So here is Anthony Tommasini’s review of Thursday night’s CONTACT! concert. I notice he forgot to ital­i­cize the concert title, in brazen neglect of the NY Phil’s style guide­lines. He also forgot to mention how charming Magnus Lind­berg’s Finnish accent is, which was a major high­light of the evening! Lindberg takes melliflu­ous liber­ties with English pronun­ci­a­tion; his words elide in the most disarm­ing combi­na­tions, yet they remain strangely intel­li­gi­ble. When he was inter­view­ing Marc-André Dalbavie, there was almost a charming accent critical mass.

Dalbavie’s Melodia was also my favorite piece on the bill. It began as a measured series of seem­ingly uncon­nected gestures, which grad­u­ally morphed into longer ideas, based on penta­tonic Grego­rian chant. Each gesture was incred­i­bly “perfect”, in that inim­itable way of French composers; fresh harmonies, beau­ti­fully inven­tive orches­tra­tion, just the right number of repe­ti­tions. It couldn’t have made a more stark contrast to the piece that followed (and I’m using the term “piece” in its loosest sense here), Arthur Kampela’s Macu­naíma. Everyone always brings up Ives when there’s a piece with lots of activity, marching band music, funny quotes, grinding disso­nance, etc. Oh, he’s a “Brazil­ian Charles Ives”. Actually, Macu­naíma was more of a “party piece”, like Rzewski’s Les Moutons de Panurge, though without any of the interest provided by having an audible process (or, you know, any coherent struc­ture what­so­ever). It provided exactly the sensa­tion when you throw a party, and it reaches a certain point in the evening, and you wish everyone would leave your house so you can go to bed, but you get this sinking feeling that they actually have another few hours left in them. Just like that.

Nonethe­less, It was kind of fun to see the NY Phil let loose for awhile (I almost forgot I was watching the NY Phil) because the first half of the program didn’t really afford them the chance. Glenn Dicterow looked down­right skittish during Arlene Sierra’s Game of Attri­tion; I doubt if he ever had to work so hard simply to hold his section together during the entire Maazel era. It gave the proceed­ings that all-too-familiar air of a student new-music concert, where every­one’s half-learned their part in dress rehearsal. Symphony Space’s unfor­giv­ing acoustic did them no favors here; the violins sounded as if they were playing in the next room. Lei Liang’s Verge faired better; he’d arranged his string orches­tra as a series of stereo­phonic quartets, Bartók-style. This helped with sound distri­b­u­tion a great deal, though the opening would have sounded beau­ti­ful with a little reverb.

It’s too bad about the acoustics, because Symphony Space is a nice-sized venue for this sort of concert, and it’s informal and comfort­able. They even served up a cough syrup-like booze potion after­wards. These guys are really working hard, I thought. As well they should. And though the concert was a mixed success, it’s grat­i­fy­ing to see the Phil­har­monic taking risks that would have seemed unthink­able a year ago.

Appar­ently it is the season of new orches­tral music. Tonight I’m return­ing to my old stomping grounds, New Haven, to hear what the second-year MM students have come up with for the annual New Music New Haven vs. Phil­har­mo­nia smack­down. Expec­ta­tions are running high. You can listen to the live stream here.

Friday Thursday night, the New York Phil­har­monic inau­gu­rates its new music series, CONTACT! (yes, you have to write it that way). And it’s conve­niently at Sympho­ny­Space, right in my neigh­bor­hood. I haven’t heard any of the composers on the program except for Dalbavie. All the more reason to check it out. I’ll probably write little reac­tions to both of these concerts; stay peeled/keep your eyes tuned.

The cap it all off, I’m in the final throes of writing an orches­tra piece, the last one for a little while (I hope. Writing for orches­tra is slow and exhaust­ing). This partic­u­lar piece is a concerto for violinist/violist Owen Dalby and the Albany Symphony, so, top-notch all around. It will be premièred in March.

I’ve been on extended Thanks­giv­ing holiday in Houston for the past week. We confirmed what I had always suspected, which is that Peking duck should replace turkey as the fowl of choice. Not only is it incom­pa­ra­bly more deli­cious, but the remnants are much more fun. I rendered extra fat out of the leftover skin scraps and made a rich stock out of the carcasses, in which I cooked some spätzle. I bet the Pekinese never saw that coming.

A couple days ago D. and I drove to Austin to hear the UT Contem­po­rary Ensemble play Some Connecti­cut Gospel. I was a little nervous going in, because I couldn’t hear the dress rehearsal; it was a total blind date. My fears were quickly assuaged when I saw that my old flutist friend from Yale, François Minaux, was playing. He nailed that solo near the end with incred­i­ble élan (I’ve been told it is a Bitch), matched by the other players. This is the first time I’ve had the piece conducted, and I think it’s a good idea; Damon Talley held the middle hock­et­ing section together more precisely than I’ve ever heard it.

We caught my friend Mingzhe Wang yester­day playing a short and sweet clarinet concert back in Houston, includ­ing a new piece written for him by Marcus Maroney, which had an œ ligature in the title (Chamœleon). I remem­bered Marcus from his inter­mit­tent but very enter­tain­ing blog, and also from his days as a teaching assis­tant at Yale (the girls thought he was adorable)! I found out that he also has a knack for choosing the right notes. It’s funny to think about, because it’s not really some­thing composers discuss, but it all comes down to choosing the right notes. And these were they. The piece itself was pretty spastic, and reminded me a bit of André Previn (of all things. Though he can’t be bothered with the notes, just the spastic.) It was great to hear Ming, I don’t get to hear him play too often now that he lives in Tennessee. He is as natural and nimble a musician as you will ever find. All in all, I concur with this insight­ful state­ment from ratemyprofessors.com:

He is very passion­ate about what he teaches and is some­times funny. he is a really nice person and defi­nately not bad to look at.

I did a little exper­i­ment over the past week, to try and culti­vate an asso­ci­a­tion between a partic­u­lar place or expe­ri­ence and a piece of music. I down­loaded Animal Collec­tive’s Merri­weather Post Pavil­lion, to which I then proceeded to listen nonstop&#8212 in the car, at home, on my iPhone, etc.&#8212 just inten­tion­ally over­dosed on it. Now I’m going to wait a few months before I listen again, the idea being that I will have created an asso­cia­tive memory. I already have many acci­den­tal ones, and I’m sure anyone who listens to music regu­larly does as well&#8212 but I like the idea of creating an inten­tional link. It’s like taking photographs or writing post­cards, only a bit more ethereal.