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MUSIC REVIEW | 'ORESTEIA'
An Opera of an Epic, Composed in Stages
By ALLAN KOZINN
In his 11 years at the Miller Theater, George R. Steel has made creative programming an art form in itself and has constantly raised the bar. When he planned this season, his goal was to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the renovation of Columbia University’s old McMillan Theater and its reopening as the Miller Theater. As it turns out, it is also Mr. Steel’s valedictory season, though most of it will be in absentia. (He takes over the Dallas Opera on Oct. 1.) And he found a spectacular way to begin it: with the American premiere of Iannis Xenakis’s sharp-edged, otherworldly opera “Oresteia,” which opened on Saturday evening.
The orchestral music also goes a long way toward describing the action, which is brought to life not by the singers, as in a conventional opera, but by six lithe dancers. Luca Veggetti, who directed and choreographed the production, found a fine, expressive balance between fluidity and jaggedness, modern sensibility and imagined antiquity. Pascal Delcey’s projected artworks, which melted into one another on a screen to the side of the stage, offered similar juxtapositions.
With Steven Osgood conducting, the International Contemporary Ensemble and the three choirs — a men’s chorus, a women’s chorus and the Young People’s Chorus of New York City — performed the music with ample polish and not the least restraint. Mr. Osgood and his musicians understand Mr. Xenakis’s quirky, vibrant writing, and they make it exhilarating.
Transient Glory II
The Young People's Chorus of New York City has performed over 50 premieres since 2002 thanks to the commissioning efforts of its enterprising music director, Francisco J Nunez. This second self-produced sampler, Transient Glory II, features some of the most prominent composers of our time, who clearly relish the unique challenges of writing for children's chorus while retaining their own stylistic fingerprints. Highlights include Judith Weir's intricate e.e. cummings settings (Little Tree) and Michael Nyman's poignant treatment of Walter Benjamin's Child's View of Colour. The chorus exhibits an overall high level of accomplishment.
12 Hours of Exotic Musical Exploration
By Gail Wein
NEW YORK – Now in its 21st year, the annual Bang on a Can Marathon is a veritable institution of contemporary music. This year’s model, at the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center, began at 6 p.m. on May 31 and ended 12 hours later on June 1, showcasing 18 ensembles and 27 composers. As in the past, artistic directors Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe focused on living composers and boundary-crossing music: electric guitar in an all-acoustic classical context (Crash Ensemble); a performer who simultaneously sings, plays violin and manipulates electronic processors with his feet (Owen Pallett); an Indian tabla player joining forces with a percussionist (Karsh Kale and Raj Maddela). Exotic combinations, daring feats – these are the explorations for which Bang on a Can has long been known.Performers ranged from solo pianist Lisa Moore to the 50-voice Young People’s Chorus of New York City, but large instrumental ensembles dominated. Alarm Will Sound, a 16-piece group based in upstate New York, launched the proceedings with John Adams’ “Son of Chamber Symphony.” Dublin’s Crash Ensemble put 12 players on stage to essay works by Artistic Director Donnacha Dennehy and Terry Riley. And at midnight, the 15-member Signal made its official NYC debut with Steve Reich’s “Daniel Variations,” a work it will also take to this week’s Ojai Festival.
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A novelty piece that will go far, “Every Stop on the F Train,” by Michael Gordon, was written for and ably performed by The Young People's Chorus. With the text consisting solely of the subway station names along the Manhattan Transit’s F line through Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn, Gordon’s angular phrases and choppy rhythms simulate a ride on the MTA. The music was synchronized with a roughly cut film by Bill Morrison, whose camera lens aims out the train window and captures the scene at every station platform along the way.
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Copyright © 2008, Musical America
Darcy James Argue's Blog, 06/02/08
Bang On A Can Marathon 2008
Without the manic intensity of me trying to liveblog every set of a 27-hour concert as it was happening, this year's Bang On A Can Marathon felt a lot more chill. Of course, it was also considerably shorter, clocking in at a mere 12 hours and change. Perhaps inevitably, it was also less diverse, with just four artists representing from outside of "new classical" circles (Karsh Kale, Owen Pallett, Marnie Stern and Dan Deacon). So yeah, evidently nobody from the jazz team made the cut this year. (The 2007 Marathon had sets by Vijay Iyer, Don Byron, and the World Sax Quartet.) However, the out-of-towners included Ireland's Crash Ensemble, Israel's Ensemble Nikel, and my peeps from the Soviet Socialst Republic of Canuckistan, Contact.
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The Young People's Chorus of New York City sang Michael Gordon's Every Stop On The F Train
The F train is my train, and the text sung by the chorus is literally what it says in the title, from Jamaica-179th Street to Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue. The setting is inventive and charming -- it needs to be, obviously -- if perhaps not quite as memorable as the kids' selection from last year, Meredith Monk's "Three Heavens and Hells." (I still get little snippets of that one creeping into my brain at odd moments.)
Review - Transient Glory CD II
Performed with vigour and freshness, this disc contains eleven recent commissions from this large youth choir, ranging from the delicate and understated (Judith Weir's Little Tree) to the dramatic (Tod Machover's I Dreamt a Dream with electro-acoustic accompaniment), and from the humorous (Benjamin Lees's The Nervous Family) to the cross-cultural (Bright Sheng's The Boatmen's Song): varied and often challenging music, performed with verve and colour - truly displaying what Núñez calls the 'transient glory' of youthful voices. Other composers include Nyman, Argento and Del Tredici, and there is a strong collage piece by Kevin James which grew out of a project in New York City's 'poorest and most undeserved' neighbourhoods. Despite signs of over-enthusiasm in the singing at times, there is a great deal to enjoy in this enterprising disc.
Alan Bullard
New York Concert Review, May 08
Review - Transient Glory VI
The Young People’s Chorus of New York City presented a masterful, memorable concert at Columbia’s Miller Theater entitled Transient Glory VII on April 27th. This unbelievably polished, professional-sounding ensemble is the resident chorus of the 92nd street Y and is directed by the outstanding young conductor Francisco J. Nunez, who founded the group in 1988. This past October, the chorus celebrated its 10th Anniversary as an independent chorus with a gala sold-out Carnegie Hall performance, and each year, the YPC serves more than 1,100 children ages 7 to 18 from the New York City area.
The Transient Glory Series was created in 2001, and seven years later, the chorus continues to commission music from today’s many respected composers. Since 2001, the YPC has sung the world premieres of more than 50 compositions, and all the works on this program were world premieres except for “The Song I Sing” by the Tony Award-winning team Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens and “Every Stop on the F train” by Michael Gordon. All works were commissioned by the group and will be integrated into their performances in the next 12 months, a very important venture. “The Song I sing” is an inspiring, joyous piece combining a multitude of styles, and the YPC sang it with enormous dedication and an innate know-how of all the various styles. But most impressively, they sounded better than most professional choruses, singing here ---and elsewhere on the program-- with impeccable intonation, exquisite blend of voicing and use of vibrato, excellent diction and precise rhythmic phrasing. Oh, and they sing everything from memory, allowing them to focus on the atmosphere of each work and their communication with the audience.
The next piece, “Every Stop on the F Train”, by the talented Michael Gordon would be tremendously challenging for any chorus, but YPC pulled out all the stops—so to speak. The work utilizes a fast-motion video of all the F Train stops throughout New York City, and while the complexity of the counterpoint and canons are impressive, the fairly lengthy work does become repetitious to a fault—(although the title hints at monotony being the point.) Some contrast of tempo, color or timbre was needed, but the work is somewhat saved by the distraction of video and the YPC’s boundless vocal energy. Bora Yoon’s memorable work, “Semaphore Conductus”, is a spacious, antiphonal surround sound work that features a long hypnotic crescendo and digitally processed sounds that take us to another time and place. The composition could easily have been monotonous but its altered, yet organic sections brought us some lovely variety. The YPC stayed on pitch and breath despite extremely long notes, and they maintained the sublime, ethereal atmosphere throughout.
Joan Tower’s touching “Can I” features antiphonal drum sets, whispering, chattering, clapping and a good deal of canonic counterpoint. What came across the most was the emotional investment of every chorus member. Douglas Cuomo’s “Fortune” also explored various sound effects—this time clicking, wind and water sounds and snapping. Here, the chorus showed off its solo voices, and the boy soloist, who was seated stage left, stood out with his lovely, pure tone. Ko Matsushita’s superb “Warabe-Uta” was the perfect conclusion because it impressed on a level that had not yet been explored on this concert: foreign language. And here, the YPC sang in Japanese –and again from memory! The diction came across clearly and authentically, and the composer seemed very pleased. No doubt, the learning of this work will prepare them for their 4-week, 25-city tour to Japan in 2009.
Maestro Nunez is the perfect conductor for this incredibly talented group, as his knowledge, energy and commitment transfer to these children with pure joy. I look forward to hearing this very special New York institution again and again.
-Anthony Aibel
Review - Transient Glory CD II
The Young People's Chorus of New York City, originally founded in 1988, inaugurated its "Transient Glory" concert series in 2001 "to spotlight the children's chorus as a serious, and indeed glorious, instrument for making music during that fleeting period of time when a child's voice-this transient, eternally self-renewing instrument - endows the music with a particular poignancy and innocence." Indeed. The present release is the second in the ensemble's "Transient Glory" recording series (I'm not familiar with its predecessor).
The programming concept of this disc is intriguing even before one begins to listen to it: every one of these pieces, by an imposing "Who's Who" of contemporary composers, was commissioned by or for the Young People's Chorus, and all were premiered during the period 2002-2004. The text sources, too, are notable in their variety, ranging from Heraclitus through William Blake and e.e. cumrnings to New York City schoolchildren. Nor can I forbear to mention Edward Lear, whose Nervous Family is vividly and amusingly text-painted in Benjamin Lees's setting. Interestingly enough, both Lees and Argento - surely among the most mature and revered figures represented here - are writing for children's chorus for the first time.
Barring a very few intonational disagreements among the top sopranos, the performances are exemplary - the more so given that while the stylistic range of the works is predictably wide, not a single one of them could by any stretch be termed "easy." The recording acoustic is quite intimate - a sensible choice, both because these singers, however capable, can't be expected to produce the massive sound of a Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and because a more resonant atmosphere would threaten to obscure the intricate textures of a number of these pieces. Barring the absence of texts - a greater handicap in some cases than in others - the documentation is equally commendable, notably for its inclusion of notes on each work provided by the composers themselves.
Listeners whose choral sympathies tend to peter out somewhere around Vaughan Williams and Britten may predictably find themselves initially skeptical about such a program as this, but might be better advised to expand their horizons by acquiring it. This release gives new hope to those of us who are inclined to anticipate with dread the predicted demise of "serious" music among the younger generation.
--James Carson
Transient Glory II Review - American Record Guide
American Record Guide
May/June 2008
Transient Glory II
WEIR: Little Tree; I Carry Your Heart With Me; Now Is a Ship; MACHOVER: I Dreamt a Dream; BURGEON: Shirtless Stephen & the Children's Crusade; VIGELAND: Miracles; SHENG: Boatmen's Song; LEES: The Nervous Family; PAPOULIS: Panta Rhei; JAMES: NYC Playground; NYMAN: Child's View of Color; ARGENTO: Orpheus; DEL TREDICI: Sabbath's Child; The Little Land; Alphabet; Highlands Farewell
Young People's Chorus of New York/Francisco Nunez - Vital 2017 - 78 minutes
(308 W 30th Street, Suite 2A, NY 10001)
The real story here is the choir itself. Founded 20 years ago by Maestro Nunez, who also leads several groups at New York University, the Young People's Chorus is the choir-in-residence at Manhattan's 92nd Street Y and at WNYC, New York Public Radio. The 250 young singers range in age from 8 to 18. (61 of them are in action here.) It also oversees the choral training of some 700 additional youngsters via its satellite programs. The YPC has won numerous awards, none more important than the citations it has garnered for dedicated service to at-risk kids. What a great story and what a meaningful contribution!
We all know how school music programs have been trashed and gutted by bumbling, musically illiterate educrats in recent years. The cultural carnage has become even more destructive in the wake of the dumbed-down, "teach to the test" sterility of No Child Left Behind. (When the history of this presidential administration is written, the war in Iraq may well go down as the second biggest mess they got us into.) What an immense pleasure, then, to see talented young musicians rising above the nonsense to create something precious, lasting, and so very needed. My hat is off. Bravos all around.
Over the past several years, the chorus has commissioned and premiered some 50 new pieces for children's choir. The words on this anthology were commissioned from 2002 to 2004. Nobody here pulled any punches, that's for sure. Tod Machover's 'I Dreamt a Dream' (one of the better pieces here) must have been an absolute bear to master, with its tricky rhythms and rapidly changing meters bouncing every which way. Jim Papoulis's 'Panta Rhei' offers musical commentary on ancient Greek culture with some interesting wordplay, while Judith Weir came up with three EE Cummings texts and set them evocatively for trebles and marimba. Also of interest is Kevin James's 'NYC Playground', which uses slam poetry to creat a sort of sprechstimme of the streets heard in the central portion of the work.
Several of the pieces I didn't much care for, especially the Del Tredici set. (The last one sounds barely singable.) Most of the time, though, the choir is nimble and heads-up even when the music is not. The sound is cold, dry, excessively close, and not nearly as flattering as it could be. The kids deserved better.
GREENFIELD
ClassicsToday.com reviews Transient Glory II
ClassicsToday.com
May 2, 2008
TRANSIENT GLORY II
Works by Judith Weir, Geoffrey Burgon, Tod Machover, Bright Sheng, Michael Nyman, Dominick Argento, David Del Tredici, others
Young People's Chorus of New York City
Francisco Nuñez
Vital Records- VR2017(CD)
No Reference RecordingArtistic Quality 9
Sound Quality 7In this follow-up to its 2003 Transient Glory CD (please type Q7284 in Search Reviews), Francisco Nuñez and his Young People's Chorus of New York City offer another impressive slate of new compositions presented in similarly savvy, stylish, technically proficient performances. The "children's choir" movement over the last 25 years or so has seen the rise of dozens of world-class ensembles that attract and commission works from major composers--as we hear on this new release, which features pieces "premiered by the chorus between 2002 and 2004."
Highlights--which for me are the works in which the composer seems to truly understand and capture the uniqueness of these voices, selects carefully and elucidates the chosen texts, and gives the choir some really "singable", attractive music to sing--are Judith Weir's Little Tree (texts by e.e. cummings, with a cleverly written marimba accompaniment), Tod Machover's I Dreamt a Dream (from William Blake, which effectively employs electronic sounds), Geoffrey Burgon's Shirtless Stephen (and the Children's Crusade), with its wonderful Britten-esque melody and text/rhythm treatment, and Benjamin Lees' delightful take on Edward Lear's humorous poem The Nervous Family. In each of these pieces, the choir really shines with vibrant energy and a confident, commanding vocal presence.
Some of the featured works make more of an impression for their difficulty than for their attractiveness or effectiveness as vocal music--indeed Michael Nyman's A Child's View of Color might as well be an instrumental work; the vocal writing renders most of the words unintelligible and creates a vocal timbre that just sounds strained. In addition--and this also was true on the earlier recording--the weird balances between choir and instruments (especially so in the Nyman work) only detract from what we should be hearing from the singers. Nils Vigeland's Miracles and Bright Sheng's The Boatmen's Song are both busy, challenging works, but they seem more consumed by their structural and thematic ideas than with giving the audience music to look forward to hearing again. Kevin James' NYC Playground just seems contrived and too long for its material--and again, the strange miking and odd balances undo the whole thing.
There's more here, including fine works by Jim Papoulis (an experienced composer for youth choirs) and Dominick Argento (his first work for young voices!)--and a mixed bag from David Del Tredici, a set of four pieces that includes the bizarre Sabbath's Child and a wonderful, nifty "fuga" based on the Alphabet text from the 1727 New England Primer. (Bizarre also is the word for Del Tredici's own descriptions of his music, which he says normally is "larger-than-life", but for this he had to "distill myself down.")
As with the first Transient Glory disc, this is a must for choir fans who wish to be close to the latest happenings in one of today's most exciting, endlessly inventive, and uniquely challenging (for both singers and audiences) areas of music creation and performance. Happily for those who want to take this further, all of this music has been published, and information about the composers and where to obtain the scores is provided in the detailed liner booklet. On to Volume 3!
David Vernier
Most composers lust after commissions from orchestras, opera companies and string quartets. Fewer have children’s choirs high on their wish lists. But Francisco J. Núñez hopes to change that with his remarkable Young People’s Chorus of New York City, above, and its Transient Glory series, which continues on Sunday at the Miller Theater.
Mr. Núñez founded the choir in 1988 with kids of diverse economic and ethnic backgrounds. In 2001 he inaugurated Transient Glory (named after the fleeting beauty of developing voices) to expand the serious repertory for children’s choirs and to encourage composers to write for the medium. Since then the ensemble has commissioned dozens of works by an eclectic range of notable composers, including Steve Reich, George Crumb, Judith Weir, Bright Sheng, Milton Babbitt and David Del Tredici.
The chorus is split into several divisions, including the Concert Chorus for boys and girls ages 12 to 18, which will perform a typically eclectic Transient Glory concert on Sunday. Mr. Núñez will lead the group in the premieres of five commissions, including Joan Tower’s first choral piece with text, as well as music by Douglas J. Cuomo, Ko Matsushita (which will be sung in Japanese) and Bora Yoon, whose work is billed as “a choral sound installation.”
The program also includes the premiere of a multimedia version of Michael Gordon’s “Every Stop on the F Train” (a collaboration with the filmmaker Bill Morrison), “The Song I Sing” by Stephen Flaherty and “In Paradisum” by Lynn Ahrens and Ernst Krenek.
These young singers are notable for the beauty of their youthfully pure voices and for their technical sophistication. “Transient Glory II,” the choir’s latest CD, highlights their talents in works ranging from Ms. Weir’s evocative “I Carry Your Heart With Me” to Tod Machover’s harmonically and rhythmically challenging “I Dreamt a Dream.” (Sunday at 2 p.m., Miller Theater, 116th Street and Broadway, Morningside Heights, 212-854-7799, ypc.org; $25.) VIVIEN SCHWEITZER
Kids from YMCA to Sing for Pope
Pope Benedict will be serenaded during his Mass at Yankee Stadium by some of the sweetest voices in New York.
The Young People's Chorus, which brings together teenage singers from every corner of the city, was picked to perform inspirational songs for the pontiff and a huge crowd at the Stadium.
"Singing has changed my life," said Althea John, 15, of Brooklyn. "To get to sing in front of the Pope means so much to me."
The award-winning choir based at the 92nd Street Y will sing three songs - Kayama, Creo En Dios (Believe in God) and Give Us Hope - for the leader of the world's Catholics on April 20.
The group's conductor called the papal assignment a perfect match for the choir, which recruits young singers from underserved communities for its lauded afterschool program.
"We chose songs that embodied our mission of diversity and hope," said Elizabeth Nunez, 29. "These kids love to sing."
In an oversized rehearsal room at the Y, 40 singers ranging in age from 12 to 18 did vocal drills Friday afternoon.
Then they worked on the songs, including the Spanish-language Creo En Dios, in which Kelly Feldman sings a solo.
"It hasn't even clicked yet," said Feldman, 18, a senior at Dominican Academy. "I mean, we're singing for the Pope at Yankee Stadium. What more could you ask for?"
Stephan Douglas-Allen said the performance is a fantastic reward for years of hard work.
"Ever since I was a baby, I've loved music," said Douglas-Allen, 12, of Manhattan, a student at the Amber Charter School. "To get to perform like this is a dream."
The choir is no stranger to high-profile performances. Since being founded in 1988, it has sung on three continents and is planning a 25-city tour of Japan next year.
Along with the performances, the choir has satellite programs in eight public schools and its mission is to give an artistic outlet children with limited resources.
The group was recommended for the papal Mass by the Rev. Leslie Ivers of St. Frances de Chantal Church in the Bronx, whose goddaughter sang in the Young People's Chorus for years.
Besides getting to sing, the group builds lasting bonds between kids whose paths would otherwise never have crossed.
"This is their community," Nunez said. "This is so important to them."
A children's chorus, but don't touch that dial!
Don’t let the fact that this is a young person’s chorus turn you off to this remarkable recital. As you can see in the heading, the composer list is quite formidable, and this album contains some incredible music that is rendered with love and highly competent execution. Judith Weir’s Little Tree trilogy contains some breathtakingly beautiful music, while some other pieces, like Kevin James’s NYC Playground are far grittier and realistic in their depictions of contemporary life through the eyes and ears of children. Benjamin Lees taps into the child (and adult) psyche by talking us through the Nervous Family, where the sounds and syllables of the texts are mimicked to outlandish effect in the music as well.
These are just a few of the highlights on a disc that has nothing but highlights. The recorded sound is very clear and concise; perhaps just a little stuffy - would have benefited from some more ambiance, even though the recording was made at the 92nd Y in New York City. This ensemble has been around since 1988 and is one of the finest of its kind anywhere in the world, also the resident choir of the “Y” and of WNYC, New York’s top public radio station. Conductor Francisco J. Nunez has done an amazing job with the 61-member ensemble, and this disc is so far one of my top picks of the year. I cannot tell you how surprised I am by that.-- Steven Ritther
Girl Meets Boy, Then Kinetic Melodrama Ensues
Dance fans remember Stephen Petronio for the bare bottoms and men in tightly laced corsets, for the pounding rock scores and Baudelairean bad-boy theatricality, and for the cream-of-the-crop cutting-edge composers and fashion designers that he likes to involve in his work.
But Mr. Petronio, whose company opened a weeklong season at the Joyce Theater on Tuesday night, is a more important choreographer than that sometimes facile reputation implies. He is one of the few contemporary dance makers who have created an instantly recognizable style, and — more pertinent — he shows in the two new works in this program that he can use it in fresh and unpredictable ways.
The thrill of watching Mr. Petronio’s dances come from the kinetic drama of that style: limbs whiplashing in long straight lines through space; jumps engendered from static positions by pure energy, rather than momentum; abrupt changes of direction and dynamic that make each step look like a new thought. That could be numbing. But in these pieces he seems to parse his own relentless physicality and infuse it with emotional texture and wit.
In “Beauty and the Brut,” a commissioned score by Fischerspooner (the art-world-darlings music duo) offers a woman’s voice recounting, in English and French, a pickup on a beach. With its Laurie Anderson-like echoes and deadpan unfinished sentences (“My name is — whatever”) set over minimal electronic melodies, the score alone is a delight. So is Ken Tabachnick’s wonderful lighting, which magically evokes the haze of sea and sky on an empty beach. And as that light hits the gorgeously statuesque Shila Tirabassi, curving her body sculpturally through space, the work takes you immediately and confidently into its own sexy, glamorous world.
At first Mr. Petronio uses just one couple: Ms. Tirabassi, fluid and commanding, and Jonathan Jaffe, deliberately lumpen and brutish. But then other dancers, in fabulous beach gear (half cave man, half Erté) by Benjamin Cho, appear in multiple, never literal, incarnations of this never-ending human comedy.
One of the pleasures of this program is watching the way Mr. Petronio moves dancers seamlessly on and off stage, and how skillfully he paces the sections of his pieces. This is true of the 2006 “Bloom,” with its swirling movement and haunting score by Rufus Wainwright, beautifully sung on Tuesday by the Young People’s Chorus of New York City. It is also true of “This Is the Story of a Girl in a World,” a new piece that offers discreet meditations on gender in the way it sets identical choreography — sometimes aggressive and propulsive, sometimes silky and lyrical — on both the men and women, and leaves us to think about the effects.
Each of the work’s five sections (set to music by Antony, Lou Reed and Nico Muhly) is rewarding. But Davalois Fearon’s fiercely beautiful solo, Julian De Leon’s disconcerting femininity in “Candy Says,” and Michael Badger and Elena Demyanenko’s melodramatically gestural duo evoking iconic female performers (Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, Karen Finley and others) are particularly notable for their effect: jarring and just right.
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