Playing Politics

Since I'm reviewing a concert with an overt (and laudable) political theme — BluePrint's Saturday evening concert at the San Francisco Conservatory, titled "The Urgency of Now ..." — I think it appropriate to ask a decidedly political but often ignored question: Why make a distinction between students and professionals in a concert program? For example, the most memorable moments of Andrew Imbrie's From Time to Time were the recurring cello solos, played by Conservatory graduate student Michelle Kwon. The phrasing in each solo was exquisitely chiseled, imbuing the line with an ever-growing sense of urgency that culminated in a quasicadenza of striking lyricism near the end of the piece. Her careful pacing was especially compelling, as that passage coincided with a surprising harmonic shift in the music that seemed unusually wistful for Imbrie. Yet Kwon is not listed beneath the piece on the program, nor as an "artist" in the biography section. Her name only appears three pages from the end as a member of the New Music Ensemble, alongside three other cellists, in alphabetical order. In other words, there's no way to tell which students played on which piece. In the spirit of overt (and laudable) political themes, I will simply add that the entire ensemble performed with a clarity and attention to detail I'm used to hearing from professional ensembles. Their contributions to the performance should be listed clearly in the program so that listeners can more easily remember their names as they progress in their careers.

Tolling of the Dead

Zooming out to a broader political thread: Consider John Halle's Homage. The text consisted of the names of people killed during the Iraq war, some supplemented with brief biographical details and circumstances surrounding their deaths. Four speakers delivered the text in a variety of combinations, from calm, natural speech in alternation to something approaching the cacophony of pundits speaking over one another on — well, pick any 24-hour cable news station. This was certainly the riskiest piece on the bill. What type of musical setting, I wondered, could possibly be appropriate to accompany the names in the text? I had strong reactions to both Homage and John Harbison's Abu Graib, but it's difficult, if not impossible, to separate the external events themselves from "purely" musical impressions. At one extreme, I found myself becoming annoyed by perfectly ordinary performance practices that normally wouldn't sway my attention. For example, a glance from one of the speakers to the conductor, waiting for a cue to announce the next name in the list. Why, I thought, must the recitation of a list of casualties from an ongoing atrocity line up rhythmically, or at all, with the music? What could possibly add depth to hearing the names of the deceased "Daughters of Jamil Mohammed" or "Eric T. Jimenez" in this context? These are, however, specific forms of general musical questions that all composers, including myself, should spend more time contemplating. I admire both Harbison and Halle for confronting a fundamental quality of music that, unfortunately, many composers seem to wish didn't exist. Although Harbison's quotation of Silent Night toward the end of Abu Graib seemed formally clumsy and derivative of Charles Ives, the simplicity of the statement had a palpable force.

The passage of time makes Frederic Rzewski's Coming Together and Attica (1971) less problematic to comment on. For Coming Together, the music's seemingly endless circularity derives its beauty from a (quite literal) connection with the last line of the text, written by an inmate of Attica Prison, the scene of murderous rioting, in which he proclaims the "feeling for the inevitable direction of my life." In this performance, Carla Kihlstedt, as the speaker, lent a multifoliate theatricality to the inexorable unity of the ensemble passagework. There was a shrewd, methodical kind of erotic charge to Kihlstedt's stage presence, always moving her hand over her inner thigh at the line "... seldom employing histrionics except as a test of the reactions of others." William Hackenberg's electric bassline shored up the groove for this movement. All the music in this BluePrint concert was preceded by a preconcert showing of Outside-In, a gripping documentary about the people in contact with death row inmates at San Quentin Prison. This made for a full evening of politically charged film and music, which no doubt will continue as BluePrint continues to program provocative works like these.