Re: IRIS Chamber Orch + NEXUS perc. webcast


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Posted by additional info on March 06, 2004 at 20:13:37:

In Reply to: IRIS Chamber Orch + NEXUS perc. webcast posted by bloke on March 06, 2004 at 16:16:58:

story in Commercial Appeal (newspaper)

Zwilich taps the exotic to compose 'Rituals' for IRIS
Nexus challenge

By Christopher Blank
Contact
March 5, 2004

What: IRIS Chamber Orchestra

Where: Germantown Performing Arts Centre

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Highlights: The orchestra performs a world premiere of "Rituals for Percussion and Orchestra" by commissioned composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and featuring the NEXUS Percussion Ensemble. Also on the program is Bach's Suite No. 4 for Orchestra in D Major and Mendelssohn's Excerpts from "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

Admission: $43

For information: 757-7256



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Composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich can safely say she's never faced such an unusual musical challenge as a recent work commissioned by the IRIS Chamber Orchestra, based at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre.

When she was offered the job - as part of the orchestra's mission to fund at least one new American work per year - the catch was in the "soloists." The piece had to be written for the five-man Nexus Percussion Ensemble, based in Toronto.

Not as easy as it sounds.

Nexus isn't your ordinary, mallet-wielding orchestral rear guard, playing instruments such as timpani, xylophones, cowbells, bells and the ominous triangle.

The conservatory-trained percussionists - Bob Becker, Bill Cahn, Robin Engelman, Russell Hartenberger and Garry Kvistad - all veterans of major orchestras, are not mere masters of the marimba.

Since the founding of Nexus in 1971, a huge collection of instruments has been amassed from around the globe. Composing for Nexus means writing notes for a veritable Babel of new sounds.

Not since hanging out in the percussion department at Juilliard had Zwilich experienced such an immersion in the exotic as she did on her initial visit to Nexus's studio in Toronto.

There, the five members had each arranged a "console" of their preferred instruments. The show-and-tell session took hours. She recorded the sounds on tape. She added and subtracted instruments. And finally, Zwilich took it all back to the drawing board and waited for inspiration to strike.

On Saturday night at GPAC, the effort will be heard for the first time.

Both Zwilich, 64, and the members of Nexus are excited about the premiere, which appears on a program with vastly different sounding works by Bach and Mendelssohn. IRIS will record the concert for eventual release.

"We wanted a piece that was approachable for audiences, not something that's going to be played once and people say 'That's nice,' " said Nexus player Bill Cahn. "I feel very good about this piece. It's a very interesting combination of tonality and approachability. It's what I call mysterious or evocative music."

If anyone can handle the Nexus challenge, it's Zwilich. As one of America's pre-eminent composers, she has written 12 concertos and four symphonies. For her Symphony No. 1, in 1983, she became the first woman ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for music. In 1995, she was named to the first Composer's Chair at Carnegie Hall. She has four Grammy nominations and was called Composer of the Year in 1999 by "Musical America," an international directory of performing arts.

Coincidentally, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra will perform her 2002 Clarinet Concerto at a chamber concert tonight at the Buckman Center. Inspired by the events of Sept. 11, the concerto features soloist David Shifrin, for whom the piece was written.

"Her music has fantasy. Her music has craft," said IRIS conductor Michael Stern who has recorded the composer's work in the past. "I get fed up with composers who think they have a great idea but can't write eight bars that make sense. Zwilich has the craft that makes her artistic imagination speak."

While working with Nexus, was like "being a kid in a candy store," Zwilich added that it was hard to know where to begin when faced with so many unfamiliar sounds.

But as Cahn points out, an orchestra's percussion section has always been the home of exotic imports.

The kettledrum was brought back from the crusades. The bass drum, cymbals and triangle came from Turkey. Africa and Asia gave us versions of the xylophone.

Globalization has made growth potential for percussion increase significantly in the last 30 years. Formerly obscure instruments from foreign lands are now much easier to acquire.

"The biggest part of our collection are percussion instruments from other places around the world," Cahn said, adding that other musical traditions are much more dependent on percussionists. "In an Indonesian orchestra of maybe 40 players, maybe 35 of them are playing percussion. There might be one or two flutes or strings."

Among the instruments in Nexus's arsenal on Saturday are gongs from China and Thailand, temple bowls and finger bells from Japan, cymbals from Turkey and Tibet, and melodic instruments such as glockenspiels and vibraphones.

Zwilich wanted her music to incorporate the spirit of these world instruments without attempting to imitate a particular genre.

"I think it's very phony when 100 percent Western people try to go the other way," she said. "I'm not from Africa, I'm not Asian, I'm not Balinese. I'm from Miami, so there's a little bit of Latin in me. And it creeps into the piece. Being American, there's jazz."

Zwilich did latch on to one exotic idea, inspired by conversations with ethnomusicologists. In some musical traditions, percussion has a spiritual significance.

"Many of them are connected with rituals, and that kind of haunted me," she said. "I spent a lot of time thinking about this piece. Once I really got hold of it, it kind of took on a life of its own. It was practically twice as long as I originally thought. It got pretty mammoth."

"Rituals" for percussion ensemble and orchestra opens with a movement called "Invocation," which begins by summoning the spirit of the instruments. The second movement, "Ambulation," is a processional that escalates in intensity through marches and dances.

"Remembrances" touches on the tradition of memorializing the past. A final movement, "Contests" grows from a friendly competition to a warlike exchange of sounds.

In a discussion Wednesday night at GPAC, Nexus player Garry Kvistad explained that Zwilich has left about 50 percent of the second and fourth movements for improvisation. "We improvise within the context of the piece," he said.

He added that improvisation has always been a facet of the ensemble and Zwilich was paying tribute to the "element of chance" in live music.

For other groups less equipped than Nexus, taking on "Rituals," may take more than just a knack for improvised notes.

"The next time it's played, it's going to sound very different," Kvistad said. "When it's played by another group, they're gonna have to find a lot of E-flat gongs, or else they'll have to improvise the instruments."

- Christopher Blank: 529-2305



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