I grew up listening to rock music. In fact, I'd like to say my parents gave me a good classic education. By the time I was 7, I knew the lyrics to every Beatles song and could name almost every artist on the classic rock station. So, when I flung myself head-first into the classical music world, I couldn't help but think about the ties between classical and popular music. As a lover of both, I've always been an advocate for blurring the lines between genres and hopefully ending the fear people have of classical music. (Hence the whole purpose of this blog :P) There's no reason why it should be stuffy, scary or boring. It can be just as exciting as any other type of music.
My friend Melissa agrees with me. Last week she put on a concert brilliantly called "Changing Opinion". As the name suggests, her goal was to change people's opinions about music and prove that works that people might assume to be polar opposites actually go hand in hand. The show was organized in blocks where multiple pieces were paired and performed back to back without pause to show their similarities and intersections. Melissa explained this whole concept to the audience, referring to pieces as either in the black, white or grey area. She wanted it to be a more casual and inviting experience for the audience so it took place at the coffee shop across the street from out school.
The opening section of the concert featured two very different composers, Philip Glass and Astor Piazzolla. It began with Philip Glass' work "Changing Opinion" (clever huh?) for flute, piano, brass quintet and tenor. The instrumental parts stayed true to Glass' minimalist style (a very repetitive progression by the piano and brass and a gesture played over and over by the flute), but their function was to set the stage for the eery lyrics by Paul Simon that were sung on top of them. As it turned out, "Changing Opinion" has the same bass line as Piazzolla's "Libertango" and the performance went seamlessly from piece to piece. The brass quintet stood and the flute, tenor and piano moved to the side.
"Changing Opinion" vs. "Libertango"
While the first set shared a common musical idea, the second pair had a similar emotion, "loneliness". The Bealtes' "Eleanor Rigby" was performed in it's original string quintet arrangement with vocalists. As I said, I'm a huge Beatles fan so seeing this performed live was probably one of my favorite moments of the night. Paired with the rock classic was "Aria" by Eugene Bozza arranged for two saxophones. To better express the longing in the piece, two dancers from the Baltimore School For The Arts, performed original choreography. It was beautiful.
The Bealtes vs. Bozza (To see a video of Eleanor Rigby, click here)
Along with works by famous (often dead) composers, the concert was also meant to feature the work of contemporary composers who are also working to blur the lines and make new classical music very accessible. The third section of the program was devoted to a composer from Peabody, Griffin Cohen. I LOVE his music. It's so unique and still so pleasant to listen to. He works a lot with computers and electronic sounds played live with instrumentalists. His piece "These Are Our Shadows" for example, is for two guitars, trumpet and electronics. I think many people today when they think of "new classical music" think of crazy random sounds that are often at painful volumes. Well, Griffin is proof that that is not all there is. There is still music being written today that is simply gorgeous.
Next up was what I would describe as a "mash up". Melissa took the stage a performed her own transcription that combined three unlikely artists, J.S. Bach, Jimi Hendrix and contemporary composer Ruby Fulton. I don't know if you've ever heard solo bassoon but man, it's GUTSY. It is so raw an exposed and I think it was the perfect setting for this exploration. My favorite part was when she went back and forth between the opening of Bach's 2nd Cello suite and "Purple Haze". Here's a clip:
The forth section and fifth sections revolved around the saxophone. A jazzy contemporary piece, "Buku", for saxophone and tape by Dutch composer JacobTV was paired with a sax quartet and bassoon arrangement of Radiohead's "Paranoid Android". Both pieces were so exciting!! I like how Melissa's programming focused a lot on contemporary classical as well as older works. Paranoid Android was so cool, I had to post it.
Last was another piece for sax and tape paired with a live rock band. It was so cool to watch Anna Meadors perform a challenging solo work on soprano sax then quickly put it down and grab a bari sax to jam with her band Supersharpshooter. It was a great way to wrap up the concert.
Overall, the audience seemed to really enjoy the wide array of music. In between sections, there was always a buzz in the room of people discussing what they just heard. To quote "Changing Opinion":
"Maybe it's the hum of changing opinion"
To see more pictures, visit my flickr!
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