I went. Here is a sort-of review, with a selection of interesting parentheses and footnotes.

Steve Reich’s Four Organs

Performed by the Five Current and Former Artistic Directors (of NUMUS). Jesse Stewart has a shiny head. Glenn is either emoting or giving downbeats with his entire body, I can’t decide which. Jeremy Bell twitches his head with the shakers. Peter nods quarters. Anne-Marie Donovan doesn’t move anything but her hands. Jesse is concentrating, man. The three guys bobbing are phase-shifted, haha! Hilarious.

Glenn Buhr’s deeper still

Does this mean we aren’t hearing Jackhammer? Nice! The beginning sounds like whimsical tickling, kind of a Chopin LP on 45 rpm . Very consonant, very tonal, and inevitably eventually banging on the piano. Why is it that Glenn’s solo piano playing is an excuse for him to bang? Don’t take yourself so serious!

Jesse Stewart’s Intersections

Jesse Stewart does not really play vibes or electric guitar, he does play set, here is “a new piece that involves all three.” Guitar in a percussive way and percussion melodically. It sounds post-rock and I like it!

Jacques Brel: Au Suivant and Ne Me Quitte Pas

Anne-Marie Donovan sounds great and expresses lots and Jacques Brel always makes me think of Lumiére in “Beauty and the Beast” and also this:

Introduction of Jacques Brel’s “Le Moribond” by Beirut

She told stories about NUMUS festivals featuring Charles Dodge and George Crumb! ONE WONDERS if the George Crumb Festival was the time when this occurred:

Celtic Staple-Gun Celebrity Obstacle Course

I enjoyed how most of this night was a reminisce about previous seasons, but Jeremy Bell took his adventures into “edgier” and “clubbier” to a whole new level with his kilted Celtic Staple-Gun Ensemble (“Maybe you thought I was joking. I was not”). Each feat on the obstacle course ostensibly related to one of the performances during his tenure as artistic director: the grant-writing, the river-dancing, the popcorn-eating, the minotaur-harassing, the glare from Jeremy’s silver suit, the staple gun (which, after some to-do and crowding around the table) made some exciting spacey sounds. Stefan Rose – or the last “celebrity” contestant, whoever it was – definitely put on the best show in the obstacle course, killing the minotaur (who was wearing some truly exciting pants) with the staple gun.

I don’t know how “art” the whole extravaganza was, but it was certainly entertaining.*

The 10/11 Season

Jascha Narveson is the posterboy – we approve of this; it will give us another chance to grill him about Princeton in person. Starlight Festival featuring Drumheller, Bocce, Kevin Breit and the Sisters Euclid, Luxury Pond, and Snowblink: hosted by Laurie Brown. “Battle of the Bands” is the PSQ vs. Glenn Buhr (who calls things “Battle of the Bands” anymore? SO high school. How about 4 against 3 or “pass the goddamned ketchup” which is how I learned to count that particular pattern?). “Murderous Little World” is “a riveting work of poetry, theatre, video art and lighting” (there is an abundant lack of Oxford Commas in this brochure), featuring Guy Few’s accordion/trumpet/trombone trio with Linda Bouchard on live electronics, organized around seven poems by Anne Carson. AND THEN PLOrk! Yessssssssss. (That is all I have to say about PLOrk.)

They are splitting the NUMUS season into three parts this year – the Starlight Festival with the excellent collection of bands listed above, the Ensemble Series (also listed above), and the Recital Series, which is all pianists: Heather Taves and John Kameel (which will be piano and electronics), David Braid and Glenn Buhr (which will probably be a jazz-y sort of concert, and might involve the dreaded “Jackhammer” although we hope not), “Emerging Artists” (which does, as discussed elsewhere, make them sound like moths) Nancy Tam, Jason White, and Philip Enchin (Phil is a secret hero, shh, don’t tell), and then Stephen Drury, who, according to his blurb, has commissioned new works from John Cage, John Zorn, John Luther Adams, and apparently others of the non-John variety. He sounds like the sort of fellow I should like to have a beer with and hear stories from!** Also he’s playing Rzewski’s “The People United Will Never Be Defeated!” for which*** I am most excited. Apparently he is going to memorize it.

The New Art Quartet was the second half of the program, with Sanja Brankovic subbing in on percussion. Woo Sanja!

Peter Hatch’s Blunt Music

So this is interesting! It is very different from the other things I’ve heard of Peter’s – sections of minimal repeating material which alter very suddenly. I enjoyed watching the quartet play this because they were so dispassionate! Glenn is a showman on the piano with lots of dipping and banging and emoting, and Terry Kroetsch was so aloof even though hitting the keys was notated, and Beth Ann was so graceful and serious about the whole thing.

George Crumb’s Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III)

Man, this has been The Year for me to learn to love George Crumb. I love his use of instruments – slide whistles and jingle bells, all absolutely seriously. Crotales and cymbals played on a tympanum sound incredible. The combinations (I’m always making note of combinations it seems) of vibraphone + whistling, prepared piano + vibraphone, piano + crotales  were stunning. The melodic bits of the second (?) movement are intimate and unnerving, as though someone just dragged their finger very lightly across your skin.

It’s not just the music, though. The detachment of the players (I described Terry’s and Beth Ann’s above, but Sanja Brankovic and Carol Bauman^ played that way too) like it wasn’t even them making it. And it worked, let the music do the talking, like the sound always existed and was just being discovered. Brilliant. George Crumb, if you ever Google yourself and come across this blog, I think you’re Brilliant, capital B. And I love, love, love that Westminster Chime quote in the last movement.

*Which, I suspect, was the principal purpose.

**Oh, bad sentence structure on my part. Prepositions are the future.

***That was better!

^”Carol Bauman has a lot of bows – remember that about her.” – Michael Purves-Smith

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