At Time Spans Festival, New York shows off new music
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Tuesday, November 5, 2024


At Time Spans Festival, New York shows off new music
From left, Jenna Sherry, Serafim Smigelskiy and Kathryn Schulmeister during a performance by SWR Experimentalstudio and Ensemble Experimental during the Time Spans Festival at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York, Aug. 12, 2023. SWR Experimentalstudio and Ensemble Experimental opened the Time Spans festival on Saturday with a concert of works by Luigi Nono. (George Etheredge/The New York Times)

by Seth Colter Walls



NEW YORK, NY.- Classical music’s global summer season is full of destination-worthy presentations. In August, New York makes a contribution: The Time Spans Festival, a modern and contemporary-music event that is the equal of anything on the international circuit.

So after a couple weeks covering operas and starry premieres in Europe, I made sure to be home in New York for the first shows in this year’s festival, which runs through Aug. 26. It all takes place in the refreshingly cool, subterranean hall of the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in Hell’s Kitchen.

Saturday’s opener was dedicated to works by 20th-century composer Luigi Nono. This Italian modernist worked frequently with the resident electronic specialists of the SWR Experimentalstudio, a German public radio electronic studio from Freiburg. At the DiMenna Center, this group collaborated with musicians in Ensemble Experimental, giving these performances the feeling of deep investment and institutional know-how.

First up was “Omaggio a Emilio Vedova” from 1961. A fixed-media piece — for tape only — it was spatialized in the hall by the SWR technicians, with eight speakers surrounding the audience. And though just over four minutes in length, this slashing, vertiginous work made a strong impression: its brief metallic shards of prerecorded sound revolving around audience-member eardrums with a grace that made Nono’s supposedly harsh aesthetic seem balletic.

The short presentation also blasted into dust the recent, expensive and much-ballyhooed spatial-music presentation at the Shed, the Sonic Sphere. There, audience members were hoisted up into a giant dome, only to listen to a surround-speaker system with blurry low-end sonic fidelity. At the DiMenna Center, listeners kept their feet on the underground floor, but the whirling sound production was pristine — and transporting.

When live instrumentalists from Ensemble Experimental joined the fray, this sense of fun continued, even during gnomic works with generally quiet dynamics, like Nono’s “A Pierre. Dell’azzurro silenzio, inquietum” (1985).

Here, the subtle electronic processing of live instrumental playing was a consistent delight: When astringent live notes, played by a bass flutist and a bass clarinetist, came back around in the electronic part, they seemed somehow softened by the electronic merging and transformation. With those newly mellowed-out sounds crawling across the back of your head — courtesy of speakers in the rear of the room — the piece then turned its bass clarinetist loose, by asking for yawping but controlled overblowing from the reed player. (Here it was Andrea Nagy making those striated and punchy sounds.)

That piece and one that came next — “Omaggio a Gyorgy Kurtag” — have been recorded on a fine SWR release on the Neos imprint. But that’s a two-channel stereo recording. Here, as led by guest conductor Brad Lubman, both took on greater depth in the immersive surround-sound setting.




The festival’s second night kept the European-experimentalist trend going, but in a fully acoustic fashion, with the JACK Quartet’s renditions of the second and third string quartets by Helmut Lachenmann.

Speaking from the stage between pieces, violist John Pickford Richards described Lachenmann’s reputation as someone who makes Western classical instruments seethe and twitch in ways previously inconceivable. (His influence can be felt on other German composers of his generation, as well as adventurous American composers like David Sanford.)

Richards also noted that “Grido,” the third quartet, which the ensemble had just played, was one that the JACK instrumentalists had performed together before they were a formal group. And so they think of Lachenmann as a father of the ensemble.

That deep familial relationship was already apparent in JACK’s reading of that third quartet. That performance seemed to say: Forget everything you think you know about how weird this guy’s sound-production techniques are; just get lost in the confident, persuasive flow of these unusual ideas.

As on a recording for the Mode label, the JACK players proved they know how to get the most out of this pathbreaking music, savoring the crisscrossing flurries of steely motifs. (They did it with enviable clarity, creating a spatialized feel through purely acoustic means.) At other points, violinist Christopher Otto in particular seemed to relish the brief touches of more familiar vibrato that Lachenmann allows into the piece.

Lachenmann’s second quartet, which on Sunday followed the third, came across more like a notebook of ideas — ideas that would later find their ideal expression in the third quartet. Still, it was a pleasure to experience such a focused, hourlong tour through this composer’s string writing.

And audiences seem to have caught on to the Time Spans model — of casual yet tightly plotted concerts, usually lasting an hour to 90 minutes, with no intermission. This weekend’s programs looked close to sold out. And affordable tickets, just $20, are still available to most remaining shows.

There are no dress codes, and no complicated advance-festival planning is required. In this way, Time Spans is part of the (necessary) genre-wide effort to make classical music more approachable. Crucially, the festival does that assuming that new audiences can handle new music.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

August 16, 2023

A museum of 'Electrifying Frankness' weighs dialing it down

Brice Marden: A legacy beyond the monochromes

This ancient whale may have been the heaviest animal ever

Lorenzo Quinn bronze to be offered at La Belle Epoque Auction

How old is that polar bear? The answer is in its blood.

An oil painting by Louis C. Tiffany and a French carved walnut vestment headline auction

British Library researcher throws new light on Elizabeth I

Nationalmuseum acquires iconic portrait of Axel von Fersen

'Where Land Meets Sea' the work of six South Korean contemporary artists feature of Stroll Garden exhibition in NY

Jack Shainman Gallery announces representation of the Estate of Emanoel Araújo

Kerstin Honeit, The Society of Affective Archives, and Rodolfo Andaur works featured at PHI Foundation

Rago and Toomey & Co. present historic auction 'Roycroft: Life in Abundance, The Collection of Richard Blacher'

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive presents new work by Kenneth Tam

Witness and chronicler of the world, works by photographer and poet Allen Ginsberg featured at Fahey/Klein Gallery

'On the Value of Time: New Presentation of the Collection of Contemporary Art' at Museum Ludwig

Thamesmead's talented youth shone at the annual, community-powered festival

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki publications and branding internationally honoured

Is Albarino the next great white wine? It depends.

Rare X-Men #1 comic book from 1963 up for auction in celebration of the 60th Anniversary

Museum for Art in Wood presents new exhibition 'Placing: The Windgate Arts Residency Program in Wood 2023'

Magoo, rapper and former Timbaland collaborator, dies at 50

Antique Gold Rush-era bottles, stock certificates, coins, tokens and postcards do well at auction

Strawser Auction Group announces major Majolica collection

At Time Spans Festival, New York shows off new music

Peppa Pig House Wallpaper: Adding Whimsy and Charm to Kids' Spaces

Unlock Business Growth With Effective Cleveland SEO Services

Why You Should Choose a Melcher Ramp Alternative




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful