Symphony opens on political note
Clark Suprynowicz wasn’t thinking about “the candidates du jour” or the politics of 2008 when he composed
“Red States, Blue States ,”a seven-minute orchestral piece that deals with binary systems and American democracy.
But that pulsing and romantic piece was written for the Berkeley Symphony’s Under Construction series during a presidential election that seems uncommonly civil and rational in light of the spectacle now unfolding.
“I wonder what the players in the orchestra might bring to it now, what they may not have brought to it then,” says Suprynowicz, who will be at the Paramount Theatre on Oct. 14 when Michael Morgan and the Oakland Symphony uncork their new season with “Red States, Blue States,” an election-year opener to an evening of Mahler and Elgar.
The piece explores contrast and change, but because the country has become “so polarized and fractious,” says the composer when asked about context, “I wonder if Michael and the orchestra will bring out the fractiousness that’s in the piece.”
A longtime Berkeley composer of orchestral, theater, opera and jazz music, Suprynowicz was one of four commissioned by the Berkeley Symphony to write works relating to the notion of democracy in America. Composers often chafe at being given themes, but he was up for this one.
“Elections are about a chance to make a change, and that happens in music,” he says.
Writing music, “you have to think about how radical a change you’re going to make, and when you’re going to make it. And once you make it, something very different enters the room, so to speak, and you can’t go back to what you had before. And if you do, it’s not going to recur in the same way.”
Not wishing to write programmatic music, he found the binary nature of our political system “something that’s intrinsically very musical.”
“Red States, Blue States” begins with the strings playing a gentle animated figure in 6/8 time (based on an Afro-Cuban bell pattern the composer learned playing jazz bass) that leads to some intense action and instrumental conversation.
He likens it to “a lot of people bustling around, trying to get people to pay attention and get their support for 14 or 15 candidates.” He mentions the arguing voices in the music of Charles Ives, like the voices in the composer’s string quartets that shout each other down and converse.
The slow, singing second part of this piece is rooted in the Romantic symphonic tradition Suprynowicz studied at the San Francisco Conservatory with David Conte. “I love that tradition, and there’s something very American about it,” says the composer, who calls that part of the piece “the big speechmaking section, where people begin to be very earnest and heartfelt. They’re speaking, if not the truth, some truth, and getting a lot of people to pay attention, open up their hearts and believe that maybe the change they’re hoping for can be made.”
As often happens in binary situations, “the opening material returns, but you don’t go back to where you were. You hear references to the place you started, discovering that things have changed along the way.”
As he puts in the program notes, “The animated figure in the strings returns. The horns move to the foreground, excoriating us and calling us to action.”
Suprynowicz hasn’t been composing much lately because he’s consumed with Future Fires. That’s the new art and technology festival he and associates are launching Nov. 11 at the Midway, the big venue in Dogpatch.
The attractions include an installation by San Francisco’s
Future Cities Lab, a performance piece by the Italian digital artists called Fuse and music from the Texas alt-rock band No Such Thing. It’s the first in a series of events.
For more information, go to www.oaklandsymphony.org, www.futuresfires.com.
Together Fest not together yet
Together Fest, the all-female electronic music festival scheduled to debut Oct. 8 at the San Francisco Armory, has been postponed until next year.
“Unfortunately, the custom sound system that was supposed to debut with Together Fest has been delayed,” wrote producers on the festival’s website. “As much as it saddens us to move it, we didn’t think it fair to produce such an important show with subpar sound.”
For more information, go to www.togetherfestsf.com.
‘Dear Liar’ returns
Annette Bening, one of the more celebrated actresses to come out of the graduate program at American Conservatory Theater, returns to ACT’s Geary Theater on Sunday, Oct.2, for a one-night reading of Jerome Kilty’s “Dear Liar,” which the playwright directed 50 years ago during the company’s inaugural season here.
ACT alumna Nancy Carlin directs Bening and ACT regular Mark Harelik in “Dear Liar,” based on 40 years of letters between George Bernard Shaw and his passionate leading lady Mrs. Patrick Campbell.
For more information, go to www.actsf.org/specialevents.
Russians speak
Vladimir Putin’s least favorite feminist punk rock protest band, Pussy Riot, takes the stage of the UC Theatre in Berkeley on Nov. 5 to talk about its guerrilla performances, LGBT rights, why they call Putin a dictator and other subjects of interest.
For more information, go to www.theuctheatre.org.