Review: Blackbird Ensemble, Dreams

Music Director, Claire Cowan
Director, Renee Lyons

The Basement Theatre, Lower Greys Ave

Review by Catherine Hamilton

DREAMS is the Blackbird Ensemble’s latest reincarnation, and its smallest one yet. But what it lacks in breadth it definitely makes up for in depth, this show being more intimate and physically stylised than previous endeavours. Entering the performance space is like stepping into a bohemian bedchamber. Each band member sleepwalks onto the set, dressed in charming vintage-style pyjamas. It’s the characterisation element that sets DREAMS apart from previous Blackbird shows, the handiwork of visionary director Renee Lyons. The evening feels like an extended hallucination. There is an equal amount of frenzied rocking out, nightmarish twitching and lilting lullabies on offer, subtly shepherded by musical director Claire Cowan as she flits between cello, banjo, keys and vocals at one end of The Basement Theatre. Near her is the supremely talented Jonathan Burgess on bass and double bass, and the masterfully rhythmic Tristan Deck on drums and percussion. Sleepwalking down at the other end of this extended bedroom is the zen Jonnie Barnard on guitar, the mystical Kevin Keys on trombone and the spirited Callum Passells on saxophones. Centre stage is Charmian Keay on violin, perched atop one of the several unmade beds that make up the set. DREAMS’ two lead vocalists, Jessie Cassin and Mikey Brown are free to wander and roam as much of the set as they can manage; Cassin makes a particularly enchanting entrance by descending from the clouds via glittering golden ladder.

It wouldn’t be a Blackbird Ensemble production without Cowan’s expertly crafted and defiantly complex arrangements that tie together some of the most unlikely musical bedfellows. After opening with Radiohead, Calexico and Iron & Wine covers, we witness a jarring mashup of Loudon Wainwright III and The Smiths. Before we’ve had enough time to wrap our heads around that, we’re up, up and away tumbling over covers and mash-ups that boldly defy genre and the expectations of a “mini-orchestra”. Highlights include that ever-mystical Kevin Keys scaring us all a little with his rendition of Lullaby by The Cure and then Mikey Brown really showing us what he’s made of in I Had A Dream Joe by Nick Cave. Once again, Blackbird leaves me with an interesting and varied list of artists to mull over, rediscover or introduce my ears to.

The reduced size format is refreshing and, though it doesn’t break down the fourth wall entirely, the more intimate environment enables a different kind of connection between the musicians and audience. The audience whoops, cheers and laughs with the band and the evening feels more like being at a gig than at a concert. This borderline-claustrophobic proximity did have its challenging moments when it came to sound design; there were entire chunks of the more boisterous songs where I couldn’t make out what was being sung. It was simply getting lost in the noise. There were other times where players were drowned out by their neighbouring instrumentalists, despite microphones or amplification. This too may have affected the players’ ability to interact with each other; Cowan and Barnard seemed relatively isolated from the core of the band. I’d be interested to see how DREAMS interacts with other environments, in a still-intimate-but-not-SO-small venue.

DREAMS is an inspired aural trip into the world of musical sleepstates and the magnificent set, lighting and costume design combine to create a gorgeously stylised and captivating fantasy to hang out in for the evening.

Review: The Aventa Ensemble (Canada) in Auckland

Aventa Ensemble (Canada): Mark McGregor, (flute, piccolo); AK Coope, (clarinet, bass clarinet); Darnell Linwood (horn); Muge Buyukcelen, (violin); Alasdair Money (cello); Eddie Giffney (piano); Corey Rae (percussion)

Soloist: Elizabeth Mandeno

Directed by Bill Linwood

Giorgio Magnanensi: Ameya II

Michael Finnissy: Sesto Libro di Gesualdo

Eve de Castro-Robinson: Knife Apple Sheer Brush

James Rolfe: rAW

Giorgio Magnanensi: ethuiá V

Juliet Palmer: the truth and the truth

Jonathan Mandeno: first movement from Death of a Bullfighter (premiere)

6 March 2015, Auckland University Music Theatre

Review by Sarah Ballard

A visit from Canadian new music ensemble, Aventa was a rare occurrence and opportunity for the hosting University of Auckland and greater community. Not often is it that we are treated to a concert by an international new music ensemble. Headed by the infectiously warm director, Bill Linwood, the ensemble presented a greatly varied lineup of Canadian and New Zealand music that worked well in its symmetries. Sadly this was not met with the wider interest that an event like this should have generated, presumably as a result of the coinciding Auckland Arts Festival.

Giorgio Magnanensi’s Ameya II provided a light and pleasant, if not somewhat unmemorable opening to the concert. The smooth vibraphone-based pygmy rhythms repeated an almost disconcerting number of times before fragmenting into vague pulsations.

Violinist Muge Buyukcelen and flautist Mark McGregor coped well with the twisting intricacies of Michael Finnissy’s Sesto Libro di Gesualdo. Matter-of-factly introduced by McGregor despite its grisly background, the interweaving, ceaseless lines seemed to climb eternally, illustrating a paranoid portrait of the composer/murderer Gesualdo’s troubled mind. Moments of clarity were brought lucidly out of the relentless texture where the two lines came together to liquidly coalesce.

McGregor also gave us a new perspective on Eve de Castro-Robinson’s Knife Apple Sheer Brush, a work that has gained renowned status in New Zealand contemporary flute repertoire. Punchy, gravelly and darker shades were to be found in this rendition, superbly dramatizing the considered pacing of musical gesture, vocalisation and silence by composer.

James Rolfe’s rAW was, as we were told, a deconstruction of a Bach Brandenburg Concerto to its basic elements with segments of radically different genres spliced into the texture throughout. The first part of this work took a leaf out of the modern American post-minimalist manifesto with its blip-glitch erraticism and pop-inflected orchestration. Unfortunately, this music achieved nothing more and far less than the manifesto its intention presumably grew out of. Drawing from a mélange of Bob Marley, Burning Spear and John Phillip Sousa, none of these source materials in this work of recontextualisation made the essence of their origin even craftily discernable, leaving rAW feeling rather undercooked.

The second Magnanensi piece of the evening, ethuiá V, offered an immersive and serenely expansive soundworld. Amplification of the horn allowed the instrument to synergise with the electroacoustic track, creating a convincing relationship between the two elements. Soloist Darnell Linwood, to whom the piece was dedicated, demonstrated great sensitivity and command over the varied material, successfully transforming the atmosphere of the performance space and transporting us to ambient and mystic landscapes.

Expat New Zealander Juliet Palmer’s the truth and the truth for solo vocalizing percussionist provided a satisfyingly positioned link in the dramatic contingent of the programme. Structured by quotations on lies and truth from Franklin D. Roosevelt, Barbara Bush and Saint John the Apostle, the work traversed a fine line, perhaps intentionally so for greater shock factor, between feeling contrived and effectively conveying political statement. Percussionist Corey Rae delivered jarring repeated syllabic pixels, interspersed with ramblings of snare, only to shatter its monotony by screaming bloody murder about body bags and Barbara Bush. In light of this material, the final section, which utilised marbles on snare drum skin, wound up being something quite cathartic. The eventual release of the marbles, allowing them to set off on individual paths across the theatre floor, had the gentle coda announcing “and the truth will set you free”.

In a dynamic close to the programme, soprano Elizabeth Mandeno brought the demise of famous Spanish matador Ignacio Sánchez Mejías to life in Auckland composer Jonathan Mandeno’s premiere of the first movement from Death of a Bullfighter, a setting of Lorca’s elegy to his friend. From the admonitory rattle of piano strings, to strident and annunciatory clarinet gestures, the orchestration pathed a vibrant backdrop for the intense narrative. Elizabeth Mandeno possessed a magnetism that together with the bold, colourful scoring made for a riveting performance. A hysterical wail across a final rumbling trail of resonance from the piano allowed the audience time and space to contemplate the enormity of the work’s emotional efflux.

Review: Auckland Chamber Orchestra with Ben Hoadley

Auckland Chamber Orchestra

Soloist Ben Hoadley

Directed by Peter Scholes

Holst: Brook Green Suite

Shostakovich: Chamber Symphony Op.110a

Taylor: Bassoon Concerto

Bartok: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste

23 November 2014, Raye Freedman Arts Centre

Review by Sarah Ballard

The Auckland Chamber Orchestra certainly produces some of the most nourishing classical music programmes in Auckland. In years past, director Peter Scholes has programmed a delightful set of New Zealand composer portraits, Dutch composer Michael Van Der Aa’s revelatory Mask for ensemble and electronics, and earlier this year ACO delved into crossover with award winning songstress Maisey Rika. This is hardly representational of the range of works that the orchestra has programmed, but these examples show an ensemble that does not subside into any predictable course of action or routine. On Sunday it seemed circumstances had aligned to allow Scholes to stretch to new and innovative heights: on this occasion a “dream” programme of Holst, Shostakovich, Bartok and a collaboration between bassoonist Ben Hoadley and composer Alex Taylor. More often than not, ACO seems to meet this balance of new works and reverence of repertoire greats.

This early evening affair was met with a sense of elation amidst the warm spring air as patrons gathered at the Raye Freedman Arts Centre. Holst’s Brook Green Suite maintained the collective sunny demeanour, with string orchestra launching into the piece with great sprite, vibrantly led by concertmaster Miranda Adams. Pastoral charm was illustrated with liquid silk bowings, effectively conveying the rustic lushness of the second movement. Robert Ashworth's cascading viola line was passed seamlessly and sumptuously over into the bowings of cellist James Tennant, providing the most engaging sonic moment within the piece. The race to the finish was executed with panache, and received enthusiastic applause from a reasonably full audience.

In retrospect the Holst seemed the misfit of the programme. One can only assume that it was included in order to fill out time, a neatly packaged morsel. Nevertheless, the decision to place this piece first on the programme was well judged, so as not to intrude upon the fine musical triptych the following pieces formed.

With tam-tam and harp beckoning onstage in deserted spaces, Shostakovich's musical cryptogram, DSCH, permeated the hall. In this acoustic Adams' foreboding violin solo was more sterile than singing, over an arid bass drone. However she delivered dagger accents with conviction and stringency, but struggled to get the cooperation of the rest of the section. Scholes shaped the dramatic impetus of the work with careful dynamic shading and gentle, free-flowing gestures. The orchestra responded with sardonically nasal earwig trills crawling in and out of earshot, the crackle of bow friction on string and a loitering drone devoid of vibrato, all realised with admirable sensitivity.

It took us so far away from where we all were at that particular moment . The performance succeeded in transporting me as the listener, lifting me out of my context from there in front of the stage. The performers effectively painted the musical juxtapositions which were so important as driving forces of the piece. The ensemble was left decaying on open strings; James Tennant looked truly moved, hanging off an open C as if trying to expel all the anguish of the piece.

The most captivating part of the concert was Alex Taylor’s eagerly anticipated Bassoon Concerto. Soloist Ben Hoadley appeared gallantly onstage with bassoon at the ready, in striking attire to match vertical stripes of crimson red at the backdrop. Labelled as five distinct movements: ‘heave, shuffle, trudge, jolt and roam’, these terms certainly outline a journey of sorts, as mentioned by composer in the programme note. It is a journey mapped out across an emotive terrain, one that the listener senses intensely from the narrative of the protagonist bassoon and its interaction with the orchestra, essentially humanising the instrument. Taylor has for some time had a strong and independent voice, but this piece covers new ground. It is unquestionably still his music, but at the same time there has been a development in musical language, a different sort of expressivity and approach to colour that one could begin to hear in [inner] (2011), for viola and orchestra.

A broad, looming pianissimo chord introduced us to ‘heave’, the composer having taken great care to balance each element. We were then mesmerised and captured, with ritualistic resounding rumbles from low double bass and bass drum and the shimmer of high divisi strings, gliding atop a sonic gulf. Tense, metallic pangs of xylophone announced the arrival of the bassoon, slimy and serpentine, crawling out of the depths of the lower frequencies of the ensemble, and seeping in and out of the musical texture. Hoadley relished in the virtuosic burst of ‘shuffle’, his bassoon line shimmying at the beck and call of the ensemble. At the composer’s most sensitive of writing, and protagonist’s most vulnerable state, Hoadley sounded the most gloriously dulcet high tones, this one of many instances within the work that demonstrated the composer's talent for great colouristic control. Taylor kept the listener enchanted with sublime and intense sensory moments, the opening chord of ‘roam’ seeming to contain the whole world within it.

By the end of this journey I wasn’t sure where we had wound up. The musical trajectory had seemed so perfectly paced up until the second cadenza near the end of the piece. In context, the way the material of this cadenza was presented felt unfamiliar and somewhat out of place considering the lush, emotive writing style that characterised the rest of the piece. However, one can feel quite dissatisfied when a piece ends with a sense of predictability. The unanswered question left in the clearing in this instance made a lasting impression, and piqued plenty of curiosity to warrant reconnecting with the piece in future to retrace this transformative journey. In performance the piece was so engrossing that it did not seem to take up its 25-minute duration, a sign of a well-crafted and cohesive work. It was also striking how effectively integrated the bassoon part was into the material of the ensemble, a special achievement of this concerto. Taylor has contributed a brilliant and sensitive new work to the bassoon repertoire.

Post-interval, the performance of Bartok’s Concerto for Strings, Percussion and Celeste may have suffered somewhat from ambitious programming. It was clear here that Scholes had a different agenda in his conducting. Rigorous and more demanding of players, the focus was on keeping the more rhythmic sections together and expression seemed to be lost as a result. Accuracy and intonation were often an issue and the mechanistic material did not always come off. However the ensemble redeemed itself, evoking opulence in the final Allegro, along with a compelling cello solo from Tenant. For all its insecurities with the repertoire, the ensemble made up for it with enthusiasm and professionalism. This concert marked a brilliant end to the ACO season and highlighted a noble undertaking in bringing some exceptionally fine repertoire to the fore.