Ariadne Greif,
familiar to area music fans, helped close Alterity.co’s first season.
A familiar face — and voice — to Orlando music fans helped close out the inaugural season of Alterity.co, Central Florida’s champion of contemporary composers.
Soprano Ariadne Greif, who has performed in the Orlando Philharmonic’s “Elixir of Love” and its “Women in Song” series, joined the Alterity Chamber Orchestra on Thursday night for a concert titled “Abandon Waiting.”
Featuring four modern works, the concert aptly demonstrated why Alterity.co is a needed — and welcome — fixture on Orlando’s arts scene. The pieces were challenging, both for musicians and an audience. Under the direction of Benoit Glazer, the musicians rose to the occasion with playing that, along with the necessary technical precision, carried a healthy dose of enthusiasm.
Appropriately for a brisk (by Florida standards) evening, the program opened with Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s “Hrim,” which translates to “frost.” It opened tantalizingly with the barest humming in the strings, as if you could actually hear moisture coalescing into frozen swirls. Distinct effects dotted the musical landscape — dramatic plucking of the cello strings, rubbing the piano strings inside the case.
As winter can do, the piece turned more violent with aggressive string work and low notes from the brass. Is it depicting a physical manifestation of frost or an emotional frostiness, a hardening of the heartstrings? Thrillingly, the music seemed to be doing both.
Nico Muhly’s “By All Means” and Louis Andriessen’s “Workers Union” were given solid readings, though something gentler might have been pleasant between them, a palette cleanser to break up the pieces’ loud and insistent urgency.
Greif lent her exciting voice to Christopher Cerrone’s “The Pieces That Fall to Earth,” based on poetry by Kay Ryan. “This piece asks a singer to do everything she can do,” said the Brooklyn-based composer, who attended the concert. And indeed it did.
Greif was an outstanding choice for this musing on women’s thoughts, not only because of her vocal acrobatics but because of her flair for the dramatic. She doesn’t just sing, she performs.
“Should there be more? Should there be more?” she cried in the strong opening, laced with percussive bells, chimes, vibraphone and other mallet instruments. Later her voice rose to a commanding shriek, nimbly made shocking jumps, and sank to a whisper, an effect that comes right to the edge of being a little too much.
In his remarks, Cerrone saluted Alterity.co on completing its successful first season: “It’s such a hard thing to do,” he said of forming — and running — a chamber orchestra. He’s right. But luckily Alterity.co doesn’t have to go it alone. It’s the resident ensemble of Glazer’s Timucua Foundation, which consistently presents new works and fresh voices from outside the mainstream. Together, as was vividly demonstrated Thursday, the organizations add a vibrant dimension to Central Florida’s cultural landscape.