BMOP Debuts Vijay Iyer Orchestral Works Album

Jennifer Koh with Gil Rose, conductor of the Boston Modern Opera Project (courtesy of BMOP)

According to my records, my last encounter with a release by the Boston Modern Opera Project (BMOP) took place in November of 2022 with the release of X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, a three-act opera composed by Anthony Davis working with a libretto by Thulani Davis based on a story by Christopher Davis. However, yesterday saw the release of Trouble, which marks the first release of an album of orchestral compositions by Vijay Iyer. Readers will note that the hyperlink in the last sentence leads to a Bandcamp Web page. This is because, as of this writing, the Web page on Amazon.com appears to be somewhat confused about the availability of the album!

The title of the album is also the title of a concerto for violin and chamber orchestra, which was composed in 2017 for Jennifer Koh’s The New American Concerto commissioning project. It is preceded by the four-movement “Asunder,” which was also composed in 2017, and followed by “Crisis Modes,” composed the following year for percussion and strings. Many readers probably know that Iyer tends to be associated more frequently with jazz; and this site reported on a trio performance with Linda May Han Oh on bass and Tyshawn Sorey on drum kit, which was live-streamed from SFJAZZ in April of last year. Iyer’s jazz has also appeared on ECM releases, the most recent of which to be documented on this site was Far From Over, which also included Sorey and first appeared in August of 2017. It is also worth nothing that ECM provided the platform for Iyer’s first recording in the “classical” genre, Mutations. This was released in March of 2014 and was his first ECM album.

After listening to Trouble a few times, I decided to revisit Mutations; and I am sorry to report that that latter emerged as more engaging than the former. This should not surprise readers. I am sure that I have not been the first to suggest that “jazz is chamber music by other means” (with the order of the two being chronological in music history, rather than suggesting any priority). Mind you, I continue to be impressed with Koh’s efforts to pursue new repertoire; and I regret that I have not had an opportunity to listen to her in recital since October of 2021, when she concluded that year’s PIVOT Festival, presented by San Francisco Performances, with a duo recital with Missy Mazzoli, who composed all the works on the program.

What this means, however, is that chamber music tends to be more in Iyer’s comfort zone than performances with large ensembles. Thus, even though “Trouble” was composed for a chamber orchestra, the interplay was never as convincing as any of Iyer’s chamber music or solo performances that I have encountered. Similarly, neither “Asunder” nor “Crisis Modes” comes across as much more than detached episodes, which, even in brevity, tend to overstay their welcome. While I appreciate Iyer’s adventurous undertakings, I look forward to his returning to his “comfort zone” in future albums, since I am sure that he still has much more to say through either chamber music or jazz combos.