Live music in brief

The term “new music,” or New Music, connotes a family of sounds, a cadre of living composers, but on Tuesday, May 5 it also simply meant new. There were three U.S. premieres on the bill and one New York premiere, focusing on figures within the so-called spectral movement.

Carol McGonnell performed Allain Gaussin’s vicious solo clarinet opus Satori, turning to read a score laid out in a broad semicircle, covering a half-dozen or so music stands. A small group from the Argento Chamber Ensemble unveiled Pierre Boulez’s Improvisé pour le Dr. K, the shortest of the evening’s five works. The task of interpreting Gérard Grisey’s Manifestations fell to the teens and pre-teens of the youth ensemble Face the Music. Their compelling, finely balanced reading prompted one to consider the pedagogical aspects of spectral harmony — clearly, director-conductor Jenny Undercofler has done great work with these children, getting them to think about and execute ensemble ideas of a highly advanced order. The sounds were rendered somehow less remote, more familiar, accessible — not simply on an “if children can do it” level. Rather, we as an audience were able to hear Grisey’s unknown language through the kids’ fresh, adaptable ears.

Tristan Murail was on hand to play the ondes Martenot with Argento and the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, in the NYC premiere of Murail’s own Les Courants de l’Espace, a concerto from another plane. (Michel Galante conducted the Murail and Boulez.) Murail is on my mind as I plan a Time Out preview on alto saxophonist Steve Lehman, whose new octet record delves into spectral harmony from an insanely complex beatmaking-and-jazz perspective. Steve is at (Le) Poisson Rouge on June 8, and he was there Tuesday as well to hear his teacher Murail; during intermission he made some pertinent remarks on Murail the orchestrator. [Update: In private conversation. I don’t mean Lehman addressed the crowd.]

Messiaen’s Oiseaux Exotiques, the finale, a heavenly 1956 creation for piano and small wind orchestra, was not “new” music in the temporal sense, but Messiaen remains the most perpetually new artist of all, the guiding light of modern concert music in many ways. Oiseaux had pianist Gilbert Kalish calling forth massive, unsettled harmonic structures from the piano, bouncing off the Stony Brook players under the baton of Eduardo Leandro.

A great way to end — Messiaen’s voice announced itself with stark and undeniable authority, bringing everything that came before it into clearer focus.

“Shir Artistry: The Many Faces of the Modern Cantor,” a program of Jewish cantorial music on Monday, May 4, promised a slew of vocal talent and a vibrant mix of traditions, but I attended mainly for a personal reason: Cantor Richard Botton, the host and curator of the evening, presided at my bar mitzvah at Central Synagogue in 1981. I believe I hadn’t seen him since, though he was a good friend and colleague to my grandmother, who passed away in 1996. 

Hearing Botton’s voice, in powerful form all these years later, brought me back. The program ranged from Hebrew landmarks of Ashkenaz heritage to sprinklings of Yiddish near-cabaret (“Abi Gezint,” sung by the young Mo Glazman), to the moving Ladino strains of “LAmor” (Botton is Sephardic, born of a Greek father and Turkish mother). Cantors Jill Abramson and David Lefkowitz also brought verve to the music, and pianist Jayson Rodovsky, with a small roster of guest instrumentalists, held the wide-ranging music together with great poise.

Having exchanged emails indirectly before the show, Cantor Botton and I ended up sharing warm words that night — he grabbed my arm tight and declared, “I remember your bar mitzvah!” “I do too!” was all I could think to say.

It was moving not only to talk with Botton but also to hear him sing “R’tzey,” a searing melody by Stephen Richards that I distinctly remember being in use at Central when I was there. 

Looking back, I can note that in the intervening years I’ve invested far more time and thought in the politics of being Jewish than in being Jewish. Lately I’ve mulled over reconnecting on some level, and that’s one way Cantor Botton’s music hit me. To paraphrase the Democratic slogan: It’s the music, stupid. Just as I’ve rediscovered my roots on guitar, I’m now free to incorporate the Jewish musical legacy that my grandmother left me. With a daughter on the way, the timing couldn’t be better. Truth be told, that’s the main reason I returned to the guitar anyway, to be able to serenade the kid. It’s my choice, I figure, to withhold my music-making from the public, but I have no right to withhold it from my child. And the Jewish component, a voice from my past, may yet surface in the present and future.