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[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy
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[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy
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[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy
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[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy
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[MUSIC REVIEW] Bang on a Can Marathon, MASS MoCA
7.27.08
MASS MoCA
BANG ON A CAN MARATHON
Saturday, July 26
by Seth Rogovoy
(North Adams, Mass., July 27, 2008) -- A couple of hours spent at this summer's six-hour-plus annual Bang on a Can Summer Marathon at MASS MOCA revealed multiple pleasures and musical excitement. In this era of "been there, done that" -- or perhaps more aptly, "been there, heard that," it's a truly wonderful experience to sit back and hear new (or old-as-new) and exciting sounds that one never thought could exist.
And that is in large part what Bang on a Can is about, and the marathon is structured as a showcase of these sounds. Drawing from the fellows at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival as well as the festival faculty, members of the Bang on a Can All-Stars (several of whom are faculty members), composers and special guests, including this year's new-music pioneer Terry Riley, the marathon is a veritable sampler of surprising possibilities in music.
For example, Christopher Adler's Ecstatic Volutions in a Noon Haze added cross- and polyrhythms and clarion calls by violins and flute piercing through an underlying pulse constructed very much like a Terry Riley-by-way-of-Philip Glass underpinning. Morton Feldman's O'Hara Songs featured poems and music that separately might not have been successfully -- the music too abstract, the poems too dark and gloomy -- but combined, with Jeffrey Gavett singing over music that illustrated O'Haras words and the snowy, icy feeling supplied by the violins, lent an overall feeling of completeness to the work, rendered at an appropriately glacial pace.
Gutbucket's Ken Thomson had a turn when an ensemble played his seasonal.disorder, which combined rock dynamics, a jazz aesthetic, and classical techniques to construct its very own vocabulary that was instantly accessible on a gut level. The strings established a pattern that was punctured by percussive blows, and the guitar and clarinet pierced the strings in unison, while the drums gave the piece a martial tinge, as the composer's thoughts went to war.
The evening's highlight was undboutely Shelter, a collaborative, multimedia presentation drawing upon the talents of composers Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, and David Lang -- the founders of Bang on a Can -- along with filmmaker Bill Morrison, who specializes in decaying images, author Deborah Artman, and projectionist Laurie Olinder. Using enough musicians to qualify as a chamber orchestra (conducted by Brad Lubman), the work, examining the concept of shelter and housing from various perspectives, was quintessential Bang on a Can music -- showcasing Gordon's fondness for Sonic Youth, Wolfe's for the Beatles, and Lang's for Brian Eno. Those influences shone through, but were incorporated into works that bore the signature imprints of their creators.
The marathon also included the participation of landmark minimalist composer Terry Riley in performance of several of his works, and an evening-ending foray through works by Frank Zappa.
Seth Rogovoy is Berkshire Living's editor-in-chief and award-winning music critic.
8/1/2008
Nice review but I'm writing to comment on the Death Watch. Y'all should consider yourselves lucky that at least you have a crosswalk and a sign. We have two crosswalks at lights that are situated exclusively for the convenience of cars and inconvenience of pedestrians. If you want to cross where its logical you have to literally play Russian Roulette as there isn't even stop sign to slow traffic down! The pedestrian unfriendliness of NA is my pet peeve!! -- KBM
From IP address: 208.49.151.4
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