Reviewed by John Herbert Cunningham
Performance at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Friday, January 28, 2011
They called it a Happening – and it did. And if what happened was any indication, this is going to be the most exciting New Music Festival ever (and we’ve already had some good ones.)
Diana McIntosh and Gordon Fitzell were co-curators of this kick-off and two of the four curators of Groundswell who, along with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and the Winnipeg Art Gallery, created this evening of excitement.
This is the second year that the New Music Festival began with an event at the WAG. And the organizers learned well from the first one. Kicking off the kick-off was XIE, the eXperimental Improv Ensemble, created by Gordon Fitzell, who heads the electronic studio at the U of Manitoba’s School of Music. Last year, this group created a souped-up foosball game which, when things moved on it, created sound and light. Whoopee! This year, they presented four live soundtracks, the highlight of which was the recitation of a poem. I’m not certain whether Carole O’Brien wrote the poem or whether she read it as an astounding performance piece or both but I hope to hear a great deal more from whoever it was.
Suddenly, a voice emerged from mid-air. Well, actually, from the mezzanine level. It was the voice of co-curator Diana McIntosh who did a recitation accompanied by the saxophone of Allen Harrington, who was to prove himself a master of this instrument.
Upon completion, McIntosh introduced a real-time visual artist, Katharine Bruce, who would create canvases using Jackson Pollock’s action painting techniques flinging and dripping paint onto the canvas to the rhythm (or lack thereof) of the music.
McIntosh then commanded the doors to the garage be opened, which revealed the installation of Daryn Bond, who describes his work as a “ new interactive multi-media installation wherein Winnipeg artist Daryn Bond [a.k.a. The Bond Institute] presents an experiment in visual art music performance.” The audience coming to view this installation becomes the creator of the music as they move past cameras transforming their movement into sound.
Finally, McIntosh invited the audience to follow her up to the exhibit level where the four groups assembled for the evening would perform.
Not that it wasn’t interesting and innovative before, but now it began to push the edges.
First up was Allen Harrington with Laura Loewen on piano, accompanied by Herbert Enns’s videos, to perform a composition by Fitzell. The sound spectrum exploded. Harrington is an absolutely amazing saxophonist. He owned that instrument, making it jump from the stratosphere of the overblowing technique that made Maynard Ferguson famous right down to the subtonal basement instantaneously with a mastery of every other possible technique in between including pointing the bell of the saxophone into the open grand piano to take advantage of the acoustic techniques. Loewen was no slouch either with block chording, playing inside the piano, doing something that sounded like striking the strings with mallets and huge intervallic leaps.
A Diana McIntosh performance piece followed, ‘Sampling the Communication Parameters….’, the entire title taking up half the book. She said that this was “a mini-lecture of profound importance in clearly communicating whatever in performing contemporary music by whatever.” Sounds rather innocuous, doesn’t it? Until you remember that this is Diana McIntosh who is giving this lecture. And it was clearly communicated – provided you understood the language she had created in which to deliver the lecture. The result was a hilarious piece that included her banging at the piano on occasion and two shills planted in the audience to ask questions and argue points with her.
Jim Hiscott’s composition ‘Tangle’ was next. It was performed by Bede Henley on oboe, Meredith Johnson on bass, and Victoria Sparks on various percussion including kettle drums, cymbals, marimba and vibes. The musicians were very good but, unfortunately, their placement on the program was poorly considered following as it did McIntosh’s lecture.
Closing off this portion of the evening was another McIntosh composition, ‘…and 8:30 in Newfoundland’ which again was anti-climactic following that lecture.
The evening ended with more live soundtracks from XIE as well as an opportunity to view Daryn Bond’s installation. This work had been presented in New York in the past year. I had watched the installation slowly evolve from several years back when it was merely a radical new music theory. I had seen numerous incarnations of it presented at various Winnipeg locations including twice at Ace Art. This was its finest moment. Bond is a total artist in the manner of a Kenneth Patchen and is deserving of recognition for all of the work he has put in to create this piece.
And so the 20th anniversary of the New Music Festival was kicked off. This year’s festival is extremely exciting, bringing John Corigliano, Dame Evelyn Glennie, the Kronos Quartet, and Krysztof Pendericki to Winnipeg.
Kick-off to the 2011 New Music Festival
Articles
Reviewed by John Herbert Cunningham
Performance at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Friday, January 28, 2011
They called it a Happening – and it did. And if what happened was any indication, this is going to be the most exciting New Music Festival ever (and we’ve already had some good ones.)
Diana McIntosh and Gordon Fitzell were co-curators of this kick-off and two of the four curators of Groundswell who, along with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and the Winnipeg Art Gallery, created this evening of excitement.
This is the second year that the New Music Festival began with an event at the WAG. And the organizers learned well from the first one. Kicking off the kick-off was XIE, the eXperimental Improv Ensemble, created by Gordon Fitzell, who heads the electronic studio at the U of Manitoba’s School of Music. Last year, this group created a souped-up foosball game which, when things moved on it, created sound and light. Whoopee! This year, they presented four live soundtracks, the highlight of which was the recitation of a poem. I’m not certain whether Carole O’Brien wrote the poem or whether she read it as an astounding performance piece or both but I hope to hear a great deal more from whoever it was.
Suddenly, a voice emerged from mid-air. Well, actually, from the mezzanine level. It was the voice of co-curator Diana McIntosh who did a recitation accompanied by the saxophone of Allen Harrington, who was to prove himself a master of this instrument.
Upon completion, McIntosh introduced a real-time visual artist, Katharine Bruce, who would create canvases using Jackson Pollock’s action painting techniques flinging and dripping paint onto the canvas to the rhythm (or lack thereof) of the music.
McIntosh then commanded the doors to the garage be opened, which revealed the installation of Daryn Bond, who describes his work as a “ new interactive multi-media installation wherein Winnipeg artist Daryn Bond [a.k.a. The Bond Institute] presents an experiment in visual art music performance.” The audience coming to view this installation becomes the creator of the music as they move past cameras transforming their movement into sound.
Finally, McIntosh invited the audience to follow her up to the exhibit level where the four groups assembled for the evening would perform.
Not that it wasn’t interesting and innovative before, but now it began to push the edges.
First up was Allen Harrington with Laura Loewen on piano, accompanied by Herbert Enns’s videos, to perform a composition by Fitzell. The sound spectrum exploded. Harrington is an absolutely amazing saxophonist. He owned that instrument, making it jump from the stratosphere of the overblowing technique that made Maynard Ferguson famous right down to the subtonal basement instantaneously with a mastery of every other possible technique in between including pointing the bell of the saxophone into the open grand piano to take advantage of the acoustic techniques. Loewen was no slouch either with block chording, playing inside the piano, doing something that sounded like striking the strings with mallets and huge intervallic leaps.
A Diana McIntosh performance piece followed, ‘Sampling the Communication Parameters….’, the entire title taking up half the book. She said that this was “a mini-lecture of profound importance in clearly communicating whatever in performing contemporary music by whatever.” Sounds rather innocuous, doesn’t it? Until you remember that this is Diana McIntosh who is giving this lecture. And it was clearly communicated – provided you understood the language she had created in which to deliver the lecture. The result was a hilarious piece that included her banging at the piano on occasion and two shills planted in the audience to ask questions and argue points with her.
Jim Hiscott’s composition ‘Tangle’ was next. It was performed by Bede Henley on oboe, Meredith Johnson on bass, and Victoria Sparks on various percussion including kettle drums, cymbals, marimba and vibes. The musicians were very good but, unfortunately, their placement on the program was poorly considered following as it did McIntosh’s lecture.
Closing off this portion of the evening was another McIntosh composition, ‘…and 8:30 in Newfoundland’ which again was anti-climactic following that lecture.
The evening ended with more live soundtracks from XIE as well as an opportunity to view Daryn Bond’s installation. This work had been presented in New York in the past year. I had watched the installation slowly evolve from several years back when it was merely a radical new music theory. I had seen numerous incarnations of it presented at various Winnipeg locations including twice at Ace Art. This was its finest moment. Bond is a total artist in the manner of a Kenneth Patchen and is deserving of recognition for all of the work he has put in to create this piece.
And so the 20th anniversary of the New Music Festival was kicked off. This year’s festival is extremely exciting, bringing John Corigliano, Dame Evelyn Glennie, the Kronos Quartet, and Krysztof Pendericki to Winnipeg.