Voices of Music Sunday Morning Television

Given how busy my Sundays have been, I realized that I have not, until recently, had an opportunity to write about the Sunday Mornings at Ten series of YouTube concerts presented by Voices of Music (VoM) TV. This series of recorded video content is now in its third season; and, ironically, this weekend’s installment was not announced until the following Monday. Since this is a relatively quiet week, I wanted to make it a point to watch that installment, but could not get around to it until this afternoon.

Fiddle player Shelby Yamin “on stage” with Kaili Chen and Carlos Fittante with percussionist Peter Maund joining the VoM ensemble

The entire program lasted slightly less than half an hour and consisted entirely of compositions by co-Director Hanneke van Proosdij. The program was framed by two excerpts from a choreographed narrative entitled Wu Song and the Tiger. This was performed as part of the Metamorphosis program that concluded this season’s concert series this past April. Choreography was provided by Carlos Fittante and Kaili Chen, and the instrumental ensemble included pipa virtuoso Yihan Chen. The opening selection consisted of a scene consisting of a “Tiger Dance” followed by a “Tiger Battle;” and the concluding excerpt was the “Tavern” scene. Kaili Chen also danced the role of Wu Song, and the instrumental ensemble included a fiddle played by Shelby Yamin and percussion instruments performed by Peter Maund.

Imamyar Hasanov, Peter Maund, Hanneke van Proosdij, Alana Youssefian, Laura Risk, William Skeen, Cheryl Ann Fulton, and David Tayler 

This mixture of instrumental resources was also explored in the performance of “Musical Crossroads.” In this case the VoM players Proosdij (recorder), Alana Youssefian (violin), Laura Risk (violin), William Skeen (viola da gamba), and David Tayler (archlute) were joined by percussionist Maund, harpist Cheryl Ann Fulton, and Imamyar Hasanov on the bowed kamancha. The diversity of sonorities again made for very engaging listening, enhanced by the video directing the viewer towards the contributing instruments. Proosdij also played two of her recorder compositions, the solo “Why Ask Me?” and “Zephyrus” accompanied by Maund’s percussion.

Taken as a whole, this was far from a “typical Sunday morning listening experience.” The delay in releasing the video did not make the occasion any more typical! However, what struck me the most was how Proosdij’s approach to composition could collect such a “cultural diversity” of instruments and combine them in such a way that did not seem diverse at all. Now that I seem to have more time at my disposal on Sundays (and, for that matter, weekdays), I probably should devote more attention to these Sunday morning offerings!