Night After Night

I'll Tumblr for ya.

No one who's visited Night After Night in the last year or so needs to be told how sporadic my blogging here has become, nor how I'm constantly wringing my hands about that fact. I'm still trying to figure out how to overcome my delinquency, but in the mean time I'd like to direct your attention to Son of Night After Night, my new Tumblr, which I'll being keeping updated with all the latest news tidbits, links, tracks and videos that float across my transom.

Ripples.

Blair McMillen at Bargemusic
The New York Times, December 6, 2011

Alex Ross has a report on Blair McMillen's previous performance of Morton Feldman's Triadic Memories at Bargemusic, presented in July.

E pluribus unum.

New York Women's Ensemble at Carnegie Hall
The New York Times, December 2, 2011

Proof of how small and intensely interconnected this world truly is: Marilyn Rife — a percussionist, the director of orchestra personnel and human resources for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the director of orchestra personnel for the newly formed New York Women's Ensemble — was for a few weeks my private percussion instructor at Trinity University in San Antonio, probably in 1985 or at the latest 1986.

At the time, Marilyn was the principal percussionist for the San Antonio Symphony and an auxillary percussionist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. That she was my teacher only briefly owed to my lack of discipline… which, translated, means that I never found time to practice. (Granted, this was because I was already a contributing writer for the campus newspaper, a music director at the campus radio station and a member of every musical ensemble the school had to offer.) After too few lessons, frustrating for both of us, Marilyn and I gave up our collaboration mutually and amicably — which likely is more than certain of my professors of the time might attest.

Sorry again, Marilyn! Guess it took me a while to figure out where I might actually belong. Still, wish I'd hung in with you long enough to pick up a reasonable four-mallet technique…

New beginnings.

Kent Tritle at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine
The New York Times, November 25, 2011

Much as I genuinely enjoy the pipe organ and aspire to expertise regarding its mechanics and repertoire, I freely confess that, no, I did not pick out and identify unaided the specific registration Kent Tritle used as a lead voice in Bach's "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" (BWV 653). It was a fantastic sound that I'd never heard before, and I needed to know what it was… so I asked Tritle's page-turner after the concert. The Vox Baryton stop, I was told, was an uncommon registration, and specific to Skinner instruments like the one at St. John the Divine.

Every time I'm at St. John the Divine I imagine what it might have been like to hear Diamanda Galás perform her Plague Mass there in 1990. The New York Times does not seem to have had a reviewer at that event — or if one was there, Galás does not have that review in her online archive. Still, it was fascinating to read what some of my colleagues had to say about her work. Allan Kozinn reviewed an earlier version of the Plague Mass at Alice Tully Hall in 1989 and previewed the St. John the Divine performance; Bernard Holland covered a subsequent performance at the Kitchen. This rare bit of video footage comes from the latter engagement.

The outer limits.

Robert Ashley's That Morning Thing at the Kitchen
The New York Times, November 24, 2011

Immersed as I've been in Robert Ashley's music just lately, coming to That Morning Thing was still a matter of some considerable mystery; there's not a lot of historical detail out there about the piece, arguably Ashley's first opera and certainly the earliest work bearing that genre designation on Ashley's site and in the Grove Dictionary. Two sections of the work are among Ashley's most familiar creations — but how the unavoidable discomfort of "Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon" and the pleasureable disorientation of "She Was a Visitor" would fit into anything called an "opera" was beyond my capacity to imagine.

How unexpected and wonderful, then, that Archive.org, a site I've mostly used to stream Grateful Dead audience tapes, also happened to have not just a complete recording of one of the few early performances of That Morning Thing, from 1969, but also a fascinating contemporaneous recorded commentary by Charles Shere. Both are part of the Other Minds Archive, a spectacular trove of music and conversation.

You can read more about the ideas that went into the new production of That Morning Thing, as well as thoughts and reflections from its participants, on the blog maintained by the show's cast — which included all the members of Varispeed, the collective that played Ashley's Perfect Lives all over the Village — and crew.

Old wine, new bottles.

Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra at Zankel Hall
The New York Times, November 22, 2011

Old masters.

The New York Philharmonic with Bernard Haitink at Avery Fisher Hall
The New York Times, November 19, 2011

Throwing the horns.

Detail of WQXR-FM "OBEY THOVEN" campaign poster image; design by Eyeball

Orchestre Révolutionaire et Romantique at Carnegie Hall
The New York Times, November 18, 2011

Sometimes finding the right hook for an overnight review is a challenge, even a lengthy struggle. And sometimes the right hook simply sits down beside you. This was an example of the latter, obviously. Can't say that I ever expected to cite Quorthon, the late founder of Swedish black-metal band Bathory, in an orchestral review from Carnegie Hall. But you'll notice I'm not complaining.

Endless shout.

Steven Schick playing "North Star Boogaloo." Photograph: Erin Baiano/The New York Times

International Contemporary Ensemble: George Lewis Composer Portrait at Miller Theatre
The New York Times, November 14, 2011

Happy as I am with most of this review, I'm still kind of amazed that I managed to write an entire piece on George Lewis without once mentioning Chicago, where he came from and where his aesthetic was shaped early on by his activities in the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, or A.A.C.M. Lewis's history of the organization, A Power Stronger Than Itself, is sprawling, detailed and authoritative.

Still, I'm pleased to have smuggled a link to an audio track from the great Anthony Braxton live album Quartet (Dortmund) 1976 into the first paragraph (thanks, YouTube!). It was also fortuitous that a Zora Neale Hurston essay cited in the final graf was available in its entirety online. And, finally, with absolute respect to all the great photographers who share my beat for The New York Times, I'm unfailingly deighted with the images that Erin Baiano provides.

Into the mystic.

Olivier Latry at Alice Tully Hall
The New York Times, November 14, 2011

As noted in this review, a small but steady trickle of patrons departed from this concert from about the 10-minute mark forward. You have to wonder just what it was they thought they were getting into with a 75-minute continuous program of Messiaen's organ music…