Diversity

Well I dropped my phone and cracked its screen as I waited to enter The Great Divide, a CIMF concert at the Fitters' Workshop, but I came around in the end.  It was an intriguing mix of styles and they shouldn't really work but they did.  First up was Luminescence Chamber Singers directed by Roland Peelman singing mediaeval Spanish cantigas and Portuguese motets.  Six singers, 3 men, 3 women, occasional percussion and foot stamping, religious themes of Mary and women variously as saviours and whores, so clearly unwelcome in today's thought.  I was amused or maybe concerned with women singing this stuff, even as we realise the diverse times and thinking, this being a very earthy and religious age, but the historical denigration of woman's role was pretty obvious.  Strange and confronting to our ears and yet would have been unquestionable in those days, I guess.  Then an interval and a wine and I could forget the phone for a few minutes and I was intrigued by Jason Noble playing Steve Reich New York Counterpoint on clarinet.  I wondered how it would be accepted in this crowd, given he was plugged in, effected, multitracked, whatever.  I asked him later; if I got it right it was 8 clarinets plus two bass clarinets, all multitracked and no effects, just the rich resonances of the space.  I enjoyed that.  Then Orava playing Shostakovich String Quartet Gmaj no.6.  Again I felt some discomfort around me at the quite difficult melodies but I enjoyed it immensely.  Nicely expressed, accurately intoned, earthily bowed and intriguing as a composition ("a masterpiece of Soviet optimism post-Stalin" / CIMF concert program).  So a fascinating and satisfying concert if the lead-up was less pleasing.

The Luminiscence Chamber Singers under Roland Peelman (director), Jason Noble (clarinet) and Orava String Quartet performed at the Fitters' Workshop for the Canberra International Music Festival 2022.  Luminescence comprised AJ America, Veronica Milroy, Dan Walker, Lucien Fischer, Jack Stephens and Roberta Diamond.  Orava comprise Daniel Kowalik and David Dalseno (violins), Thomas Chawner (viola) and Karol Kowalik (cello).

Female offspring

The concert was called Half the sky and the half was women. It was a CIMF event formulated around Ensemble Offpring and some ring-ins. EO plays music only by living composers, but this year they are playing music only by living women composers. I expect little difference in the music (I liked how Chen Yi, female composer in residence at CIMF, put it: "we happen to be women writing music"), but a great opportunity to level matters. The concert was at and about the National Portrait Gallery, in various locations over several hours. First up was a performance in the foyer, by the sextet, then by a trio. Then a "promenade": four mini performances by soloists or small groups. Then a choice (not an easy thing!) amongst four pieces in four places at one time. I happened on two by settled on third, Loo Sze-Wang playing sheng, a smallish, multi-piped free reed instrument, just to experience something different (not new: shengs date from 1,100 years back). Then the forum, about women composers and more broadly about women in music, with Chen Yi, Claire Edwardes, Sarah Kimball (CSO), Sally Greenaway and Laura Tingle, chaired by Karen Vickery (NPG) and a final two pieces performed in the foyer, one by the current composer-in-residence, Chen Yi; the other by next year's c-i-r, Mary Finsterer. What stands out? Firstly, it was all fabulously interesting, challenging, edgy, read contemporary. The playing was mightly, but as a string player I particularly noticed Blair Harris on cello and was fascinated by the score he was responding to with all manner of new written techniques; Claire E's deeply satisfying rhythm and the pentatonics in her later solo on merimba had me feeling jazz, although another later work was more obviously classical-sounding; an impressive trio including some blissful playing on horn from Darryl Poulson; Loo Sze-Wang's cheng because it was just so new to me. And some interesting comments in the forum caught my ear: what did we miss about Julia Gillard's time amongst "all that noise"; CSO's programming of 9 women with 6 commissions in a smaller group series curated by Matthew Hindson; Sally G observed that being a composer is "fraught", also that she'd come to love music by female composers she'd met (I guess she means some familiarity helps in music and otherwise: I feel that too); Chen Yi observed that action is most important (she spoke of the SF Women's Philharmonic and a competition for female composers); Claire's suggestion that women may not be "as bolshy" as male composers, calling on others to "listen to me"; it was generally recognised that history has left a male bias to the repertoire (not hard to think this!) and a "repair [is] all we can do now". A great afternoon of intriguing contemporary music played with wonderful skills and with a political edge. Great!

Half the sky was a CIMF concert at the National Portrait Gallery. Performers were Ensemble Offspring comprising Claire Edwardes (percussion, musical director), Jason Noble (clarinet), Zubin Kanga (piano), Veronique Serret (violin), Lamorna Nightingale (flute), Blair Harris (cello) with Ben Hoadley (bass clarinet, bassoon), Loo Swe-Wang (sheng) and Darryl PoulsEn (horn). The forum comprised Chen Yi, Claire Edwardes, Sarah Kimball, Sally Greenaway, Laura Tingle and Karen Vickery. Composers on location were Chen Yi, Joyce Tang and Mary Finsterer (perhaps others).

g-l-a-s-s

It was an afternoon of (Philip) Glass. We were in the Gandel Hall at the National Gallery, not at the Fitters Workshop, next to the Glassworks. This was a mammoth outing. Three hours of Philip Glass. Ensemble Offspring and associates were playing a string of formative works by Philip Glass. He's somewhat notorious for his minimalism and apparently caused considerable stirs when his works were first presented at various locations in NYC. While listening, I became aware of how we are now acclimatised to this approach, even if I've had some questioning comments since. But it's fifty years back now. The works were dated 1968 to 1976 so the early ones are from the Summer of Love, 1968, high Hippy, but this is not Hawkwind or psychedelia. They are out of the fine music tradition (Glass studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris) even if they are outside it. This is music reduced to a minimum, based on repetition and alternation of melodic cells. I wondered if it's prefigured by change ringing with its permutations of bell rings. The effect of the moving cells has a similar effect. But references are more to India and drumming and that fabulous percussion singing called Konnakol. Glass' music is intense, unforgiving, unrelenting, fairly loud; then it stops. The introduction suggested those in the know were the ones at the back lying on pillows, but then this is no longer the '60s (and the audience was no longer in its 20s). Audience could come and go through the performance. All very much of the period. The beats were intense and satisfying and the crossing rhythms were fascinating and forming their own mutating sub-rhythms. In one piece that I consciously tapped, I felt 6/8, noted three-note patterns and also quaver pairs (quaver pairs in 6/8?) but I couldn't easily tap to 5. I wondered about how it's written, then realised (again for this one piece but the approach seemed common) there was a cell pattern separating varying repeats of another pattern. I could guess how that might be written. The performers often nodded heads, no doubt identifying changes. There were a few slipups where someone stopped to await another nod.

We heard a string of works of varying degrees of complexity. Claire Edwards started with 1+1, a very simple work tapping a timber board. It reminded me of rhythm exercises I used to practice with a drummer mate. This was very early. Then Music in similar motion, played on two vibes and keyboard containing only ~6 notes. They played Music in contrary motion later, on two vibes, e-piano and 2 keyboards. The contrary motion was more complex and demanding of concentration but just as devoid of respite. I thought there was a drone there, too. Tough on the musos: have a moment's doubt or flinch and you're lost. The percussive pitch of vibes and the organ tones of keyboards were key, but Glass later expanded with instruments for overlaid pitches and alternative rhythmic patterns. Music for fifths was played on e-percussion, keyboard, clarinet and soprano sax but here the wind instruments just seemed to add tonal variation, playing the same unyielding lines. Knee plays 1-5, from Einstein on the beach, was the latest work (1976) and it's a big departure. A single simple three note line on e-piano, a string of singers with simple, beautifully enunciated voices singing 1-2-3-4/1-2-3-4-5-6/1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 sometimes missing a number and a violin that is Einstein playing a devilishly difficult extended solo line, then again later. Just glorious, uplifting, fascinating. It must have been a devil of a work to play. Graeme Jennings (a CIMF2013 houseguest!) took it on, but I think it's something you'd have to live with for considerable time: no break, wild bowing and totally unforgiving. I was deliriously loving this all, although at 2 hours I was flagging. But then the finale, another highly developed work, Music with changing parts, dated 1970. The style was like the early ones, but beyond. I'm not absolutely sure of this (some musos were obscured in the back line) but I think this was played by 2 keyboards, e-piano, vibes, marimba/percussion, trumpet, alto/soprano sax, piccolo, bass clarinet and two female singers. The repetition of cells was there, but accompanied by long tones and various rapid repeated melody snippets. Someone said after that it was a NYC soundscape: ships on the Hudson, taxis, police sirens and the rest. I could believe this. This performance was limited to just 45 minutes (it can go on for hours) and I could have enjoyed more.

I loved this gig. I'd been bathed in beats and crossing rhythms of few, repetitive notes and tapped my foot dry (most just sat still, this being a classical audience, but how could you not move to those deliciously abstruse beats), absorbed some beautiful tone and voices and meditated on this all. And put tissues in my ear for the unrelenting volume: the volume wasn't so loud, but it came constantly. Great gig and another CIMF revelation.

A World of Glass was performed by Ensemble Offspring and associates. EO are Claire Edwardes and Bree van Reyk (vibes, percussion), Jason Noble (clarinet, keyboard) and Jim Nightingale (saxes). Their friends were Graeme Jennings (violin), Gabi Sultana, Alister Spence and Roland Peelman (keyboards), David Shaw (flute) and the Song Company with YAFF vocalists.