Previous Seasons

By Nancy Raabe,
News staff writer

It’s a mystery, when you stop to think about it, why the serious art music of our time has fallen so far out of favor with the general public.

The same fate has not befallen the visual arts. While modern music in this country flourishes primarily in small enclaves within the sanctity of the ivory tower, entire museums are devoted to modern art. Imagine a world where the same was true of music, and any city worth its salt would boast a full-time orchestra, with an array of support organizations, devoted exclusively to the performance of contemporary works.

We are, however, some distance from this ideal state of affairs. It is thus left to visionary organizations such as the Birmingham Art Music Alliance to broaden our horizons and offer us a glimpse into the rich world of contemporary music.

This BAMA did in superlative fashion Monday night, in Hill Hall on the Birmingham-Southern College campus, at its second concert of the season. While many of us have been in our share of new music concerts that seemed both endless and pointless, BAMA’s strength lies in its sure sense of programming. It is a great tribute to the organization that Monday’s widely varied concert was arresting and enlightening from start to finish. One left with a renewed appreciation for the astonishing array of languages that collectively comprise our late 20th century musical consciousness.

Outstanding among the nine works on the program were “The New Yorker Songs” by Samford University’s James A. Jensen, a sensitive and highly expressive setting of five poems published over the past couple of years in The New Yorker magazine. Each poem projected a strong and compelling affect in this performance by soprano Sherry Lawhon, also on the Samford faculty, and pianist Daniel Lawhon.

Equally rewarding was Michael Coleman’s “Room 857” for solo piano, performed by the composer. This brief but memorable work consisted of a simple but deeply affecting exploration of four discrete ideas – a clear, ringing proclamation in the upper register; a gentle and darkly textured arpeggio rising from the instrument’s depths; a resounding flourish in the lower register accomplished by reaching inside the instrument and strumming the lowest strings; and, most remarkably, the eerie effect that Coleman unearthed within the decay of this last sound. As the piano’s lower strings are vibrating, Coleman discovered that by applying the felts to the strings a new set of overtones can be generated, which causes the sound to well up anew. Repeated several times, the effect clearly astonished many of the 75 or so in the audience.

By Nancy Raabe
News staff writer

One of the many valued services performed by the intrepid Birmingham Art Music Alliance is its custom of showcasing a guest composer. Monday the consortium had the foresight to bring Ben Johnston to town. His humane experimentation with alternate tuning systems through an impressive body of work has earned him a valued place on the contemporary scene.

The New York Times once called Johnston “one of the best non-famous composers this country has to offer.” Certainly he is among the most accessible of what can be called the contemporary-music radicals. The most commonly used tuning system in music is “equal temperament,” which divides an octave into 12 equally spaced tones. Johnston uses two purer systems, “microtonal music” and “just intonation,” which avoid harmful adjustments that “equal temperament” requires.

This all may sound forbidding. But Village Voice critic Kyle Gann, a former student of Johnston’s, describes equal temperament as “the musical equivalent of eating a lot of red meat and processed sugars and watching violent action films,” whereas just intonation promotes calmness, passivity and tranquillity.

Johnston has argued along the same lines, noting that our modern tuning system may be partly responsible for a cultural psychology that invests much in action and violence, and relatively little in introspection, contentment and acquiescence.

These last were precisely the qualities that came across in his Ponder Nothing, a series of sensitive variations for solo clarinet (Lori Ardovino) on the hymn “Let All Mortal Flesh Be Silent,” in the raga Alap for solo bass (based on a 14-tone scale) and in his jazzy, foot-tapping Progression, also for solo bass, both played by Robert Dickson. Notable as well were Jim Jensen’s resonant, assured …before the morning watch for percussion ensemble, Dorothy Hindman’s propulsive Dances for clarinet, marimba, and piano, Charles Norman Mason’s engaging, highly rhythmic Windage and Rob Stanton’s finely lyrical Sonata for English Horn and Harp.

By Nancy Raabe
News staff writer

In cities less well endowed with initiative than Birmingham, recognition and appreciation of new music lags hopelessly behind that of contemporary art and modern dance.

In academic isolation, composers compose primarily for each other without much hope of a wider audience. The gulf between composer and performer grows. Participation in the art and act of musical creation becomes an increasingly distant concern for the mainstream concertgoer.

Here, though, we have the energetic Birmingham Art Music Alliance to remind us of the vitality of today’s new music scene. Tuesday night another such opportunity was afforded a full house at the Unitarian Church for a BAMA concert presented by Artburst.

True, it wasn’t exactly the same as a sellout at the BJCC. Here “full house” meant perhaps 100 people. But there was no mistaking the warmth, enthusiasm and general goodwill that flowed through the sanctuary. And everyone was safe in coming away with his or her own point of view on every piece, something most people are too timid to do with mainstream repertory. (When did you last hear anyone admit, “Oh, Brahms — I can’t stand his music,” or “The Beethoven Eighth? Sorry, just don’t care for it”?)

Several items on Tuesday’s program met with hearty acclaim. Foremost was Dorothy Hindman’s superbly crafted Songs of Reminiscence, premiered last year at Birmingham-Southern College by tenor David Smith. Author of the texts, Smith sang in this performance with accompaniment by pianist Kevin Grigsby.

Lively, engaging and bursting with bravura, the cycle will find itself much in demand once word spreads.

Monroe Golden’s String Quartet No. 2 and guest composer Dennis Kam’s Sonata for Cello and Piano were warmly received as well. Golden explained that he sought to combine a floating asymmetrical rhythm and simple pitch structure with the process of “phase shifting,” in which phrase units overlap. The attractive result presented the aural image of a stable “pool” of sound whose surface danced and shimmered subtly.

And Kam’s dark-hued work, played expertly by Grigsby and cellist Craig Hultgren, combined structural integrity with an ear for deep sonorities and luminous textures.

Also on the program were “Asi Nisi Masa,” a dazzling soundfile by UAB’s technology master Michael Angell, Donald Ashworth’s sure-handed “Solitude” for solo flute, the amiable “Short Sonata” by Mark Chambers and Philip Schuessler’s pop-influenced “Infinity” for flute, cello and piano.