KCMETROPOLIS.org
Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

With amplified instruments in hand, ETHEL strode onto the Lied Center’s stage with leather pants, smartly cut jeans, and fuchsia and purple tops more akin to rock musicians than classical string quartet. Immediately launching into Mark Stewart’s To Whom It May Concern: Thank You, an opening prayer of sorts that sounded like disintegrated Dvořák, balance problems with the amplification rendered much of the fine music making moot. The mix was so violin heavy that cellist Dorothy Lawson’s sound was lost. These balance problems haunted the rest of the program, as well, sometimes to the extreme detriment of the piece.

Terry Riley’s modular Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector was a minimalist hoe-down with fun fiddle techniques recontextualized in this slightly more serious setting. Philip Glass’ Suite from The Hours was rough. Intonation was a constant concern especially in the second movement, “Morning Passages.” ETHEL regrouped for the fourth and fifth movement however. The fourth movement, “Escape,” was the first time substitute violinist Ana Milosavljevic’s sound was not glaringly strident. Her sound was tempered to match violinist Cornelius Dufallo’s timbre on Glass’ soaring melody.

The second half of the program was stronger in compositions and performance. Julia Wolfe’s Early that Summer was the stand-out piece. It was ferocious and frenetic with its Bernard Hermann-Psycho-esque shrieks and biting dissonances. Her great use of jarring scratch tones launched the piece into its eleven-plus-minute tortuous climb to the extremities of dissonance and subsequent, ultimate release. ETHEL was more than up to the task, attacking the piece with the hyperactive energy and rhythmic precision required to communicate effectively.  The bow-arm stamina required was astronomical and in performance they never faltered.

David Lang’s Wed was the opposite Wolfe’s Early that Summer. The placid piece served as a feature for Dufallo to solo over the ebb-and-flow of the other members. Amiable violist Ralph Farris served as spoiler in the work, frequently adding the dissonant pitch that kept the piece rolling forward.

ETHEL concluded with Huang Ruo’s String Quartet No. 2 “The Flag Project” a piece based on Buddhist prayer flags. The first movement was an exploration of variations on a single pitch through Eastern playing techniques. The second was characterized by bowed Tibetan finger cymbals, similar to the water goblets in Crumb’s Black Angels. The third was a propulsive accented chant that effectively captured the recitations of Buddhist monks. ETHEL’s performance was strong, as they captured the sublime nature of prayer in the second movement and its manic euphoria in the third.

The quartet rocked out with Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” as an encore. It fit well with the Wolfe and Huang Ruo, especially. With a program meant to convey the extension of manifest beauty, ETHEL succeeded in their programming and second half but technical concerns and substitute violinist tempered their success.

REVIEW:
Lied Center of Kansas
ETHEL
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Lied Center of Kansas, University of Kansas
1600 Stewart Drive, Lawrence, KS
For more information, visit http://lied.ku.edu

Top photo: ETHEL (Photo by James Ewing)

By Lee Hartman

Editor-in-Chief; Traditional and New Classical Contributor

Lee Hartman holds degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (D.M.A., M.M.) and the University of Delaware (B.M.). At the University of Delaware, he received a Dean's Scholar position enabling him to pursue an individually designed academic program combining music education and composition. At the University of Missouri-Kansas City he served for three years as the Assistant Director to Musica Nova, the conservatory's new music ensemble, while teaching a variety of composition classes.

In 2007 he was invited to both the Iceland Academy of the Arts in Reykjavík, Iceland and the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, China to give lectures and master classes in composition. In the summer of 2009, Hartman served as an orchestra manager for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble and Aspen Opera Theater Center for various performances. He serves on the National Executive Committee of the Society of Composers, Inc. as Submissions Coordinator. His primary composition instructors include James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Paul Rudy, John Beall, and Jennifer Margaret Barker. He currently teaches music theory at the University of Central Missouri and general music classes at Park University having previously taught at UD (2007–08) and UMKC (2006–07).

His compositions can be found at http://www.leehartmanmusic.com