Jennifer Koh’s Ambitious “Pandemic Project”

courtesy of Naxos of America

At the beginning of this month, Cedille Records released its fifteenth album of performances by American violinist Jennifer Koh. Alone Together is the name of a project she launched in response to the coronavirus pandemic and the financial hardship it placed on so many in the arts community. 39 composers each contributed a single short composition (all less than six minutes in duration, a few less than a minute), which Koh added to her repertoire for solo recital performances. Participants included established composers such as Du Yun, Vijay Iyer, Tania Léon, George Lewis, Missy Mazzoli, Ellen Reid, and Wang Lu. They, in turn, recommended that Koh approach emerging composers, including Katherine Balch, Nina Shekhar, Lester St. Louis, Rajna Swaminathan, Darian Donovan Thomas, and Sugar Vendil.

Given the broad extent of participants, it is not surprising that, as of this writing, Amazon.com lists this item as “Temporarily out of stock.” (Think of how many “friends and family” purchases were made!) What is disconcerting, however, is that the hyperlinks for digital content (both MP3 and streaming) link to an Amazon Music Web page that contains only the first track of the album. (The same problem arises when one tries to use the Buy & Stream Here hyperlink on Cedille’s own Web page for the recording.)

Personally, while I am not a big fan of “digital listening,” I would say that there are advantages to having all 39 tracks at one’s disposal in digital form. I am not sure how the ordering of the 39 compositions across two CDs was decided; but the “program” determined by that ordering does not do any of the contributed works any favors. The sympathetic listener would probably be better off by first browsing the descriptions of the works in the accompanying booklet (which can be downloaded in PDF from the Cedille Web page). As specific descriptions pique curiosity, one can then pull up that particular track to see whether any expectations were satisfied.

Clearly, this is not how I have approached listening to Koh at any of her recitals that I have attended. Nor have I taken this approach with any of her previous recordings (my favorites of which have been the Bach & Beyond releases). However, different approaches to composition sometimes call for different approaches to listening; and one should consider how attention will best be facilitated, rather than perplexed.

To some extent my own approach to listening involved connotations of the album title. “Alone Together” was a popular song from the Thirties with music by Arthur Schwartz and words by Howard Dietz. In the booklet notes, Iyer (with his jazz background) was the only composer to pursue that connection; but his inventions pretty much concealed that source in both substance and style. Indeed, the only appropriation that registered with me involved a quotation of the opening theme from Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 24 (“Spring”) sonata for piano and violin in F major. That phrase was appropriated by Joungbum Lee for his contribution, entitled “hovering green,” which definitely goes well with Beethoven’s rhetoric in that sonata.

Most likely, further insights will arise during further listening.