JIJI: A Delightfully Eclectic Debut Recital

JIJ and her acoustic guitar (photograph by Marty Bra, courtesy of San Francisco Performances)

Last night guitarist JIJI made her San Francisco debut under the joint auspices of San Francisco Performances and the OMNI Foundation for the Performing Arts. Her repertoire is as imaginatively broad as is the scope of her technical skills. She is also one of those rare performing artists that can introduce selections without saying either too little or too much. Since there were several changes to the program that had been printed, that latter skill was essential in order for the audience to appreciate the many aspects of what her performance skills were capable of doing.

While most of her selections were for acoustic guitar, she also had an electric instrument as well as a laptop. That latter was necessary for what was my personal favorite on the program (which was one of the items that did not make it on the printed page). That selection was “Electric Counterpoint,” the third in a series of compositions by Steve Reich with two-word titles where the second word was “counterpoint.” These pieces are often performed by a soloist playing against some relatively large number of prerecorded tracks. However, there have been some stunning performances in which each of the contrapuntal voices is given a “live” performance.

The “electric” part of the title refers to electric guitar. My first encounter with a “live” account of “Electric Counterpoint” remains my most memorable. It took place in January of 2013 when the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players presented a concert at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM). The performance was prepared by David Tanenbaum, currently Chair of the Guitar Department at SFCM. It is worth my while to quote some of the account I wrote at that time for Examiner.com:

This brought together fifteen of Tanenbaum’s students (past and present) to perform “Electric Counterpoint.” The solo part on electric guitar was taken by alumnus Travis Andrews (M.M., 2009) …. The two bass guitars were also electric, and all other guitars were acoustic. Tanenbaum conducted the entire Ensemble.

What was most impressive about this performance was the clarity of the individual lines. One could appreciate the fine detail behind the texture established as context for the soloist. This was probably due, at least in part, to the spatial separation of the performers. With all that detail so evident, one could then better appreciate the solo line and its relationship to that context.

(Last night I learned that Tanenbaum has arranged subsequent one-to-a-part performances of “Electric Counterpoint” for several occasions at SFCM.)

Returning to present-day, I have to confess that I was as impressed by JIJI’s “solo” approach to this composition as I had been to the “all live” performance I had experience at SFCM. Indeed, clarity of articulation on her instrument (acoustic or electric) was JIJI’s “strong suite” throughout the entire program. One could almost say that polyphonic intricacy was her “bread and butter,” since her encounters with an accompanied melody line were few and far between.

The other high point of the program came with the world premiere performance that followed the intermission. The title of the composition was “Guts and Guile” (supposedly appropriated from Elizabeth Taylor). The work was composed by Michael Gilbertson, who came to know JIJI when both of them were graduate students in the Music Department at Yale University. He was on hand last night to introduce the music to the audience; and I would definitely appreciate having further opportunities listen to the piece, whose engaging qualities included well-managed brevity.

Nevertheless, I have to confess that JIJI had compiled so many works into her program, each of which had its own set of distinctive features, that the entire evening constituted a major overload on memory. Thus, just as I was beginning to relish the qualities of one selection, she would be moving on to the next one! Furthermore, if Gilbertson accounted for the “immediate present” in his contribution to the program, JIJI began the program with a transcription of sacred polyphony by the early seventeenth-century composer Claudia Sessa.

The “bottom line” is that last night’s program deserves to be released as a recording, since that will be the only way an attentive listener can fully appreciate both the breadth and the depth of JIJI’s repertoire.