Friday, 6 Nov


Blindfolded and sitting onstage in total darkness, the composer of the last piece on the program started out the evening by playing a soprano saxophone (handed to him by an "anonymous helper") for the first time in his life, in John Cage's 1969 "Sound Anonymously Received."  Watching the performer blindly grope the instrument was suspenseful, almost painful, as he repeatedly heaved great breaths, blowing air through the instrument, which turned to discordant wailing sounds after a few seconds.  A few people in the audience laughed to see him struggling with the sax, while others waited tensely to see what he would produce from the instrument next.  His flush improvisation felt almost like a composed out piece, and served as a kind of foreshadowing for what was to be heard in his own composition later in the program.

Reiko Fueting's  2006 "red wall" for solo guitar followed.  Dan Lippel's expressive performance captured well the cold but lively atmosphere of the piece, and its unpredictable gestures and phrases seemed to be telling a story: though the language the music was speaking sounded unfamiliar, a narrative could be clearly felt. 

Carmel Raz took the stage next for Inhyun Kim's intense, perilous sounding "Seeds disperse in the air to come."  A violin solo at breakneck speed, the piece had a fiddle feel (if the barn were on fire), and brief were the breath-catching moments when the rhythm screamed to a halt for double stopped chords, before the quick pace resumed. 

The night finished with Matthew Hough's viscerally engaging "Irreverant Overtones," for solo bassoon.  Wailing, then grinding overtones preceded silent ghost notes, air being blown into the bassoon and its keys being pressed without any tones coming out.  The piece was a variable alternation between volatile overtones and ghost music sections, all the while so severely sparse as to make the audience self-conscious of their own noise.  Particularly unnerving to watch were bassoonist Annie Lyle's fingers moving rapidly through the toneless ghost sections, the clicking of her bassoon's keys creating sounds like water droplets.  The longest piece on the program, "Irreverant Overtones" hit the audience with all the physical drama of the Cage piece, times ten.


for more info on Music Equals, visit them at musicequals.org.