String appeal:
Upcoming concert, new album show two players’ musical range
Two young violinists with disparate tastes show enduring appeal of Bach.
When Tim Fain or Josh Modney play the violin, there’s a lot more than just four strings involved. Each of these violinists is taking the instrument in unexpected directions, with an emphasis on new repertoire and an embrace of new media. Fain is performing a solo recital at Hudson Hall on Saturday and Modney has just released his debut solo recording. Yet for all their contemporary music credibility, their respective programs also show that each artist is still tied to the violin’s roots. The evidence is that both Fain’s concert and Modney’s recording prominently feature Bach’s Chaconne for solo violin as an anchor.
“The Bach is a monumental work, one of the most impressive pieces for unaccompanied violin ever written,” says Fain, who performs at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 15, as the opening event of this year’s Leaf Peepers Concert Series.
This will be Fain’s second appearance for the series produced by Clarion Concerts. At his last outing, he performed the monumental Violin Sonata by Casar Franck. So give the guy credit for fealty to tradition. But Fain is still best known for his devotion to new music and in particular his collaborations with Philip Glass.
Fain’s first time to work with Glass was as part of the ensemble in “Book of Longing,” an evening-length tribute to Leonard Cohen that toured extensively back in 2007 and was also recorded. Captivated by his brief, spirited solo in the show, Fain asked Glass to expand it into something larger and the composer eventually obliged. That became the seven-movement Partita (2011) and Fain has since become something of an expert on the Glass violin repertoire. Included on his program Saturday evening are selections from the Violin Concerto No. 2 “The Seasons” and from the composer’s landmark first opera “Einstein on the Beach.”
While he’s set aside the Glass Partita for the time being, Fain has gotten a lot of mileage from the work. It was the centerpiece of “Portals,” an ambitious multimedia program that consisted of music of six composers, plus cinematography by Kate Hackett and filmed choreography from Benjamin Millepied, the former City Ballet principal. Saturday’s program will feature three multimedia pieces drawn from “Portals” with music by Wil-
liam Bolcom, Lev Zhurbin and Nicoh Muhly. There will also be two selections written by Fain, plus other recent works by Missy Mazolli and Bryce Dessner.
Linking music and visuals has long been part of Fain’s aesthetic world. A native of Los Angeles, Fain was a boy soprano in sixth grade when he join in the massed forces of chorus, orchestra and folk instruments for John Williams’ soundtrack to Steven Spielberg’s 1987 film “Empire of the Sun.” More recently, Fain has been the featured violin soloist in three prominent Hollywood productions from the 10 years: “Black Swan,” “12 Years A Slave” and “Moonlight.”
“Once in a while a really interesting film project comes along and I can record the solo violin anywhere I happen to be,” says Fain, who lives with his family in Montana but is usually in New York several times every month. “I carry around a mobile recording studio with me wherever I go. The equipment is very small and I can do anything on my laptop and a good microphone.”
Violinist Tim Fain performs at 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 15, at Hudson Hall, 327 Warren St., Hudson Tickets: $25-$40. Call (518) 822-1438. More info: leafpeeperconcerts.org
“Engage” from Modney
Violinist Josh Modney is a Capital Region native who has become firmly integrated in the New York City contemporary music scene. He’s returned home in recent seasons for gigs at EMPAC with his ensembles Wet Ink and the Mivos Quartet. In 2016 he also joined the International Contemporary Ensemble, an elite group out of Chicago.
“Engage,” Modney’s recent release on New Focus Recordings, is hefty and ambitious, stretching out over three CDS. The aforementioned Bach Chaconne, performed in just intonation, has a beautiful purity and command that’s combined with an engaging sense of narrative.
The balance of the music here is from the frontier of new music. Modney tackles it all with a secure and versatile touch. And when the scores allow for it, he also plays with an attractive tone. But some of the pieces, like the opener by Sam Pluta, call for plenty of unadorned scratches and rough sounding friction. One of the prettiest selections is Taylor Brook’s “Vocalise” a gently paced melodic journey played over an electronic drone. Eric Wubbel’s piece for violin and prepared piano has lots of fascinating textures but it lingers on some good ideas too long during the course of its 26-minute length
Kate Soper serves as both composer and soprano in the violin/vocal duet “Cipher.” Unfortunately neither Soper nor Modney come off well. It sounds like they’re trying to perform in unison and someone in the recording booth is messing with the mixing levels and the volume controls. I don’t understand all the fuss about Soper. When she appeared with Wet Ink at EMPAC in December 2016 to perform her “Ipsa Dixit” it felt like a deadly mix of philosophy class and orchestration lessons. Amazingly that piece became a finalist for the Pulitzer. Such is the perplexing world of new music.
The strongest piece in Modney’s entire collection is Anthony Braxton’s “Composition No. 222,” an intense and sometimes furious mix of structure and improvisation. There’s a similar blend of forethought and spontaneity in the Modney’s five original solos that occupy the third disc. He describes them as neither compositions nor improvisations but instead “creative music,” a rather redundant term that’s new to me and is apparently making the rounds.
Listening to the material, I picture a turntable artist. There’s lots of scratches and grit plus a quick-thinking, splashy and collage character to the music. Whether it’s “musical” is a matter of taste, but it’s definitely very much of the current moment.