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Bass clarinet was the instrument du jour at last Tuesdays monthly ArtSounds presentation at the Kansas City Art Institute as a joint venture between KCAI and the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance. Billed as the "Digital Honkbox Revival," it was a cross-media event featuring collaborations in music, dance, and visual art. Exploring the depth and range of the bass clarinet, Brad Baumgardner performed pieces by Mara Gibson, Adam Hardin, recent winner of the newEar student composition competition, Peiying Yuan, and one of his own. Rounding out the concert was a fantastic composition for voice by Scott Blasco, a fascinating flute and video piece by Andrew Seager Cole and creative choreography throughout by Stephanie Morrow.

Fractal Excursion by Peiying Yuan for bass clarinet and fixed media, began with recorded synthetic sounds. The acoustic timbre of the bass clarinet wrapped around and through the fixed media. From a listener’s perspective, I tend not to give the computerized dimensions of the piece as much credence as the live performer, who I can see, onstage, playing his heart out. The recorded sounds functioned like an accompaniment to me. Whether that was the intension of the composer, is unknown. Baumgarder performed the piece well.

Andrew Seager Cole presented a compelling video that juxtaposed abstract patterns of color and shapes against footage of industrial movement. Steel spiraled as images of the old mills reminded me of my immigrant grandparents. Train tracks sped along the screen as the flute soloist Adam Calliham seemed to narrate the action with a sound palate reminiscent of Debussy. The prismatic colors resonated through slits in a cylinder while the flute seemed to embody the light source. The combination of images and flute made sense in a composition where everything seemed determined to be abstract.

Mulberry Song…From a White Jade Chamber by Mara Gibson, was also scored for bass clarinet and fixed media although her media was a recording of her own spoken voice. The text was the glorious poem by William Carlos Williams called “Tribute to Neruda, the Poet Collector of Seashells.” In this piece, the recorded monotone deconstructs the poem into certain words: “blind,” “peaches,” “world,” and “Neruda.” The words distracted me from the instrument, which I tuned out as I tried hard to find meaning in the random words. At the end of the piece, when the poem was reconstructed and we heard it in pitch blackness, the heightened auditory experience was pleasurable and satisfying. For fans of new music who have been actively listening to the genre for decades, the technique of deconstruction is beginning to feel dated. At some point, piecing apart sounds, including poetry no longer achieves the result of finding the essence of meaning but feels like a warm-up exercise for something even more innovative.

Echoing the aspect of deconstruction, (De)Constructions, does exactly that, again. The most exciting aspect of this piece for bass clarinet, created wind instrument (PVC pipe with finger holes and a saxophone mouthpiece) and created (digital) percussion instrument performed by Baumgarder and Blasco, was the elegant choreography and the inventive instrumentation. Two dancers straddled a third who lay on a long box her legs crossed. The arms of one dancer, torso of the first and the legs of the third created a single, unique body. As the dancers “deconstructed,” each had their own “movement set” or motive which coordinated with the kazoo-like wind and tabla-like drums effectively.

My favorite piece of the night was the most “traditional” even though the accompaniment was computerized. The song cycle Four Songs from the Caucasian Chalk Circle, written by Scott Blasco and performed by versatile mezzo-soprano, Katherine Crawford.  Originally written for a theater group performing the Bertolt Brecht play by the same name, and it was, in my opinion, nothing less than phenomenal. Expressively danced by Jannah Johns, Haley Day, Kaitlin Heibel, Heather Costello, Erin Muenks, and Sara Beth Rothhammer, the piece penetrated deeply into my maternal imagination. Crawford used a lovely classical hybrid vocal style that was one part artsong, one part folksong and just a little hint of gospel. The second song was a capella, accompanied only by a recording of primitive war-like sounds. The refrain “My darling boy-my jewel” haunted the listener as it continued, ”Your life is worth saving. The Front are the first to die and the rear gave up a sigh but the man in the middle came home.” This piece was historically grounded but sounded fresh and honest. It was simple and evocative and one I would like to hear enter the soprano repertoire so more young singers can begin to perform 21^st century music.

The final piece on the program was Echolalia, by Adam Hardin for bass clarinet and utilizing the interactive computer program, Max/MSP. The Max signal processing captured Baumgardner’s sounds filtered them, affected them, and replayed them almost simultaneously. The result sounded like a duet between the acoustic instrument and a tricked-out version of itself.  Four channels emitted synchronized sounds from four separate speakers surrounding the space. Dancer Haley Day found places in the music to lyrically fill with both the classical forms and jazz and modern movements introduced in previous pieces. The choreography provided a nice closure to the program by tying together the loose threads of sound and action.

If you are curious about new music and interested in how these art forms nourish each other, come out and hear other ArtSounds collaborations the second Tuesday of every month.

REVIEW:
Art/Sounds Series
Digital Honkbox Revival
Tuesday, September 4, 2010
Kansas City Art Institute
Epperson Auditorium
4415 Warwick Blvd, Kansas City, MO
For more information please visit http://conservatory.umkc.edu/cmda/cmda-content2.cfm?L2ID=1

Cover Photo: Brad Baumgardner (Photo by Richard Johnson)

By Megan Browne Helm

Classical, Vocal and Theatre Contributor

Megan Browne Helm grew up singing, dancing and acting.  Inspired by Emma Kirkby as a high school student in St. Louis she went on to study voice and sing with the Collegium Musicum at the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio where she also had a radio show of contemporary classical music on WOBC.  At the University of Kansas she had the pleasure of working with former Kings’ Singer, Simon Carrington in his Collegium Musicum and Oread consort. Years later, she was a choral fellow at the Yale School of Music’s  Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.  She is currently singing with the Kansas City Symphony Chorus under the direction of Charles Bruffy. 

 As a freelance music and culture writer her work can be found on KCMetropolis.org, presentmagazine.com, the Lawrence Journal World, Shawnee Magazine, Leawood Lifestyle Magazine and KC Parent.  She was one of 26 journalists in the country chosen as a NEA Institute Fellow for Classical Music and Opera at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. 

Her current interest is how classical music remains relevant through active collaborations with artists in different fields, including science.  She also sees a connection between classical music, travel and food as a way to engage all of the senses in a 360 degree cultural experience.  She blogs at raworganum.wordpress.com.