jwilzewske: outreach

Friday, March 6, 2009

Chugach Brass: Chamber Music for Sugpiaq (‘Real Persons’)

Chugach Mountains, view from Anchorage, AK, in 1930/32, photo: Walter Hodge, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks

T he Chugach Brass Ensemble delivered a wonderful performance at University of Alaska Anchorage on Thursday evening to an enthusiastic audience. About 120 people braved the cold, the thick snowfall, and the icy roads to attend.

Chugach Brass: Sweeney, Weeda, Pierce, Epperson

Christopher Sweeney, trombone
Linn Weeda, trumpet
Cheryl Pierce, french horn
Dean Epperson, piano (guest)

T he program was widely-varied, including early music, Weeda’s arrangement of Bach’s Contrapunctus 16, a romantic piece by Debussy’s colleague Paul Dukas, and several new compositions.

A Philharmonic Fanfare (2003)….Eric Ewazen
Be My Love, A Suite of 16th Century French Chansons (2000)…. arr. Linn Weeda
Tru, tru, tru avant il fault boire!....Jean Richafort
Au joly boys je rencontray m’amye….Clemens (non Papa)
Jouyssance vous donneray….Antonine Gardane
Baises moy tant, tant….Adrian Willaert

Folksong (1972)….Bruce Broughton
Trio for Brass (1961)….Robert Sanders
Villanelle (1906)….Paul Dukas
Recreation for Trumpet, Horn, Trombone and Piano (1958)…. Pierre Gabaye
Contrapunctus XVI (inversus), Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080 (1745)….J.S. Bach (arr. Weeda)
Sonata for Trombone and Piano (1951)….George Frederick McKay
Fumeux fume (ca. 1380)……..Solage (arr. Weeda)
Trio for Brass (1996)….Anthony Plog

T he Ewazen ‘Fanfare’ is predominantly consonant triads interspersed with more dissonant harmonies (Copland-esque). The overall quality is assertive, gregarious, and extroverted—not frivolous, but intensely convivial. Very ‘brass-like’ in idiom.

W eeda’s beautiful 5-minute-long arrangement of French chansons illustrated the diversity of brass orchestration and textures. Also, a wide range in composerly ‘stance’—from the ribald ‘Tru, tru, trut’, to the tender ‘Au joly boys’ with Weeda’s mellow flugelhorn, to the exuberant horn-trombone duet ‘Jouyssance’, to the high-tessitura ‘Baises moy tant’ with Weeda’s brilliant piccolo trumpet. The brightness of the ensemble timbre is made even more dramatic by adding the piccolo trumpet on the top end. It lends a paradoxical impression of yet-wider harmonies—the as-written intervals do not have such wide spreads.

T he Broughton ‘Folksong’ was rendered with great empathy—lyrical and legato articulation without sentimental excess. Copland-esque. Sharp staccato trumpet stabs moderate the dark tones of the piano part. Weeda’s control of extended diminuendos was masterful and delicious.

O ne of the other salient musical features of this work include the frequent inclusions of slurred passages. Slurs throughout the work are used in two ways: 1) to move from one clear chord/pitch to another or 2) to move to indeterminate pitches as a gesture. In the simplest sense, slurs and legato playing provide a kinesthetic indication of fluidity within the work.

T he several Weeda arrangements showed off Weeda’s skill in orchestrating nuances that differ between the instruments. Low fifths thicken the sound.When the trumpet could otherwise be too strident, he softens the effect with the horn and trombone. Very nicely written and performed.

T hemes in much brass literature tend to maintain consistent relationships between pitches, often arranged in ascending or descending patterns. Both linear and vertical dimensions exist, of course, but can have different functions in brass works, compared to string ensemble lit. In the linear dimension, a theme is repeated, and the melodic contour varies according to the registral placements. Sometimes it is presented as an ostinato figure with a consistently repeated ascending contour and a recurring rhythmic pattern. This theme can also be combined with other elements to form a longer melodic line. Weeda handles these aspects with great skill.

T he other pieces were also new to me and interesting as a ‘casebook’ of recent writing for small chamber brass ensemble. Harmonies that are, in many places, ‘choral’ in texture.

I n the Sanders piece, the cadential formulae arise mostly from modern added-tone extensions beyond the tonic scale. Some modal intervals of fourths and fifths. By placing the “chorale material”, Sanders creates a sense of latent energy, even during the Adagio. Since we are expecting 8th note groupings in 4 (and the quarter-note pulse), the irregular feel of the rhythm in this movement gives a disruptive energy.

I n all, it was a wonderful evening—an intriguing sampling of recent chamber compositions for brass, and a fine introduction to Weeda’s abilities as an arranger. Wonderful, too, to experience such cultural diversity in the depths of winter in Anchorage.

T he ensemble takes its name from the Chugach (‘sugpiaq’) tribe that is indigenous to the Prince William sound area. Besides their roles teaching at University of Alaska Anchorage and playing with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, each of the performers is involved with local outreach and community music education efforts.

B esides his position as Principal Trumpet with ASO, Weeda is Music Director of the Anchorage Youth Symphony. His M.M. was from Boston University. Pierce received her M.M. from Temple University and performed French horn for 15 years in the U.S. Air Force prior to her current role in the horn section with ASO. Sweeney has M.M. and Ph.D. Mus. Ed. degrees from University of Miami and is currently Asst. Prof. of Music at UAA. Epperson was honored in 2005 as an MTNA Foundation Fellow, in recognition of distinguished service to music teaching. He has performed with Anchorage Chamber Symphony and Kenai Peninsula Orchestra.

T he incisiveness [of the bright timbre] must be used advisedly. However, this property can be used to make a theme salient. The attack can have an equally pointed, even dissonant, effect. One sees the extent to which the problem of balance is complex and difficult...”
— Charles Koechlin, ‘The balance of sonorities’, in Mathews, ed., Orchestration, p.142.

T he following five values operate through and with texts:
Will-to-Image: includes, at a minimum, images of past events and selves, as well as the inclination to move between several disparate worlds, what exists and what does not exist; what is real and what is not real... ;
Will-to-Improvise: includes not only how to invent in connection to the kairotic moment, but also how to confront failure and play within the dark spaces of the unknown, the unuttered, the ineffable;
Will-to-Intuit: the ability to disregard Reason, encouraging the role of emotions and feeling; the basis for inquiry and investigation; the curiosity-maker; the hunter; the willful accident;
Will-to-Juxtapose: the ability to contrast images and thoughts with one another, let them interact, cause them to conflict; the Bakhtininan 'centripetal force of language’; the power of metaphor;
Will-to-Integrate: includes synthesis, connection, parallelism, coherence; the beginning of transition to discourse; the Bakhtinian ‘centrifugal force of language’.”
— Joddy Murray, Non-Discursive Rhetoric, p. 140 [viz., the ‘assertiveness’ of brass players].

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Bruce Adolphe and Daedalus Quartet: Serious Joking Around

Bruce Adolphe and Daedalus Quartet at Missouri Southern State University, Joplin, 16-FEB-2008

L ike the philosopher Theodor Adorno, I say that every work of Art is a crime not committed. Art keeps us wayward artists off the streets.”
— Bruce Adolphe, 15-FEB-2008.

D o video games help you play as fast as you do?”
— Anonymous, audience member, age 9, question to violinist Kyu-Young Kim

Y es, well, video games couldn’t hurt; they probably do help with coordination and finger-speed. But I think it’s better to practice with your instrument and the music and start very slowly and get faster that way. Use your metronome to see how fast you get.”
— Kyu-Young Kim, supportive but directive response to young audience member at MSSU, Joplin, MO, 16-FEB-2008

Bruce Adolphe’s ‘Piano Puzzlers’ program recasts folk tunes and popular songs in the styles of famous Classical composers for call-in contestants. U.S. National Public Radio (NPR) personalities Robert Siegel, Susan Stamberg, and Nina Totenberg are the sort of guests who appear on Piano Puzzlers. Adolphe’s comic compositions are very popular with adult audiences. But they’re also tremendously well-suited to younger audiences and educational programs in schools. In fact, the kids are much better than the adults, at recognizing what folk or pop songs have been disguised in the ‘recompositions’. The kids’ superiority at this game is as empowering as it is unexpected, for the kids and parents alike.

It’s a joy to observe Bruce and the members of Daedalus Quartet interacting with a theater of about 150 kids and their parents—as I did yesterday, at MSSU in Joplin, Missouri. After a series of Puzzlers, Adolphe and Daedalus Quartet embark on a series of dramatic, thematic ‘Urban Scenes for String Quartet and Kids’ that Adolphe composed for young-audience programs such as this.

The movements include ‘Rush Hour’ (depicting the events of urban traffic, gridlock, and healthy and unhealthy responses to it), ‘Window-shopping’ (mostly from the perspective of the self-absorbed shopper), ‘Waking Up’ (replete with alarm-clocks, plus gaping yawn sounds by the violins), and ‘Dreaming’ (an aleatoric-antiphonal piece with distant horns and sirens in the aisles of the auditorium, plus massive audience-generated breathing effects simulating a snoozing cat-napper).

I t’s when you walk around and don’t buy anything at all, and the store-owner is furious.”
— David, audience member, age 7, answering Bruce Adolphe’s question ‘What is window-shopping?’

W ell, that’s correct! A far more complete definition, ‘A-causes-B’, than I usually get. Although I suppose you could go even further to say how window-shopping causes the store-owner to go bankrupt, and how enough merchants’ going bankrupt destroys the country’s economy, and ultimately ruins civilization. All of that is what you mean? Yes. But that’s more than we need for this movement of this piece of music that we’re about to play, entitled ‘Window-shopping’. Your definition is far more sinister than this music, I think. But it adds a dimension that we can’t now eliminate from our thoughts, right? Perfect! Thank you!”
— Bruce Adolphe, replying, to the great delight of David (who didn’t realize his blunt definition contained a joke so big as this) and the entire audience.

This family-oriented chamber music program is thoroughly enjoyable. Adolphe and members of Daedalus Quartet well and truly animate the event and clearly derive as much fun from it—from the unexpected directions that the program takes via the young participants’ contributions—as the kids and the parents do. This is not any conventional ‘out-reach’ or didactic ‘stuff that’s good for you’ program. It’s an hour of non-stop, genuine fun. Adolphe and all of the Daedalus Quartet members are lightning-quick wits and totally spontaneous. Fantastic!

G reat! But what’s with your shoulder-shrug thing at the end of whenever you let the alarm-clock ring? Next time, can you do the alarm without the shrug, do you think? Actually, leave the shrug in! It happens a lot in orchestras. At least in orchestra pits. People don’t want to admit it. The glock or the cymbal is waiting for their note, and finally it comes and they play it. And what was the big deal? [Shrugs.] Kind of ruins it for the other players, and for the audience, if they see the shrug. Says that everything else is small, too. Drives conductors crazy. Yeah, leave your shrug in. It’s perfect! ”
— Bruce Adolphe, instruction, to the 12 year-old boy who agreed, I’ll do your alarm-clock effect, No big deal, I can take a cue, What, This is all you need me for here?