Chris DeFilipp December 5, 2011

Groundworks Kitty Brazelton

Music Festival Concert Report
This concert report recounts observations made during Music Festival on November 29th,
specifically during the first song set of the evening. Music Festival was held at the Dean Carriage
Barn, and was a concert setting: most of these pieces had been through workshop as a
requirement and had since been polished and refined for the festival. The Carriage Barn has
pretty good acoustics in the main area, as there are hard, flat walls and high ceilings, and has
great acoustics in the Fireplace Room, though this concert report is based off a song set in the
main performance space. Music Festival was set up to hold at least 100 people, and most of those
chairs were, in fact, filled.
First to perform, performing a French opera piece entitled Je Veux Vivre, by Charles
Gounod, was Alice Tolan-Mee, accompanied by Yoshiko Sato on the Piano. This piece,
translated as I will live! was really lively, as Alices expression was subtle, yet magnificent.
Her legato voice, paired with her staccato accompaniment really created an interesting texture
accented by her crescendoing and de crescendoing.
Her solo operatic piece was then followed by an operatic duet entitled Parigi O Cara by
Giuseppe Verdi, where Alices vocals were accompanied by those of Alex Diaz, with Yoshiko
Sato providing the Piano accompaniment. A piece for tenor and soprano, Alex and Alice really
got into character for this piece, accenting their vocals with some theatricality, which helped put
them into the right frame of mind for such a loving and endearing piece. I found this piece
particularly interesting because of the polyphonic vocal moments scattered throughout it,
creating quite an interesting texture.
Following Alice and Alex was Dan Wininger on Piano, playing an improvisation entitled
Improvisation for 1 1/2 Hands. This piece was very interesting because of the sheer breadth of
harmony and themes which Dan walked the audience through throughout his piece. I really
noticed how in the beginning (and again later near the end), Dan used his left hand as a moving
force, moving up the piano while the right hand added staccato accents to it here and there to
color the sound. There were also a great deal of minor and diminished chords used to build
suspense: chords which were recycled later on in the piece.
Dan was then followed by Kaori Washiyama on violin and Allen Shawn on piano,
playing a piece written by Colleen Burns entitled Reflections in the Sun. This piece was
interesting because of how it kept floating in and out of different ideas. One moment the piece
was homophonic, where the violin and piano would play off of each other, but then the next
moment the piece was polyphonic, where the violin and piano were both vying for attention. It
was also interesting how at one moment the piano went into a groovy funk rhythm which seemed
out of place to begin with but grew on me really fast.
Following Colleen Burnss piece was Alex Diaz performing two of his love songs from
There is No Medicine, his own personal song cycle. These pieces were for tenor voice and piano,
and were entitled: I. Being in Love and II. Falling out of Love. The first of these pieces had a
celtic feel to it, while the second piece had a very distinguishable long moment of a cappella
singing--bringing a solemness to the idea of falling out of love. Alex did a great job of writing
consonances and dissonances in order to portray emotion, as each time there was a dissonance he
was talking about losing love, and each time there was a consonance it was about hope for love.
Dizzy Dance by Jo-Anne Hyun and played by Allen Shawn on piano. This song was
played at workshop and even though Allen had played it, it had definitely been refined between
workshop and Music Festival. This piece is a waltz where pedal is used constantly in order to
add an airy-ness to the piece. The piece started, and then ended (vis a vis a coda) with the same
idea, which was very interesting and definitely gave the piece a sense of closure.
The final piece of this concert, and the piece which I have chosen to delve into the eight
parameters in greater depth, is the piece Suite for Friends by Barry Saunders, played by Barry,
Bruce Williamson, and Mike McGinnis on Bass, Soprano, and Alto Clarinet respectively,
Soprano Clarinet, Alto Flute, and Soprano Flute respectively, and Soprano Saxophone (all three).
This piece was interesting in the composition for this very reason--each trio of instruments
(except for the saxophone trio) had a low, medium, and high range, so that one could be
harmony, one melody, and one bass line. What was also interesting about this instrumentation
was the difference in timbre between the all-clarinet movements and sections, the all flute (with
clarinet bass line) sections, and the all brassy woodwind sounds of the soprano saxophone
section. Each had its own feeling and emotion, which I think Barry really built upon, but Im
going to discuss the third movement, which was the soprano saxophone movement.
The saxophones brassy woodwind sound really contributed to a busy sounding
movement. The first thing that I thought of when I heard this movement was Flight of the
Bumblebees.... for Soprano Sax Trio, and I feel that the speed of the notes and the brassy sound
was able to contribute to the buzzing sound I heard throughout it. There was one very interesting
timbral element in this piece that I can remember clearly, in fact. This moment was during the
third movement, the soprano saxophone movement. In this movement, all three of the soprano
saxophones were echoing each other trilling along, until one of them, played by Mike McGinnis,
began to have a screaming quality to it. The smoothness of the soprano saxophone was suddenly
broken up into a raspy screaming sound, which continued as the other two soprano saxophones
dropped out and Mike attempted a screaming sax solo--only to be stared down by Barry with his
solo reduced to a small squeak from the saxophone.
This piece has an interesting form throughout it. It starts out with the bumblebee theme,
and continues this for a while. Then, theres a change in theme where there is a less structured,
even busier sounding theme on these saxophones. It is here where each saxophone starts to
squeak. Here they also play a lot with tempo and dynamics as a trio (which their sync-ness with
each other was astounding!). There is also the use of some trills and staccato accents here as
well. The third part of this movement was the saxophone solo, which started with the other two
playing, and ended with a minute of solo performance while Barry and Bruce stopped playing
and did a small comedic stare, which got a lot of laughs from the audience. The piece ended on
the same bumblebee theme that it started on. This structure would make this one piece an ABCA
structure, which returns to the beginning to create a sense of closure.
This piece has interesting rhythmic ideas throughout it. Theres a steady pulse, consistent
until the solo, where there is a suspension of the pulse, but when all three soprano saxophones
are playing, the pulse is steady. While the pulse is steady, the tempo does shift a little bit
throughout the piece. There are a few moments where the tempo slows down, comes to a stop,
then picks up at the original speed again. The meter seemed to be in a duple structure, with most
definitely duple subdivisions, though those subdivisions were subdivided even further into duple
sub-subdivisions. There was definitely a speed to the playing that was much faster than the
pieces pulse. Also, being a slightly jazzy piece there were moments where there was definitely
some syncopation in the middle sections, where the bumblebee theme was not played (since that
theme was not so much constructed on syncopation but on speed of trilling the notes).
This piece was really interesting because the melody was in canon for at least the first
and fourth sections of this movement, and I believe slightly in the second movement, though not
as much--the second movement was more about developing a mid section to the melody, and
setting up the solo section. Thus, for the majority of this movement the piece remained in a
polyphonic texture, with each soprano sax trying to get you to pay attention to its part over the
other two parts. It was in the second part that the piece went into homophony more, as the three
saxophones were not in canon at that point. During the solo there was even a point where there
was monophony because it was just the one saxophone playing. The speed which these were
played in canon was astounding, and the trilling of the notes really made it sound like a
Bumblebee movement... like the classical Flight of the Bumblebees for piano. That being said, I
can remember what one of the cycles sounded like in contour; which sounded something like
this:
The harmonies in this piece were really interesting. Lots of the harmony was cumulative,
though there were a few distinct moments where everyone was playing the same note of a chord
(particularly when there was the note before the pause within the piece and the note at the end of
the piece). In the second part of the movement, there was a little more focus on creating harmony
between the three instruments (as the instruments were not in canon in the second part), and the
harmony was very bluesy, very tonal. Because this was mostly blues-y, and canon without
harmony in a classical way, Id have to classify this piece as tetradic in its harmonies. I believe
there was some chromaticism in this piece, particularly in the use of the trills on the saxophones,
but I do not believe that there was any modulation, making the piece fairly simple harmonically
in that particular aspect.
There was a lot of playing around with dynamics and expression in this piece, as I
mentioned before. There are a lot of moments, particularly at the end of the sections, where there
is a silence which was achieved by the decrescendo-ing of the entire ensemble. The piece was
played at forte to start with, and at these moments the piece died down in volume to piano or
something in the lower range. There were also moments where they crescendoed the piece, most
notably during the screaming sax solo which happened early on. In addition to the change in
dynamics which happened a lot, there was a lot of expression throughout. There were the legato
trills which were played in the first and last sections of this song, but there were also interesting
staccato moments as well--not to mention the use of the single staccato note at the end of the
movement which helped create tension and act as a transition to the next section. There is also
the use of the screaming sax, and some squeaks with the saxophones, as I mentioned before, that
add to the pieces expression and make it much more interesting.
This piece didnt have too much extramusical stuff to it, especially because it was solely
an instrumental piece, but it was interesting how within the piece there was the comedic aspect
added into the solo section. The sax soloist was playing a rogue part, and both Barry and Bruce
stopped. The look and the reactions which Barry and Mike had garnered laughter from the
audience, and thus added in that extramusical element to the performance.
This piece was very interesting in that it was in canon, quite speedily in fact, and was able
to express a Bumblebee effect. I also found it interesting the comedic aspect of the solo of the
ABCA structure, and I also liked how there was an overall positive amount of expression and
dynamic change over the course of the song. The song was a great way to end the Music Festival
set that I attended, as it was faculty written, really well played, and a great break from the usual
voice/piano, piano/violin, piano songs that were played beforehand. I think the concert was a
great final expression of the term for a lot of people whove been working all term. Through
comments at workshop and practice, a lot of these pieces have evolved with their expression and
quality--and it was definitely a treat to listen to these great performances.