There’s a certain pop-culture fascination with prison. We love to watch The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption, or Oz and wonder (at a safe distance, mind you) whether we could make it “on the inside.” But overlooking this slightly exploitative aspect, these movies and television shows — in particular, Netflix’ recent hit Orange is the New Black — help to expose the public to a system of state- and federally sanctioned abuse beyond the barbed wire.
Composer and vocalist Amy X Neuburg in the world premiere of her Hunger Strike, commissioned by and performed with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra on Saturday, April 30 at Palo Alto’s First United Methodist Church, sought to create a work of music that, much like a “prison flick,” could entertain but also give a voice to victims of an often unjust and overly harsh penal system.
The Oakland-based Neuburg, inspired by the recommendation of a friend on Facebook, took as her subject a timely event that occurred right in our backyard — the 2013 California prisoner hunger strike. Tens of thousands of inmates participated in the statewide protest of inhumane and unreasonable conditions in solitary confinement. Onstage, Neuburg (who even looks a little like Laura Prepon’s character Alex on Orange is the New Black) explained that, in writing the text she combined bits of her own life with extensive research to form an “abstract mixture of poetry.”
The result was a six-movement, orchestral song cycle whose form called to mind Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (also in six movements). It started off quite promisingly. An ominous recording of Neuburg reading a real-life court sentencing sounded over the speaker. Utilizing an arsenal of electronic equipment, including an Apple laptop, Neuburg was able to control this pre-recorded material throughout the movement — speeding it up at one point, so it sounded like a fast-forwarding tape player.
When the orchestra entered, it played an unexpectedly lush accompaniment to Neuburg singing live and into a microphone: “Good evening, I’ve written a few songs about solitary.” Stylistically, it called to mind the intro number of a Broadway show or even a Disney musical. In fact, Neuburg’s voice has a Disney-princess sweetness that conjures animated images of Jasmine or Ariel. The juxtaposition of such a lighthearted vocal and musical style with a serious topic was both amusing and painfully ironic.
Neuburg’s knack for the electronic continued into the second movement, in which she sculpted a prison soundscape. Using a kind of pad device which she struck with her fingers like a percussion instrument, she triggered sounds of prison cells clinking shut. The orchestra itself vocally produced the din of inmates, which Neuburg picked up by moving her microphone over the instrumentalists. The melody that followed, in which a prisoner expresses his desire for earplugs to block out this noise, sounded very much like “Look Down” from Claude-Michel Schönberg’s Les Misérables, itself a kind of prison anthem.
From just these first two movements, it seemed as if Neuburg was in her element for her very first orchestral composition. She melded a kind of cinematic or musical-theater style with state-of-the-art electronic techniques to create an entertaining yet socially engaged work.
But then things started to fall apart. The performance was plagued by numerous technical problems. In spite of her microphone, Neuburg was nearly inaudible at some points — the numerous string climaxes and Shostakovich-like drum rolls she incorporated into the score overpowered the sound of her own voice. And unfortunately, it didn’t seem like there was anyone to adjust the mic levels.
In fact, most of the musical details that Neuburg and conductor Benjamin Simon described before the performance were simply undetectable. Apart from the electronic sounds in the first two movements, the rest of the prerecorded material was buried beneath the orchestra; Neuburg would strike her pad and nothing would happen. And while she claimed that she was able to electronically alter the sound of the featured Bay Area string quartet Squid Inc, their timbre sounded unchanged throughout the performance. Even the program’s assertion that Neuburg has a “four-octave vocal range” was called into question — her upper register sounded weak and constricted (though she may have had a cold, as she kept reaching for tissues).
But I seriously doubt that Hunger Strike could be a successful work, even if the technical problems were cleared up. It was just too much to take in, too many working parts. Neuburg is used to composing for much smaller ensembles, such as string trios, and it was painfully obvious that this was her first orchestral work. There was little room for the ensemble to breathe, no quiet or expansive moments to allow the audience to take in what they were hearing. The rapid-fire shifts between various vocal styles and musical genres created a polystylistic clutter. This, combined with Neuburg’s frantic maneuvering of the electronics, created a dizzying and overwhelming mess — both visually and aurally.
The orchestra members seemed relieved to be free of the Neuburg during their performance of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, which occupied the second half of the program. I even caught a few smiles from violinists. Simon’s interpretations of the outer movements were especially jubilant. The sound was rich and full-bodied, even in the concrete church, proving that a good chamber orchestra is enough to pump out that heroic Beethoven sound.