Earplay Presents Final Concert of Season

Last night in Herbst Theatre, Earplay presented the second and final concert of its abbreviated 2022 season. The second half of the program was devoted to two world premiere performances, both of whose composers were present and engaged in a pre-concert conversation moderated by Bruce Bennett. The first of these had the coy title “I Am Not Prokofiev,” composed by Andrew Conklin on an Earplay commission. It was written as a solo composition for Earplay pianist Brenda Tom, who was recovering from an injury when the piece was written. The title reflected the use of fragments from the opening of Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 16 (second) piano concerto. The music was relatively brief but long enough for the attentive listener to enjoy its playful rhetoric.

The second world premiere was Mika Pelo’s “Abandoned,” composed for the full Earplay ensemble. Mary Chun conducted the instrumentalists Tod Brody (flute), Peter Josheff (clarinet), Terrie Baune (violin), Ellen Ruth Rose (viola), and Thalia Moore (cello) with guest artist Alison Lee taking the piano part. This music was written for Earplay with support from a Fromm Foundation commission. This was the one opportunity of the evening to experience the full ensemble. Sadly, it was also the longest piece on the program, leaving the impression that the composer had less to say than his overall duration sustained. Between his participation in the pre-concert conversation and his note for the program book, Pelo seemed better at talking about music than he was at finding the right time-span to engage the attentive listener.

The first half of the program presented a solo, a duet, and a trio. Of these, the most engaging was Reena Esmail’s “Nadiya,” composed for flute and viola. I first became aware of Esmail through “Rang de Basant,” which Sarah Cahill included in her Future is Female repertoire, also performed by Nicholas Phillips at last year’s San Francisco International Piano Festival. My past knowledge of Esmail also included “When the Violin,” the title composition on an album recorded by violinist Vijay Gupta. “Nadiya” is the Hindi word for “rivers;” and the two instrumental lines were inspired by an intersection of two different streams. Esmail’s thematic content was based on Hindustani music, but she did not overplay the origins. Rather, her composition sought out her own unique voice and succeeded impressively, particularly in the context of the music’s relatively brief duration.

The trio, composed by Tanya León, had the self-representing title “A Tres Voces.” The music left the impression of an exploration of a variety of contrasting dispositions. This exploited the distinctively different sonorities of violin, viola, and cello; but it was less engaging than “Nadiya.” Nevertheless, it was far more satisfying than the remaining work from the first half of the evening, Stacy Garrop’s “Phoenix Rising,” which seemed to be more interested in mythology than in how a myth can be conveyed through music.