The venue: small, out of the way, the Gallery is situated in a quiet laneway in which you could be forgiven for thinking you'd been transported to the 1900s. Held in the main downstairs space there was a small homely bar and...the programme! All across a long wall of the room was an enormous roll of white butcher's paper upon which the program was scrawled in very artistic pencil script in various fonts. It was a fantastic piece of art on it's own and it meant no-one shuffling programs during the performance.
The music: all twentieth century program - what blew me away was how new and fresh a lot of the music sounded despite being 20 or 30 years old. There were pieces by Copland, Crumb, Beaser and Corigliano.
Performance: Two performances really stood out for me: Leila Engle & Leigh Harrold playing Robert Beaser's Variations for Flute and Piano and Crumbs Apparitions with soprano Greta Bradman. The Beaser was a mammoth work at over 30mins and absolutely virtuosic. I was completely engaged by this performance and the work itself was intriguing.
The Crumb was fantastic. The music was really creepy and used several extended techniques in the piano part. It was helpful that the audience were given copies of the libretto/lyrics to read along with. Greta Bradman's singing was incredible, dramatic and exciting.
The other works on the program were similarly satisfying, but these two works sold the performance for me.
I'll look forward to the ensemble's next concert!
No comments:
Post a Comment