Last night at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Technology and Applied Composition program hosted a concert of music by women in honor of International Women’s Day. The title of the program was The Future is Female; but there was no recognition of Sarah Cahill, who has used that title for both a recorded anthology of music by female composers and the titles of her own recitals, also featuring female composers. Sadly, this was but one of many instances that suggested that little attention had gone into either preparing of presenting this event.
Since my own attendance was through a live stream, I have to offer the disclaimer that this was by far the most poorly managed live stream event I have experienced since the onset of the COVID pandemic. However, streaming technology was just one of the elements of the evening that contributed to an overall amateur-night impression. The best part of the evening was that the individual offerings were short.
Nevertheless, it was clear that those taking the trouble to introduce their work at all had not seriously rehearsed how they would deliver that introduction. Also, there was no suggestion that a “stage director” would have seen to a smooth flow in the sequence of performances listed in the program. Even more disappointing was that any of the vocal performances came across as inaudible or incoherent. One would have expected that a program that includes the word “technology” in its name would have been better equipped to make sure that all of the nuts and bolts were in their proper places.
Drummer Tania Cosmo, Alan Jones on bass, Junhong Jung on electric guitar, pianist Gloriana Wolf, the string quartet of violinists Cuna Kim and Shintaro Taneda, violist Anna Brooke, and cellist Daniela Gonzales-Siu, and Roziht Edwards on electric cello (screen shot from last night’s streamed performance)
Sadly, even audibility would not have contributed much to the shallowness of both composition and execution that pervaded the first half of the program. (Full disclaimer: I did not remain connected for the works performed after the intermission.) I was at least mildly amused with how Lauryn Vania Kurniawan’s “Gone Wild” explored the idea of putting a string quartet and a rock band in the same place (without sounding like an imitation of The Beatles). I also perked up when Roziht Edwards’ electric cello performance (not in the string quartet) began with suggestions of Edward Elgar’s cello concerto.
Who would have guessed that a dead white male would steal the show on International Women’s Day?
No comments:
Post a Comment