Tuesday, 24 March



Passing around a hat full of little slips of paper bearing the names of various contemporary composers, pianist Jenny Q Chai had her audience determine the order of pieces for her concert at The Stone on Tuesday night.  Works by eleven composers (three of whom were in attendance) comprised the program, and the music ranged from pointillistic sparsity to full and raging clusters.  Highlights included:

"Intimate Rejection" by Ashley Fu-Tsun Wang; after reaching inside to pluck some lower strings, Chai moved to the keyboard, as two differing thoughts occurred simultaneously, at times seeming to intertwine, at others seemingly unaware of each other.

"Kreutzer Sonata" by Frederic Rzewski; Chai spoke into a microphone an excerpt from Tolstoy's novella Kreuzter Sonata (the inner monologue of a man as he kills his wife) while simultaneously playing a frenetic piano part that acted as a sort of accompaniment to the thoughts of the "protagonist."  Chai's performance was both chilling and humorous.

"Brooklyn - Oct. 5. 1941" by Annie Gosfield; Chai removed the piano's music stand for this piece, so as to be able to reach inside and swipe/hit the strings with a baseball when the score called for it.  The loud, raucous music and Chai's powerful playing permeated the entire shaking instrument with clusters of sound in compelling, visceral rhythms, particularly when Chai donned a pink baseball glove on her left hand to strike the low end of the keyboard.

"I decided to send you home to a nice sleep" was Chai's preface to her first of two encores, Robert Schumann's "A Child Falling Asleep."  Her second encore was Debussy's "Etude for Eight Fingers" (no thumbs allowed!), through which she shredded mightily.

For those interested, here's a list of pieces, in the order performed:
"Étude No. 1, Désordre" by György Ligeti
"Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs/Nowth Upon Nacht" by John Cage
Piano Pieces, Op. 11 (second movement) by Arnold Schönberg 
Piano Piece VIII by Karlheinz Stockhausen
"L'empire des illumnièrs (Hommage a René Magritte) by Nils Vigeland
"Intimate Rejection" by Ashley Fu-Tsun Wang
"Kreutzer Sonata" by Frederic Rzewski
"Image de Moreau" by Louis Andriessen
"Brooklyn - Oct. 5. 1941" by Annie Gosfield
"Leaps of Faith" by Vanessa Lang
"La Fee Verte" by Ryan Francis
Encore #1: "A Child Falling Asleep" by Robert Schumann
Encore #2: "Etude for Eight Fingers" by Claude Debussy