Present Music takes a chance on unpredictable elements
Members of the Present Music ensemble got up close and personal with their audience at the Jazz Gallery on Thursday evening, in the first of four performances of “Give Chance a Piece.”
Chance elements, also known as aleatoric elements, appeared in several works, including pianist Cory Smythe’s concert-opening performance of Henry Cowell’s “The Banshee,” for solo piano.
Smythe stood, bent over the open piano, manipulating the strings while the sustain pedal was depressed by ensemble member Eric Segnitz. The result was a blur of fascinating, sometimes-chilling sounds that frequently sounded more like an electric guitar than a piano.
Pauline Oliveros’ “Sounds from My Childhood,” the most purely “chance” selection of the evening, filled the room with a merry, unscripted bedlam of performers and audience members gleefully re-creating sounds they had made as children.
Artistic director Kevin Stalheim explained that a number of pieces on the program would be loaded with double entendre on the words piece and peace.
Two haunting works by Sahba Aminikia reflected the violence the composer experienced living in war- and strife-ridden Iran.
Violist Maria Ritzenthaler and cellist Adrien Zitoun gave a powerful, tightly knit performance of Aminikia’s sorrowful “Elegy.”
Smythe, Zitoun and violinist Segnitz brought intensity and unrelenting tension to Aminikia’s “Shab o Meh”
Pianist Cory Smythe plays a leading role in Present Music's "Give Chance a Piece" concerts.
(Night and Fog), written about an experience of unspeakable terror in the desert outside Tehran.
Smythe and Ritzenthaler gave a haunting performance of Mary Kouyoumdjian’s “Children of Conflict: A Boy and a Makeshift Toy” that could have been meant to reflect World War II, Syria, or any childhood-destroying conflict in between.
Segnitz, Ritzenthaler and Zitoun were joined by violinist Paul Hauer for Aleksandra Vrebalov’s “My Desert, My Rose,” a moving blend of Middle Eastern and Western sounds.
The quartet returned to close the program with Vijay Iyer’s string-quartet-gone-wild “Dig the Say,” inspired by music of James Brown. Full of edgy sounds and driving rhythms, it was raucous fun.