WMV Music Web Log

Well the 2003-4 season is rolling to its conclusion, and it's time to look back on what we did, and then begin to plan 2004-05.

In September 2003 we did a program in the BannerArts Kensington studio of music by Russell Woollen, Masatoshi Mitsumoto, and Walter S. Hartley, all of whom have connections to the Washington area, and a local poet, Linda Pastan, who had just been awarded the 2003 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. We performed her "Songs of Eve" poems, set to music by Russell Woollen; Russell's widow Margaret Woollen was present to talk about him. Walter S. Hartley came down from Buffalo to introduce his "Dance Suite," and Masatoshi Mitsumoto introduced his "Songs of Innocence." Our saxophonist, Rhonda Buckley, had just been featured as a "person to watch" in that month's Washingtonian magazine. She performed the Hartley, and a work by the late Robert Starer, who as it turned out had been a friend of poet Linda Pastan. It was a small world/big world event.

In October 2003 we performed the dream quartet program postponed from February at the Ratner Museum series due to a severe snowstorm. David Teie, Mahoko Eguchi, Lina Bahn, and I performed two of the greatest works of the literature, the Brahms C minor and the Mozart Eb quartets, along with David's brilliant duo for cello and piano. This time it was without a hitch, except that we had to replace Claudia Chudacoff with Lina Bahn, since Claudia had another performance that day. Both Claudia and Lina are among the finest violinists in the Washington area, so you can't lose with either of them.

November was a solo piano program at the studio, including Chopin Mazurkas, Schumann's Papillons, a Joplin Rag, and a Mozart Sonata, along with three poets and two artists. A significant feature for me was the new approach to the Mazurkas, which I have concluded are too improvisatory to be prepared and practiced like other works. My practice consisted of playing them differently every time.

December was another old dream come true: an all-Martinu Program, on his birthday, at the Czech Embassy. It was daring stuff, too - the third cello sonata, the Piano Quartet, and a set of songs, with mezzo Karyn Friedman. Amy Leung wowed everybody with the cello sonata, and the ensemble of Amy, her husband Hasse Börup, and violist Philippe Chao was superb in the Quartet. That's not a program you hear every day! (So why didn't anyone from the press show up?)

In January we began the EVOLUTIONS series with Erwin Schulhoff's Hot Sonata, John Harbison's San Antonio, Libby Larsen's Four on the Floor, and Walter Hartley's Dance Suite. It was a strong case for the influence of jazz on chamber music, and the audience was the largest we had ever brought in Washington. (The second concert was even bigger!)

In February we performed, at Libby Larsen's invitation, a program of her work at the Cosmos Club. Karyn Friedman sang her "Love After 1950", Jodi Beder, John Hughes, and Mark Stephenson played "Four on the Floor" with me, and Rhonda Buckley and I did "Holy Roller." Libby introduced each work, and she was electrifying. We had the pleasure of walking up to Raku with her before the concert, and heard her talk about her work as a Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress. She is an artist with a lot to say.

We had two programs in March, both wonderful, but the beginning of the exhaustion from which I am still recovering. David Teie, Mahoko Eguchi, and I played a trio program that we all dream of: Brahms Op. 8, Schubert Bb, and a favorite Mozart (E major). Once again, the lights went out in the middle of the Schubert, and the audience held flashlights, provided by Phil Ratner, to get us through the concert. It was a great event - the music couldn't have been stronger, and everyone was intensely engaged.

Then we had the second EVOLUTIONS concert at St. Columba's. This was an ambitious program. I put together a "Revue de Cuisine" ensemble (violin, cello, trumpet, clarinet, bassoon, and piano), with conductor Masatoshi Mitsumoto (experience of an earlier performance convinced me of the need for a conductor). I also substituted saxophone for the clarinet part - why? Because I wanted Rhonda Buckley in the ensemble, and she can do it. Karyn Friedman sang Libby Larsen's songs again, to even better effect than in February. And we got to repeat the Paul Bowles "Music for a Farce," this time using Marty Knepp on drums, borrowed from the Afro-Jazz Explosion, along with Rhonda on saxophone, and the great Chris Royal on trumpet. Using a jazz drummer and saxophone instead of clarinet was certainly in the spirit of EVOLUTIONS. The concert was a tremendous success; more than 175 filled the hall, and Karren Alenier wrote a really nice review.

In April Betty Hauck came down from New Hampshire, preoccupied by her brother's illness (he passed away last week), but enthusiastic about playing at the studio as usual. She had been suggesting a Satie cabaret piece for a couple of years, but I wasn't familiar with it, and couldn't understand how we would do it. It is in French, and published by Dover in Satie's own florid but difficult autograph. Well we finally performed it - and it was a gas! She and Robbie Merfeld had worked it out together years ago at Apple Hill, with Satie's biting and hilarious words carefully and effectively integrated into the music of the 19 piano pieces. Rehearsing it was a lot of fun, and Betty was very expressive as an actress. We also did some sober Bach, consistent with her mood. I got to try out my new realization of the keyboard part, in which I had added a voice to fill out the harmony - it worked! And then another brilliant idea - getting Betty together with Rhonda to play Mozart's famous "Kegelstatt" Trio. They both loved the idea - the piece has become hackneyed played in the old way, and saxophone doesn't have literature from the period before its invention. We heard real Mozart in that piece for the first time in a long time. And the best thing was - they really like each other. I also played two solo works - Mike Strand's "To Native Americans", and Andrew Stiller's "The Water is Wide, Daisy Bell." It is something of a novel idea to me still, that I can take a new solo work, learn it, and perform it, just like that. Mike was there to talk about his work - he and I have been corresponding regularly. The audience was very responsive, and the intermission and post-concert discussions were among the wildest yet.

Which brings us to the third and concluding EVOLUTIONS concert, still burning in my ears. The Kamman work was the most significant innovation - he composed a jazz piece in which a classical piano trio is "embedded," retaining its identity, but compelled to follow a jazz beat and esthetic. I think it was tremendously successful, on several fronts: first of all, we all needed to learn to communicate across that divide, just in order to rehearse effectively. Second, the sound was new and wonderful and exciting. Third, we all had a ball, rehearsing and performing. And finally, the audience loved it. Sally McLain and Jodi Beder were miraculously flexible, enthusiastic and accurate. Jodi is an experienced jazz cellist, but I didn't know that Sally could do it. The Milhaud "Création du Monde" was lots of fun, especially because the string quartet was so superb - Sally and Jodi were joined by violinist June Huang and violist Kim Buschek, who are exciting discoveries for me. And the Martinu "Fantaisie" was a long time dream fulfilled - I really wanted to know what that piece was all about, and I finally have some notion about it. But I will blog about that some other time. The use of the lap steel guitar for the theremin was one of those playful, "why not?" experiments. It turned out to have some drawbacks and complications, but between John Kamman, Masa, and a very professional small orchestra, we managed to work out most of the kinks. The sound of the electric guitar in duet with Robert Lemon's wonderful oboe sound, and with Kim's viola, was just about as beautiful as I could have wished. Rhonda and I were looking forward to Holy Roller, because we had done a pretty good performance of it at the Cosmos Club in February. I had some new ideas about it, also, which I had tried to work out. Although Rhonda played superbly, and the audience liked it, I was a little disappointed with my end. Sometimes my logistical responsibilities collide with the artistic ones, and I think the Larsen was a casualty - my fingers felt like sausages, and I wasn't able to move them fast enough. Oh well. The main thing was that the EVOLUTIONS experiment is one of those ideas that works, and when I recover from the exhaustion, I think I will feel very good about it. (See Karren Alenier's review, below).

We have one more concert at the Czech Embassy this season, on May 24. Hasse and Amy just happened to have Schulhoff's Duo in their repertoire (reminds me that Jodi knows a Haba work!), and they are sure to do it well. We dusted off the Dvorak g minor Trio, with which we opened the Czech Music Series almost six years ago, and it shines even more brightly. Karyn Friedman's gorgeous mezzo voice will be perfect for Mahler's Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen (yes, Mahler was born in Bohemia in 1860), and we will repeat the Revue de Cuisine, the way it is supposed to go. Jana Kalimonova has finally taken over as cultural minister, and she is very supportive, enthusiastic, knowlegeable, and has good ideas and connections. It will be very exciting to plan another season at the Embassy with her. Mary Fetzko turns out to be a master graphic designer and public relations person - the pr for this concert is the best yet.

In all, the 2003-4 season has been intensely rich, crowded, and productive. Until yesterday, there were three to go - daunting! However, on advice of counsel, we have postponed the June 22 concert. Now there is basically just the May 24 Czech Embassy concert and finally the June 5 event at BannerArts Kensington studio. That one will be an apt epilogue to a great season. I'll tell you about it later.