Having written yesterday about the video performance of Sō Percussion (which Wikipedia insists of calling “So Percussion”) being served by the Meany Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Washington in Seattle, I decided to let my curiosity get the better of me and give it a viewing. The ensemble is the quartet of percussionists Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting, all commanding a diversity of pitched and unpitched instruments, as well as other physical objects not intended for making music. The entire video is 40 minutes in duration, presenting excerpts from three compositions in the quartet’s repertoire. Its Web page will be available for viewing until next Friday, May 14, at 11:59 p.m.
The program began with the first movement of Angélica Negrón’s “gone.” Written on a commission by the quartet, at the time of the performance it was apparently the only movement of a work-in-progress effort. The score is intended as a reflection of the destructiveness of Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island of Puerto Rico, where Negrón was born. This was followed by the second and third movements of Vijay Iyer’s “Torque,” the only piece of the program involving only pitched instruments: two marimbas and two vibraphones. The program then concluded with the last three movements of Caroline Shaw’s “Narrow Sea,” jointly commissioned by the quartet along with soprano Dawn Upshaw and pianist Gilbert Kalish. Treuting served as “master of ceremonies” for the entire video, sounding too much as if he did not see a need for writing out or rehearsing his comments.
I have to confess that I am a sucker for percussion ensembles, probably because performance is almost always as much a matter of choreography as it is of doing justice to what has been notated in the score. This was particularly interesting in the case of Negrón’s movement, since each percussionist was joined by a “robotic” sound source. Since Treuting never explained what made these devices robotic, I can only assume that each had some form of audio sensor that would play a role in the sounds that would emerge. (“I listen, therefore I click.”) I suppose this was Negrón’s way of reflecting on the extent to which hurricane destruction is beyond the ability of humans to either anticipate or control.
Gilbert Kalish at the piano keyboard with two percussionists playing the interior of his instrument (screen shot from the video being discussed)
“Narrow Sea” was particularly interesting when the percussionists applied their mallets to the strings in the interior of the grand piano Kalish was playing. The interplay of such “interior” sonorities and keyboard work figured in some of the piano music composed by George Crumb (whose music Kalish has performed). However, I was more drawn to Upshaw singing Shaw’s reworking of the tune for “The Wayfaring Stranger.” I once had a chance to listen to Shaw sing rural folk music as part of a pre-concert discussion, leading me to conjecture that she invented her own tune by singing it for herself.
As far as “Torque” is concerned, I suspect it deserves more listening. First impressions came across as little more than abstraction for its own sake. Mind you, it is a far cry from the sorts of jazz improvisations that Iyer plays at the piano; and “Torque” is definitely not as referentially opaque as many of those improvisations. I am just not yet sure where the journey was or why it was worth traversing.
Nevertheless, there was more than enough to draw my attention to Sō Percussion; and I hope I shall not have to wait much longer for an opportunity to listen to them performing in a concert hall before a “live” audience.
No comments:
Post a Comment