The Bang on a Can Marathon 2013: Early Highlights

Since the World Financial Center atrium, home to the annual Bang on a Can avant garde music marathon for the past several years, is undergroing renovations, this year’s marathon was moved to the Schimmel auditorium at Pace University on the opposite side of town on Spruce Street. How long did it take for both the downstairs and balcony seats to fill up? About an hour. Three hours after the daylong concert began, there was a line at least a hundred deep outside. On one hand, it’s heartwarming to see how popular the event has become; on the other, it’s impossible not to feel bad for those who didn’t make it in.

Especially since the music was so consistently excellent. Chamber orchestra Alarm Will Sound opened the festivities auspiciously with a lively, bubbling, south-of-the-border-tinged movement titled El Dude (a Gustavo Dudamel reference) from Derek Bermel’s Canzonas Americanas. Their next piece, Jeffrey Brooks’ After the Treewatcher, took its inspiration from an early Michael Gordon work. The composer, who was in the house, explained that when he asked Gordon for a score, Gordon said no: he wanted Brooks to work from memory instead. Guitarist Ryan Ferreira, stepping in on literally a few hours notice. provided hauntingly resonant twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar against permutations on a distantly creepy, circular motif. At the end, pianist John Orfe mimicked the conclusion of the Gordon work, insistently ringing a dinner bell, which surprisingly ramped up the surreal menace.

Charlie Piper’s Zoetrope cleverly interpolated simple, insistent, echoingly percussive motives from throughout the orchestra into an increasingly fascinating, dynamically shifting web of sound, while Caleb Burhans’ O Ye of Little Faith, Do You Know Where Your Children Are? returned both the ambient menace and sweeping, Reichian circularity of Brooks’ piece.

Mostly Other People Do the Killing trumpeter Peter Evans played solo, much in the same vein as Colin Stetson’s solo  bass saxophone work. It was a free clinic in extended technique via circular breathing: supersonic glissandos throwing off all kinds of microtonal quark and charm, whispery overtones, nebulous atmospherics contrasting with a little jaunty hard bop. He was rewarded with the most applause of any of the early acts.

Druimmers David Cossin and Ben Reimer teamed up for a steady yet trickily polyrhythmic, Ugandan-inspired Lukas Ligeti duet. French instrumentalists Cabaret Contemporain then made their American debut with a couple of hypnotic dancefloor jams, part dark dreampop, part disco, part romping serialism and great fun to watch, especially when some early technical glitches were fixed and the band’s two bassists, Ronan Coury and Simon Drappier, were playing subtle interchanges.

Jonathan Haas conducted the NYU Contemporary Music Ensemble with the NYU Steel in a nimbly intricate performance of Kendall Williams’ Conception, expanding the universe of what the steel pan is capable of, the group methodically rising from a comfortable ripple to ominously majestic torrents. Tibetan chanteuse Yungchen Lhamo and pianist Anton Batagov followed with a hypnotic triptych of works from their recently released album Tayatha, a trance-inducing, tersely graceful exercise in the many interesting things that can be done with resonant one-chord, south Asian-tinged jams gently lit by Lhamo’s shimmering melismatics.

Then it was time to go see Ghosts in the Ocean, chanteuse Carol Lipnik and pianist Matt Kanelos’ often chillingly atmospheric experimental noir pop project, who were playing several blocks north at Zirzamin. They made a good segue. It’s surprising that they haven’t made an appearance at Bang on a Can yet.

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Deviant Septet’s Boisterously Entertaining Debut

It’s an auspicious sign any time a good band sells out a room. In the case of new music ensemble Deviant Septet’s debut performance Thursday night at Greenwich House Music School in the West Village, a wired young audience found its perfect match onstage. The Deviants’ signature piece is Stravinsky’s L’histoire du Soldat; their raison d’etre is to play that piece and, hopefully, new commissions for unorthodox mini-chamber orchestra. Featuring members of Alarm Will Sound, the Knights and Metropolis Ensemble, Deviant Septet comprises Bill Kalinkos on clarinet; Brad Balliettt on bassoon; Courtney Orlando on violin; David Nelson on trombone; Doug Balliett on bass; Mike Gurfield on trumpet; and Shayna Dunkelman on drums and percussion.

The first half of the performance was the Stravinsky. It’s not one of his major works, but it is a lot of fun. It’s sort of Stravinsky for kids, in a good way: it’s very entertaining. The story, a surreal, wryly Russian update on the Faust myth, was energetically directed by Rafael Gallegos, with Sean Carvajal lending a deadpan, sardonic, hip-hop edge to the character of the soldier, bassist Balliett serving as Greek chorus of sorts, with bassoonist Balliett playing the role of the Devil and Dulce Jimenez subtly developing the role of the Princess from guileless to femme fatale. Interpolating the story within musical passages that pulsed along on the tireless good cheer of the bass (Doug Balliett got a real workout but held up his end mightily), the group shifted amiably from martial bounce, to plaintive austerity, to the bracing astringencies of the final theme where it seems that the composer decided to dig in and get serious. It was the most intense passage, it was worth the wait, and the ensemble took it out on a high note.

The second half of the program began with the world premiere of Dutch composer Ruben Naeff’s For the Deviants. Meant to illustrate another deal with the devil – in this case, concessions to the right wing made by the Rutte administration in Naeff’s home country – it came across as the kind of piece written more to appeal to those who play it than those who have to hear it. Based on one of those circular themes all the rage in new music circles, the ensembled opened together against a drone, then took turns individually sending out bits and pieces of permutations, one by one. Toward the end, there was a passage with some semi-contrapuntal vocalese. Trying to keep her blippy ba-ba’s together, Orlando couldn’t keep a straight face and backed off, a reaction that was as completely honest and appropriate as it could have been.

They amped up the fun factor with another world premiere, Stefan Freund’s The Devil Dances with Tom Sawyer, a mashup of the Stravinsky with the classic rock radio stinkbomb by Rush. That song offers endless possibilities for comedy: Freund chose the high road, rather doing anything with lyrics like “He gets high on you!” and “Catch the spit!” Taking both pieces out of context, the Stravinsky took a backseat to the satire, the group opening it with a deadpan Dixieland feel, trombone playing Geddy Lee’s silly bassline. What became obvious from the first minute or so is what a boring song it is: after giving it a spirited thrashing and having fun rearranging its most hobbity aspects, they let it go. The group finished with Frank Zappa’s Titties and Beer, a funk-metal update on the Stravinsky, sung with sardonicism and soul-drenched relish, respectively, by Matt Marks and Mellissa Hughes, Doug Balliett switching to electric bass to fatten the slinky low end. It was a good way to bring the arc of the concert up as high as it could go – and the crowd screamed for more.