Wrapping up '09

The Best Music of 2009 rundown hit Phawker on New Year's Day. It contains my write-ups of albums by Dirty Projectors and John Vanderslice, as well as Vol. 1 of music from the TV show "Glee."

My editor had intended to run everyone's Top 10 recommendations, but they didn't make the cut owing to space and formatting. Here are mine, in no particular order, but with a classical/non-classical divide a little over halfway through.

Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

Music from Glee, Vol. 1

I recommend these three jointly, because layered vocal harmonies were big this year, and a cappella ones in particular. So, in order, the harmonies here are in service of something fractured and strange, something swooning yet buttoned-down, and something over-the-top, spectacular and slightly fey. As I mentioned before, I sang a cappella in college, and I know deep-down how lame it is, but the diversity of its current uses makes me think that it might someday go legit.

Muse - The Resistance

Taking the arena-filling sound of U2 in a paranoid new direction, while tempering the Messianism and trading the bombast of Bono for that of Brahms or Beethoven.

John Vanderslice - Romanian Names

It's Romantic pop, rather than Baroque, but darker, bleaker and more withdrawn in its lyrics than on past albums. The beautiful, finely-honed sonics remain the same, though.

Andrew Bird - Noble Beast

Lush like Vanderslice, though slightly more precious, but gleefully wordy and overstuffed with lyrics chosen for sound rather than meaning. Dig that whistling, too.

Lady Gaga - The Fame Monster

The girl was everywhere this year, for better or worse, and even she's a Warholian put-on, I'd forgive her based on her infectious beat-mongering and all-out weirdness. I hope she hasn't used up her allotted 15 minutes.

Tyondai Braxton - Central Market

Brilliant musician from Battles ditches band for orchestra, but keeps the laptop and his flexible sense of rhythm and timbre. It's recognizably orchestral, but frenetic, exciting and packed with electronic surprises.

Theater of Voices - David Lang's the little match-girl passion

This piece won Lang the Pulitzer, but he didn't write it with mainstream cred in mind. It's a wrenchingly beautiful, utterly secular take on religious music -- less thorny than the pieces that established Lang's reputation, but no less thoughtful or inventive.

The Crossing and Piffaro - Kile Smith's Vespers

A Philly-centric recording and the most capital-C classical of my selections, and it's capital-R religious to boot, but the way Smith repurposes the earthy sounds of Renaissance instruments for modern music is a marvel. Same goes for the impeccable blend of the singers.

Late entry

A little info on the most recent item to land on my Top 10 for 2009, Kyle Bartlett's "The Lost Child." I wasn't familiar with "The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser," the Werner Herzog film that was a point of inspiration for Bartlett's opera; it's now on my Netflix queue, hopefully to arrive soon.

It's an unconventional opera, to say the least, featuring a flute-playing actor (or acting flutist) with electronic enhancements, an actor playing multiple roles who also sings, a percussionist, and a bevy of pre-recorded and altered sounds.

Bartlett set the tale in a futuristic surveillance society and portrayed the Hauser figure, Ana, herself. Ben Pierce played the Shadow Man, who brings Ana to Nuremberg; the Sector Manager; the Big Brother-ish figure of The Authority; and Doctor Nassar, who teaches Ana language and attempts to integrate her into society.

As Ana, Barlett convincingly expressed fear, doubt, anger, confusion, curiosity and rapture. After the show, she claimed to have just been making it up as she went along. She was similarly casual about her flute-playing, which drew heavily on extended techniques, including vocalizations, keyslaps, and pitch-bends.

The electronic elements mimicked firing synapses, disconnected thoughts and, during scenes of Ana's introduction to language, the acquisition of vocabulary. I could even detect stray German amid the fractured phrases and processed natural sounds, though I'm not sure if the phrase "Verstehen sie" is original to the Herzog film.

In short, the opera was compelling both musically and dramatically. The primordial elements - of exploring one's origins, or of acquiring language for the first time - echoed other, non-vocal works on the concert, particularly the violin-and-cello duet "Night Vision." Even simple elements, like changes in wardrobe or shifts in Bartlett's approach to her instrument (from unadorned notes to hissed and spat effects back to notes again), conveyed an unforced sense of significance. I don't have much else on my slate for the rest of the year, so "The Lost Child" will probably be the last concert I see in 2009 - and one of the best.

Top 10

The Crossing, David Shapiro's "It is time," Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, January 4.

Bang on a Can All-Stars, Michael Gordon's "For Madeline," Perelman Theater, February 28.

Curtis Opera Theatre and the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Alban Berg'sWozzeck, Perelman Theater, March 13.

Symphony in C with harpist Bridget Kibbey, Sebastian Currier's "Broken Minuets," Perelman Theater, April 16.

Greater South Jersey Chorus, Aaron Copland's "At the River," National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, April 18.

The Crossing (again), works by Kile Smith and Joby Talbot, St. Peter's Church, June 10.

John Vanderslice and band, "Exodus Damage," Johnny Brenda's, June 11.

Sonic Liberation Front, "Jetway Confidential No. 3," Institute for Contemporary Art @ UPenn, July 29.

Asphalt Orchestra, works by Mingus, Bjork, Bregovic, et al., 30th Street Station, August 7.

Kyle Bartlett, Benjamin Pierce and Kristopher Rudzinski, "The Lost Child," Settlement Music School, Mary Louise Curtis Branch, December 13.

Honorable mention: Academy of Vocal Arts, "Lucia di Lammermoor," May 5, Helen Ward Corning Theater.

Conflict-of-interest mention: All solo arias and recitatives, as well as the Baroque horn solo, during Choral Arts Society's performance of Bach's B minor Mass, First Baptist Church of Philadelphia, May 9.

Before year's end

I'm holding off on posting my Top 10 list of the best performances I saw this year. I pondered the timing of year-end lists last year, and even though the usual critical heavy-hitters have already weighed in several weeks before the end of the year, I'm seeing two concerts this weekend that I hope might crack the Top 10.

First, on Saturday, a concert of Baroque music by Symphony in C with soprano Julianne Baird, which I previewed for the Courier-Post on Sunday. I'm interested to hear how a pared-down Symphony takes to Baroque style, while vocal fireworks from Baird are a given. 8 p.m. Saturday at Rutgers-Camden; I'll be reviewing for the C-P.

Second, on Sunday, a showcase of works by composer Kyle Bartlett. Kyle's a friend and an invaluable resource and sounding board on new music, both in general and in Philly. Before we met last summer, she described herself, via e-mail, as an "absolute hard-ass when it comes to aesthetics." This hard-assery has undoubtedly served her well as she's worked on "The Lost Child," an opera for solo flute with electronics, actor and percussion funded by the Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts program.

Another endorsement has already come in from the West Coast. Anyone near Philly should make it to this one. 8 p.m. on Friday at Settlement Music School's Germantown location (6128 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia), and 7 p.m. on Sunday at the Queen Village location (416 Queen Street). Both are free.

Four by four, one on one

Two belated posts from a brief flurry of activity for Phawker.com, one of the Internet's largest and snarkiest repositories of my writing.

Q&A with David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet, for Phawker, Nov. 6, 2009.

Before setting up this interview, I wondered if the Kronos' publicity manager would put forward a member other than David Harrington; it had always been my impression that Harrington dominated the group's media presence. In the end, though, Harrington was a wonderful interview -- very thoughtful and generous, and digressive in the best possible way. We were both on the road as well -- he to San Francisco International Airport, I from Bucknell University back to Philadelphia -- and managed to avoid any dropped calls or poor connections.

The collected works and quirks of A.J. Jacobs, for Phawker, Nov. 6, 2009.

I really wanted to attend Jacobs' event at the First Person Arts festival, and it seemed the best way to do that was to put together a retrospective look at his two books and the genre (the First Person Arts director called it "shtick-lit," a surprisingly harsh dig) he's birthed, or at least revivified. Jacobs' presentation ended up being almost stand-up-comedy-like, and though people familiar with his works could have seen many of the punchlines coming, he was funny and endearing off-stage as well, and, fortunately for me, willing to give autographs and to inquire about the work of young, ambitious writers.

Mouthfuls

The Bay-Atlantic Symphony, reviewed, for the Courier-Post, November 9, 2009.

The Mendelssohn = so good. In addition to the elements of Bach I heard in the Andante "Pilgrim's March," I also felt the kind of relentless, forward-pressing quality that I love about the famed Allegretto in Beethoven's 7th. I hope Rowan and the Symphony can muster a larger crowd for the next concert in January.

Symphony in C's Music du Jour series, for the Courier-Post, November 16, 2009.

The "alt-classical" angle is partly my invention -- Cork isn't (Le) Poisson Rouge -- but I'd love to see more of this kind of activity crop up in Philly and the surrounding area.

I missed the first dinner, the Bulgarian one that Rossen and Rosie prepared, but I won't be missing the Cork event. The strength of their beer list alone (peep it here; it's mostly up to date) demands that I attend.

Two cheers

Brewpubs in New Jersey and the Philadelphia area, for the Courier-Post, Oct. 30, 2009.

Bay-Atlantic Symphony's "Night at the Opera," previewed for the Courier-Post, Nov. 1, 2009.

I don't know how I got so lucky to provide coverage of such disparate but enjoyable topics. A second assignment to write about beer... I never thought there'd be a first!

I'll also be reviewing the Bay-Atlantic's performance on Friday at Rowan. I'm interested in seeing what kind of audience their initial foray into Gloucester County will bring, and also in finally hearing an orchestra that I've been writing solely previews about for more than a year.

The other side of summer

It's pointless to ask "can four months really have gone by?"; they have. But with other news in the classical-blog world (Noise is dead, long live Noise) and an honest-to-God link to this blog from the honest-to-David-Remnick New Yorker, I realized it was time to start back up.

I'll cop to a recent Twitter distraction/infatuation, and musings will continue there. But this is where it all started, and I still don't feel that addenda to reviews and features should be restricted to 140 characters.

A quick summary of my end-of-summer/beginning-of-fall activities: working at a new German restaurant in Philly. Lots of beer and food knowledge gained. But my German, es geht eigentlich nicht. But now the fall arts season has started up, and I've offered a season preview for groups in New Jersey and Philadelphia.

My first review of Camden's Symphony in C has also appeared. I hope to add New Jersey's Bay Atlantic Symphony, newly installed at Rowan University (closer to the Courier-Post circulation area), to my stable of reviews as well.

Other C-P pieces, on a production of Glengarry Glen Ross and an art exhibit at Rutgers-Camden, have also surfaced recently, as has my story for Symphony on Symphony in C, though there's no online version.

Final development: I'm considering purchasing the domain hotbedofintrigue.com. Any thoughts on the best/easiest/most cost-effective way of doing this?

Fantasia on a new-music collective's name

This has been running through my head for several weeks now.

A commissioning fund for new sacred music: Bang on a Canticle

A concert series pairing new pieces with classical favorites: Bang on a Canon

A Marathon concert held on a battleship or a Civil War site: Bang on a Cannon

A Marathon concert held at a famous outdoor site in Arizona: Bang on a Canyon

I could go on all day.

Pipes and drums

Two recent pieces:

"The Rock Tenor," a theatrical classical/rock mishmash, previewed for the Courier-Post. It opens tomorrow night at Phiadelphia's Wilma Theater.

Plus, an interview with legendary Nigerian musician King Sunny Ade for Phawker. The King plays tonight at Wiggins Park on the Camden waterfront. Definitely worth the trip across the Delaware.

Duo

In the July 5, 2009 issue of the Courier-Post:

Two new exhibits at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, my first venture into art criticism that features the work of Haddonfield native John Vick.

Also, Globe-trotting with Opera New Jersey, a preview of ONJ's summer season.

Image: William Klein (American, born 1928), The Pope Appears, Saint Peter's Square, 1956 (negative), 1979 (print), Gelatin silver print, courtesy of PMA.

Constructive summer

At long last, my treatment of David Foster Wallace and "Infinite Jest" has arrived on Phawker. It reflects on Infinite Summer, the summer-long group-read of "Jest" that began last week, and on Wallace's legacy in the wake of his death in September. My reading of the book spanned that sad event, and though the 75-page-a-week pace makes it sound reasonable, I'm not feeling up to making another attempt just yet.

Can do

On Friday, I had the good fortune to attend a panel featuring the composers of Bang on a Can -- Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, and David Lang -- in conversation with Anne Midgette of the Washington Post.

The talk dug fairly deep into the group's origins and its progression from the fringe to something resembling the establishment, especially with Lang winning the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2008.

What excited me most: the upcoming formation of something called the Asphalt Orchestra, a new-music marching band. The idea of it, especially knowing Gordon's affinity for site-specific music and shifting the audience-performer orientation, makes me giddy. My years of propping up a sousaphone with my left shoulder seem somehow vindicated.

One perception-altering observation: I thought that BoaC operated entirely outside of the academic world, that all three made their livings from writing music without holding down positions at universities. "I was unemployable the day before I won the Pulitzer," David Lang remarked on Friday. That changed, though; he now teaches at Yale and Oberlin.

Attendees were treated to a few ear-jangling clips of the trio's compositions: Gordon's "Dystopia," performed by the LA Philharmonic under David Robertson; Lang's "Little Match Girl Passion," written for Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices and for which he won the Pulitzer; Wolfe's string quartet "Early That Summer" and "Lad" for nine bagpipes. "Dystopia" thrilled me most -- brassy, busy and colored by the Walt Disney Concert Hall pipe organ, but with a deftly multi-layered structure -- but all were highly enjoyable.

I believe it was Julia Wolfe who stated the group was formed "to make the field better, more widely played... [to build] a bigger and more enthusiastic audience." That really resonated with me, because that's what I want to do as a writer and critic. Maybe that's not what a critic's job is or ought to be, but I believe in this music, in new music, and in the music that paved the way for its creation. A 12-hour concert, or a 24-hour one, might be a news-making spectacle, but the individual pieces that comprise it, and the composers behind them, should be known, too.

Philly Orchestra season closer: An earthly delight

In the face of economic woes and minor crises in leadership, the Philadelphia Orchestra has soldiered on to produce an admirable, intermittently dazzling subscription season. Charles Dutoit and the Orchestra brought it to a close with performances of Berlioz's Requiem, a piece whose ambition and tumult seemed a perfect finale to a season that exhibited plenty of both.

With themes of the afterlife and light shining on the souls of the departed, the words "celestial" or "heavenly" are applied to this Requiem and others. I came away with the impression of a more earthly delight, more rooted in human frailty and failings than in the firmament.

Dutoit initially took a big-picture approach, guiding the orchestra lightly through the winding scalar figures that churn through the first several movements. The Philadelphia Singers Chorale, at 160 voices rather than the 400 or so that Berlioz recommended, seemed a little underpowered in the "Introitus" but found its footing in the "Dies irae." That chaotic movement threatened to come totally unglued, with four brass choruses spread throughout the hall's second tier and their sound's dissipation into space distorted entrances and rhythms. I'm not sure if there would have been an ideal spot in the hall to hear all four, but they eventually fell into line and joined with four (though it might have been more) sets of timpani to produce a very satisfying roar.

After the stormy "Dies irae," the moments of hush in the ensuing movements were even more pleasing. The Chorale showed immaculate blend, especially in the unaccompanied "Quarens me," and responded strongly to Dutoit's cues, matching the contour he brought to the strings' playing.

What established this Requiem as earthly, in the best sense, rather than heavenly was the sixth movement, the pleading "Lacrymosa." Stabs from the violins gradually transformed into savage blows from brass and percussion that answered pitiful cries of "Save me" from the singers. Dutoit dropped his usual cool detachment and dug in earnestly, gesturing broadly but without putting a stranglehold on the music. The gritty, fevered element of the music resonated strongly; salvation seemed imperiled.

The rest of the concert strove more actively for a feeling of distant, radiant beams. The chorus was hushed but penetrating in the "Offertorium," and the men of the chorus exhibit fine tuning and blended in the "Hostias." In one instance of a forced hand attempting to impart a heavenly sensation, tenor Paul Groves sang his solo in the "Sanctus" from the highest reaches of Verizon Hall. Rather than sounding celestial, it was alienating. Being able to see facial expressions, body language and the mouth's shaping of vowels is vital to appreciating and attempting to understand any singer's performances, and it was dissatisfying to be denied that connection. Groves' sound, though disembodied, was impressive, with a clear, tremulous tone and a loving, lingering approach to his syllables.

The closing "Agnus Dei," with its revisiting of earlier movements, was alternately impassioned and detached, piling up many of the preceding themes and emotions. This pileup in the form of a prayer leads, of course, to the final "Amen." To reach that final exhalation, that sense of final consolation, I get the sense that both listener and performer have to go through hell, and Berlioz's Requiem, diffuse and difficult by its nature, does give you hell. The composer demanded an over-sized orchestra and chorus and wrote, for those forces, a roughly 90-minute work. The ambition of the piece, to me, embodies the desire to create something titanic immortal through art.

Why, then, try to give so much gloss to this very earthly striving? At times, the orchestra's performance aimed for the rafters instead of the heart. It might have benefited from more of the spirit of the "Lacrymosa," where the pleasures of heaven seem threatened, infusing the surrounding movements. A Requiem isn't all angels and harps and lux perpetua. Give us the sweat, the grit, the feeling we just might not be worthy.

For another take: DPS in the Inquirer.

Commended to your attention

An article by Tim Page, professor at USC's Annenberg School of Journalism and Thornton School of Music, former music critic for the Washington Post, and an author whose writing on any number of subjects I would be delighted to read. As it happens, here he writes on a subject about which I have rather strong feelings: the future of arts journalism and the importance of educating people in practicing it. The personal touches at the beginning are particularly gripping -- having recently looked back at my own early writings, amen to his "Oh dear" -- and the exhortations near the end seem both a plea for well-reasoned writing and a representation of it. As a whole, it's pointed without being overly proscriptive.

I can also say that I, too, dislike "histrionic excess" in performances of Tchaikovsky, and I'm happy that jacket and tie are no longer required wearing for either critics or regular concertgoers.

Fermentation nation

The Garden State Craft Brewers Guild Festival, previewed for the Courier-Post, June 14, 2009.

With my first foray into beer journalism, months of poring over blogs and Joe Sixpack's "Philly Beer Guide", not to mention making contacts in the Philly beer scene, have finally paid off. New Jersey looks to have a pretty robust scene of its own, and I'm excited to check it out. I might provide some coverage of the Festival for my buddies over at Hopheads, including maybe even *gasp* some Twittering.

Rock-crit returns

John Vanderslice and The Tallest Man on Earth at Johnny Brenda's, reviewed for Phawker, June 12, 2009.

JV = one of my all-time favorites. Saw him March 2004 in St. Louis and April 2007 in NYC. Erik Friedlander showed up at the NYC gig and played back-up on a few tunes. No new-music cameos here in Philly, but the set was still brash and boldly experimental. Several songs I thought I knew by heart appeared in vastly different form. The reports from St. Paul were right; this new band can tear it up.

Skin, deeply

"Race: Are We So Different?", a new exhibit at the Franklin, previewed for the Courier-Post, June 7, 2009.

Forthcoming: more non-musical matters, including a preview of the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild Festival. Hoping to land some press tickets to that one, which subsequently might lead to some cross-posting with my friends at Hopheads. Cheers.

Reflection/anticipation

Some thoughts on Friday's concert by The Crossing:

- thrilling and exhausting gestures in John McCabe's Scenes from America Deserta: wordless glissandos, dense layering, lots of sibilance and chattering syllables. Busy rather than stark. Much more tumultuous than expected for something intended to evoke a desert.

- two calmer pieces to cool things down. Paul Fowler's Potter's Clay, for women's voices, is smooth and chant-like, working and reworking "Om mani padme hum" into a dissonant pile-up, then repeating the initial portion of the English text. Gives the sense of resolve and insight forged in contemplation. Men rejoin the women for Phillip Moore's I saw him standing there and the blend seems off; the men might still be drained from the McCabe. The middle section of the motet has the most interest; a vital, rhythmic dance that recalls the madrigals that many promising singers first take on during high school as an introduction to high-level, unaccompanied singing.

- Kile Smith's Where flames a word, the final world premiere in the Celan Project, and the first to incorporate a prose work by Celan. Gives a sense of immanence and of tremendous, overwhelming size and the struggle to comprehend it. Middle section, the prose setting, has text that reflects a struggle for language, a conflict between "green" and "white" language, and the build-up of clusters suggests language at war, green and white each fighting for their own space.

-Exact quote from conductor Donald Nally, not long into first movement: "Every so often, and because the composer is in the room, we're going to go back and do it again. There's a wonderful moment... that we just screwed up."

-Despite that, the Smith piece was really impressive: a strong sense of lapping waves, of drawing closer to that nagging, inscrutable secret that seems to haunt Celan. One odd thing: ending on the word "delusion" with a sweet, major chord. Are we to come away thinking of peace and harmony as a delusion? Is this resignation in the face of the struggles Celan evokes? Not sure.

-First half: totally killer. How did they get through it? How do they have the energy for the second half? Anyway, here they go again: "Rain and Rush and Rosebush" by Bo Holten (also in attendance!) A flitting, dramatic work, with a very hard-working soprano soloist and trio of narrators/commenters with an immaculately blended sound. The piece has a kind of fairytale-ish back story but it's much deeper and stranger than most fairytales. Kind of cold at points, but with lots of fluid, intertwining lines that maintain momentum.

-Arvo Pärt's I am the true vine: holy moly. The blend, the focus, the consistency, the adherence to text, it's all there. There's a gravity to the words but a lightness in phrasing, static but radiant. In short: it was simple, beautiful, ethereal, and right.

-Concert closed with Voices of Autumn by my one-time college professor Jackson Hill (sadly, not in attendance). Apparently not taxed by the Pärt or all that came before: the same blend and focus are there, and the ornamentations, inspired by Buddhist chant and Japanese court music, are tossed off with poise. As with the Pärt, I'm reminded of a massed organ sound, with stops being pulled to generate minute changes in color and texture.

All this was motivated by the fact that I'll be seeing The Crossing again tonight at the opening concert of the Chorus America conference, which is being held in Philadelphia. The Crossing will be joined by the Princeton Singers, and I believe they will reprise the Smith piece, as well as the David Shapiro piece from earlier this year, and a work by British composer Joby Talbot that I missed out on seeing last month. More reports to come.

Big band vs. small choir

Another week, another new-music scheduling conflict. Tonight, Ars Nova Workshop presents Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, a group I first discovered in mid-2006 through an interview on NewMusicBox, shortly before I started interning there. I'd kept tags on Argue and the band; I even floated the possibility of interviewing him for the magazine I worked for after grad school (it didn't work out, sadly). I knew about tonight's gig weeks in advance (thanks Mark!) and thought I'd be able to make it before heading out of town for a wedding.

Then another much-delayed opportunity arose: seeing the Crossing in concert after missing the first two weeks in their "Month of Moderns." I'd arranged for tickets to previous shows, and I even lined up a copy of the choir's recording of Kile Smith's "Vespers." I couldn't possibly skip out for a third straight time. So tonight, I'll journey up to Chestnut Hill for the first time since January. I'll take notes as if to write a review, though no formal assignment has yet materialized. I'll seek out a friend from high school who sings with the choir, and I might even bump into one of my college professors might even be there -- Jackson Hill's "Voices of Autumn" opens the concert. I'm sorry to miss out on Secret Society (8 pm at International House, $12), but I know the show I'm seeing will be similarly modern and forward-thinking, and even though it's not a band, I trust it will be big.