant Sloth, Anteater - Skip La Plante: double bass, bass didjeridu Rain - Joshua Pierce: piano Punctuation - Virgil Moorfield: percussion Set - Carol Lopresto and Orlando Brugnola Picks: Atom Turning In The Heart Of The Sun - Sasha Bogdanowitch Slight Return - Virgil Moorefield Suite #2 for Guitar - Lou Harrison Adam and Eve - Johnny Reinhard db 5/21/98 day two Gong Elegy (author unknown) was performed by Mysterious Tremendum Sacred Tone Ensemble with Don Conreaux as gong master of ceremonies. A rather beautiful mysterious affair, very much like a ritual. A pair of monks glide in playing their instruments, a veiled woman sits playing singing bowls, a man in white appears from behind the altar and shouts while Conreaux in black and sunglasses swinging the gong around. Mysterious Tremendum Sacred Tone Ensemble Don Conreaux - gong, conch shell and horn Randee Ragin - Tibetan singing bowls, ting sha and voice Johnny Reinhard - bassoon David Smith - vocals Linda Wetherill - flutes, microtonal rods, voice Andrew Salcius - cello, voice Graham Hubbel - didjeridoo, conch shell, shakuhachi flute, harmonica, voice Doron Yomtov - didjeridoo, conch shell, ney, bells, voice Rebecca Pechefsky struggled through four of J.S. Bach's Preludes and Fugues from the Well Tempered Clavier in Werkmeister III. The performance was so tentative at first, Pechefsky seemed to either have a case of stage fright or she was sight reading the pieces. Towards the end as she gained confidence, the harpsichord started to slip out of tune. James Tenney"s Spectrum II for wind quintet was a gem. Full of long droning tones, pieces like this are perfect for the resonant St. Pauls Chapel. The chapel must have a decay of 10 or 15 seconds making Spectum II even more lush then it already is. Some people remarked later that the the piece "didn't grab them", "wasn't as good as his other works" or even that they flat out didn't like the piece. Nay folks, I thought the piece was beautiful. Very much in the relm of Morton Feldman or La Monte Young. The work used an 11 tone 19 limit harmonic just intonation tuning. ratio 1/1 17/16 9/8 19/16 5/4 21/16 11/8 3/2 25/16 13/8 7/4 cents 0 105 202 298 386 471 551 702 773 841 969 Andrew Bolotowsky - flute Ron Kozak - English horn Michiyo Suzuki - bass clarinet Johnny Reinhard - bassoon Greg Evans - French horn After years of hearing bad 1/4 tone music, neo-classical Cozenage by Howard Rovics was quite a relief. I particularly liked the up tempo last movement. Andrew Bolotowsky - flute Johnny Reinhard - bassoon Judith Hershman - marimba Howard Rovics - synthesizer Johnny Reinhard intoned Harry Partch's December 1942 with John Schneider playing his adapted guitar. It's always a joy to hear Partch performed, but I miss hearing his voice. I look forward to hearing Schneider's forthcoming recording of the piece. Jon Catler's Sleeping Beauty started with him playing slide on a guitar "prepared" with a bridge in the middle of the neck. He'd play the play behind this bridge and the vibrations of strings on the other side of the bridge would be amplified by the pickups. In another section, while the rest of the ensemble droned, Catler played arpeggios while he stood on a wah wah pedal. Not the wacka-wacka of Eric Clapton on White Room but a way of focusing the chord. In other sections, melodies more closely resembled the melodic material found on the Birdhouse tape and the Catler Bros. cd "Crash Landing". The acoustic instruments really should have been amplified: Catler and ensemble turned in a fine performance that was warped by the acoustics of the chapel. Jon Catler - electric just intonation guitar Johnny Reinhard - bassoon Young-Ling Chan - bassoon Skip LaPlante - canon/dulcimer Picks: Gong Elegy (author unknown)- Mysterious Tremendum Sacred Tone Ensemble Spectrum II - James Tenny December 1942 - Harry Partch Sleeping Beauty - Jon Catler Information about the American Festival of Microtonal Music: http://www.echonyc.com/~jhhl/AFMM/ db 5/25/98 This and other reviews of new music can be found at url: http://www.virtulink.com/immp/jux/j_index.htm * D a v i d B e a r d s l e y * xouoxnoREMOVE-THIS@virtulink.com * * J u x t a p o s i t i o n E z i n e * M E L A v i r t u a l d r e a m house monitor * * http://www.virtulink.com/immp/lookhere.htm -- * D a v i d B e a r d s l e y * xouoxnoREMOVE-THIS@virtulink.com * * J u x t a p o s i t i o n E z i n e * M E L A v i r t u a l d r e a m house monitor * * http://www.virtulink.com/immp/lookhere.htm