West Coast, Left Coast Festival Part 2b
http://www.laphil.com/tickets/festival-wclc.cfm
Sunday: Listen Up!: Los Angeles Master Chorale
22 Nov 2009 at 7:00pm
WDCH: Ron Burkle / Ralph’s Food 4 Less Foundation Auditorium
Another evening of New Music you don’t run into very often – music for chorus They did not sell seats behind the chorus; about 90% full. LAMC seems to be leading the country in commissions for chorus.
1) Ingram Marshall (1942-): “Savage Altars” (1991) for chorus, violin, viola & laptop. Very very very serious, anti-war, text (Tacitus and sections of the Magnificat) . The laptop was way way too loud and the violin & viola buried under the chorus. Major miscalculation by composer or engineer or both.
Marshall came to San Francisco at the same time as John Adams, and for a while shared a flat there. They have been friends since then.
2) Morten Lauridsen (1943-): “Mid-Winter Songs on Poems by Robert Graves” ( the original version for chorus & piano). He was Composer-In-Residence for LAMC from 1994 -2001 and this piece is a favorite with audiences and former music directors and is included on a CD. It is quite lovely. I did notice that 63 voices don’t quite fill the room. And they do not compare with the CSO Chorus in articulation.
During intermission, I had a nice discussion with a composition student from Pepperdine, whose seat was right behind mine. We had met in the Lobby earlier – he is carrying “The Rest Is Noise”. so we had a great chat about the book. He had tried to hear the LAPhil / Dudamel / Shaham matinee today. I watched a lot of disappointed people yesterday , leaving the Box Office, when they learned that , yes there are tickets, no there are no student or rush tickets – please hand over 100 dollars or more. He watched the concert on the video monitor, in the Café.
The other intermission entertainment is watching all the orchestra risers lower and raise – they lower them all to a flat floor position, so that music stands could be placed, then raised only the last three rows for the chorus, leaving the front ones flat, for a bigger area for the big percussion group.
3) Eric Whitacre (1970-) “Cloudburst” (1992) for chorus, piano & 3 percussion . Text by Octavio Paz ” (‘The Broken Water-Jug’, 1955). Words of course, then and bells, finger snapping, body percussion. Clever piece and big hit with audience.
4) David O (1970-): “A Map of Los Angeles” (2007) (Commissioned for the ‘LA is the World’ project) for chorus, piano, dbass, Mexican Folk Harp, 2 percuss and Heavenly Trio.
With these titles you knew this was going to be interesting and fun:
Introduction (Map I); Los Los Angeles Angeles; Bus Interlude (Map II); The The Tar Tar Pits; Meditation (Map III);
El Cementerio Evergreen).
The percussionists and bass double player wore LA Angels baseball shirts. At one moment, the bells were struck with a base ball bat. Later, a framed section of chain-link fence was attacked with drum sticks. The Heavenly Trio walked up to the organ console for their solo; and several others, moved to the top of aisles , for the bird and animal calls , he thinks you might have heard around the tar pits. (Another nice feature of the this hall – musicians can move directly from stage to aisles all around the audience).
Two night – lots of new New
Teddy D. Boys
