Alabama Symphony Orchestra's, "The Road to Zappa," this coming Thursday
Hoodoo
show featuring So Percussion
By Michael Huebner -- The Birmingham News
May 10, 2010, 9:00AM
http://blog.al.com/mhuebner/2010/05/frank_zappa_paul_lansky_edgard.html
http://media.al.com/mhuebner/photo/so-percussionjpg-f18a36668656494b_large.jpg
Since it formed in 1999, the New York-based quartet, So Percussion, has
explored the sound worlds of David Lang, Steven Reich, John Cage and ASO
composer-in-residence Paul Lansky. The group will perform Threads, a
work Lansky composed for them in 2005, Thursday on an ASO Symphony 7
concert.
The composer Edgard Varese defined music as "organized sound."
Meant to get to the heart of shifting sonic trends in the 20th century,
and to his own avant garde music, Varese's definition should be firmly
kept in mind Thursday at the Alabama Symphony Orchestra's final Symphony
7 concert of the season, because you're not likely to bask in pretty
melodies along "The Road to Zappa."
That's Zappa, as in Frank Zappa, the mother of invention whose work in
orchestral and chamber music is sometimes overlooked, even by fans of
"Weasels Ripped My Flesh," "Freak Out!" and other satirical Mothers
albums in the 1960s and 1970s.
Two Zappa works, "Be-Bop Tango" and "G-Spot Tornado," will close the
decidedly percussive show. Before that, Varese will get air time with
"Ionisation," an all-percussion classic completed in 1931, and
"Hyperprism," a wind and percussion piece completed in 1923.
http://media.al.com/mhuebner/photo/lansky2jpg-27a92927d88be13f_small.jpg
Paul Lansky
Rounding out the show, and fitting nicely into it, will be three works
by Paul Lansky, ASO's composer-in-residence. Lansky worked with the New
York quartet, So Percussion, in creating "Threads," a 10-movement work
that looks, on the surface, like a Bach cantata.
The quartet will be on hand to perform the work, which they recently
recorded on the Canteloupe label for an August release. It may be the
most soothing piece on the program.
"The usual notion of percussion is that it's loud and noisy, so I
designed it perversely to be lyrical," Lansky said of the 30-minute
work, which has been performed numerous times. "I think it's one of my
best pieces. There are arias that are mallet movements with vibraphones
and crotales. Chorus movements are big, loud drum movements. They
alternate."
Lansky, whose work prior to his year with ASO was primary electronic,
has shifted his compositional output toward the acoustical. But two
pieces on Thursday's program will provide a glimpse into his daring,
pre-acoustic sound world. For "Ride," in which he tries to capture "the
sensation of being on a ride through different landscapes and contexts,"
eight speakers will be set up in Jemison Concert Hall. "Pattern's
Patterns," also for eight channels, alternates spoken letters (a woman's
voice) and numbers (a man's voice).
"There's a certain pattern that takes place," Lansky said of the letters
and numbers. "I encourage people to try to figure it out."
The concert starts Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Alys Stephens Center.
Tickets are $15-$25. Call 251-7727. Drinks will be served beginning at 6
p.m. and the after party starts at 8 p.m. To preview "Threads," click
here <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9MUc5KmaLY>.
--
Trout Mask Replica
WFMU.org or WMSE.org; because music channels on
Sirius Satellite, and its internet radio player, suck
Hoodoo
By Michael Huebner -- The Birmingham News
May 13, 2010, 10:27PM
http://blog.al.com/mhuebner/2010/05/road_to_zappa_filled_with_perc.html
ALABAMA SYMPHONY: SYMPHONY 7
"THE ROAD TO ZAPPA"
So Percussion
Justin Brown, conductor
Thursday
Alys Stephens Center
Four stars out of five
Billowing waves of computer-generated sound filled a completely dark
Jemison Concert Hall Thursday as Paul Lansky's "Ride" opened the Alabama
Symphony's "The Road to Zappa" program. An imaginative, playful work,
"Ride" took listeners on a kind of musical roller coaster, its ambient
string and percussion sounds circling the hall by means of eight speakers.
It was a fitting opener for a Symphony 7 concert, the Alabama Symphony's
repository for the new and unpredictable. The edgy series is the ideal
venue for the work that followed, Edgard Varese's 1929-1931 percussion
classic, "Ionisation." Composed for 13 percussionists playing 40
instruments, the work made Varese's case for defining music as
"organized sound." Drums, cymbals, chimes and keyboard instruments
shared the spotlight with sirens that wailed, converge and dissipated.
No doubt, Lansky garnered a great deal from Varese's pioneering efforts,
but his "Threads," a 30-minute, 10-movement percussion quartet goes in
entirely different directions. Performed with bracing intensity and
focus by the New York quartet, So Percussion, it can be tender and
gently atmospheric, even elegiac at times. Bowed vibraphones give it a
dreamy, soothing quality in several movements. In others, its
forcefulness and complexity suggest African rhythms. Clay garden pots
and saucers coupled with wood blocks and crotales (small pitched
cymbals) give it earthiness. Most surprising is the work's engaging
listenability, a quality often lost with percussion-only music.
Another Lansky computer piece, a quizzical array of spoken numbers and
letters titled "Pattern's Patterns," led into "Hyperprism," Varese's
work from 1923 that set new standards for grating dissonances. This
crashing, clashing music grabs your attention and doesn't let go. ASO's
wind and percussion sections added power and grit.
1960s and '70s rock icon Frank Zappa, much of whose work was influenced
by Varese, was represented by two works. "Bebop Tango," a three-minute
stylistic menagerie of jazzy riffs, loud percussion and laughing
orchestral musicians, is an adrenalin builder. "G-spot Tornado," a work
driven by repetition and brash orchestration, was the kinetic closer.