Writers share coloristic styles

CANYONLANDS NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE, Dumke Recital Hall, University of Utah, Monday

There are several connective elements among the composers whose music was played at Monday's concert by Canyonlands New Music Ensemble. For one, they are all honorees of the University of Utah's Maurice Abravanel Visiting Distinguished Composer Series. For another, their approach to music is similar.

Milton Babbitt, Mario Davidovsky, Fred Lerdahl and Tristan Murail — the composers featured at Monday's concert — all exploit coloristic possibilities of sound in their music, although it could be argued that color isn't Babbitt's primary focus in his music. Babbitt's music is definitely pitch oriented, but the piece that was played at the concert does indeed delve into sound colors.

Each of these composers writes intense music that forces the listener to rethink musical boundaries. As such, the concert strained the limits of the audience's aural perceptions. Yet everything that was played was very musical. There is nothing gimmicky. The music is honest, sincere and emotionally demanding.

Babbitt's "Phonemena" opened the concert. Written for soprano and electronics, the piece is wonderfully organic in the manner in which the human and electronic sounds are blended and contrasted.

The soprano doesn't sing words. Instead, Babbitt breaks language down to its simplest components — vowels and consonants — and creates an aurally stunning "text." Alisa Thomason, who is a wonderfully dynamic singer, gave an effortless performance of the piece that showed her vocal prowess to the fullest.

Davidovsky's Duo Capriccioso, for violin and piano, is another marvelously organic work, in which the piano seems to grow out of the violin's notes, and vice versa. Neither instrument has a life of its own. Rather, they depend on each other, and Davidovsky skillfully blurs the lines between what is played by each instrument. Utah Symphony colleagues Gerald Elias, violin, and Jason Hardink, piano, brought dynamic energy and vitality to their reading, capturing the work's finely shaded nuances compellingly.

Lerdahl's Fantasy Etudes is a vastly demanding work for ensemble, virtuosic in scope, complex in nature and craving utmost precision from the performers. The piece explores different sound/color combinations from the instruments, and as such is fascinating and quite intriguing. Carlton Vickers, flute; Carl Jackson, clarinet; Hasse Borup, violin; Noriko Kishi, cello; Kimi Kawashima, piano; and Glenn Webb, percussion, played with dynamic drive and virtuosity. And conductor Morris Rosenzweig brought cohesiveness to the work with his insightful direction.

Murail is the current visiting composer at the U., and two of his works were on the program — his early "Estuaire" for piano (played by Hardink), and the recent "Winter Fragments" for ensemble and electronics.

Murail creates a mesmerizing sound in "Winter Fragments," which immediately draws the listener into a new world. Driven by color, the work is stunningly imaginative and creatively blends the live instrumental sounds with the computer-generated sounds. Once again, the ensemble (Vickers, Jackson, Borup, Kishi, Kawashima and Dylan Bean on the MIDI keyboard) gave a virtuosic performance under Rosenzweig's direction.

---

E-mail: ereichel@desnews.com