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Before going to see the newly-formed collective Dark Matter’s presentation of “Orbit” on Friday evening, I wasn’t aware that Union Station even had a planetarium—or that Kansas City had one, for that matter. Comprised of composers Daniel Eichenbaum and Richard Johnson, performers Rebecca Ashe and Cheryl Melfi, as well as astronomer Bob Riddle, the collaboration was a novel idea.

Live, contemporary, electroacoustic music was paired with impressive, realistic animations of Earth and the Solar System. In between these multimedia pieces, astronomer Bob Riddle offered engaging, succinct overviews of star constellations and the hundreds of known objects in our solar system (the eight planets, their moons, and other dwarf planets) to a modest audience of around fifty for Friday’s 9:00 p.m. showing.

The program was bookended with Richard Johnson’s water mediation on Etenraku for solo instrument and electronics. The opening rendering by flutist Rebecca Ashe was indeed a plaintive meditation, taking advantage of the flute’s low range which was accompanied by sparsely-placed water droplet sounds.  The performance, in near darkness with only a dim red stand light for Ashe, was set to visuals of the Earth viewed from space on the dome of the Arvin Gottleib planetarium above.

Clarinetist Cheryl Melfi offered her interpretation of the same work at the conclusion of the program with life-like animations of a sunrise over planet Earth as experienced from space overhead. At first, I didn’t notice this was the opening piece; a sign of two thoughtful, imaginative performers and an artful, nuanced composition.

Composer Daniel Eichenbaum’s Gagarin paid tribute to Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who was the first human to journey into outer space. Melfi’s clarinet playing was initially accompanied by clicks, static, and air vent sounds. One build-up saw the performer and electronics effectively alluding to Morse code sounds.

The longest piece of the program was Eichenbaum’s Orbit, composed for both performers and electronics. It was accompanied by a striking, life-like animation tour through our solar system from the sun, passed the eight planets, to the dwarf planet Sedna (one of the most distant objects in our solar system), following the path of a comet, and then back to the Earth. At times, the visuals and music seemed to coordinate, with different objects almost having themes, ranging from sparse staccatos to overlapping perpetual motion textures to lyrical solo melodies. At other moments, the music and visuals worked independently. The electronic sounds were as varied as the instrumental textures with rich bass tones, Doppler shift effects, and radio static sounds.

Dark Matter’s first performance collaboration was a successful, fun mix of art and science; two subjects that are more typically seen vying for merit and funding. One of my professors once traced this kind of rivalry back to the shift towards science in American academia following WWII. He even went so far as to contend that the vogue of serial music in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s owed its existence to this rivalry, remarking that tenure review boards full of scientists were perhaps more impressed with pages of pre-compositional matrices and note sets than a subjective presentation on personal aesthetics. An oversimplification, perhaps, of a contentious subject, but maybe partnerships like Dark Matter could be a way to bridge this divide between art and science, enlightening the mind while still inspiring the spirit.

REVIEW:
Dark Matter
Orbit
Friday and Saturday, February 4th and 5th, at 7:00 and 9:00 p.m.
(Friday, February 4th, 9:00 p.m. show reviewed)
Arvin Gottlieb Planetarium, Union Station
30 W Pershing Rd, Kansas City, MO
For more information, visit www.darkmatterkc.com

Top Photo: "Dark Matter" Image courtesy NASA, ESA, M.J. Jee and H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University)

By Topher Levin

Classical Editor and Contributor

Christopher (Topher) Levin is a composer, pianist, music theorist, and music blogger based in Kansas City, MO. His compositions have been performed at music festivals across the US and in Europe. He has spent two summers in Paris, France studying music at the Ecole Normale de Musique through the EAMA program. His trio for clarinet, piano, and percussion is published in the SCI Journal of Scores.

Topher holds degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (M.M.) in music theory and (M.M.) in composition and from James Madison University in Virginia (B.M.) in composition. Primary composition teachers have included John S. Hilliard, Paul Rudy, Zhou Long, James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Claude Baker, Narcis Bonet, Michel Merlet, and João Pedro Oliveira. His piano teachers have included Patricia Brady and Karen Kushner. Topher maintains a piano studio of 22 students.

Having recently completed a Master's thesis on the beautiful complexities of Chinary Ung's trio, Spiral I, Topher turned his writing attention to the more informal blogging medium. He has taken to it quite well, sharing posts on strange and wonderful music and art found across the web with a modest but growing number of blog followers. He looks forward to writing for KCM and sharing with its readers the stories of all the amazing musicians performing in Kansas City.