The Easy Not Easy Festival is a series of concerts that Roulette is holding to raise money for the new space that they're moving into. The Art Deco theater that they are working on renovating will expand their seating to close to 600. I would estimate that for most concerts now they cannot sit much more than 100. This is a great new move for a great venue. And hell, now they'll be in Brooklyn, and a section of it easily accessible by me!
Due to some travel of mine, I was only able to attend this past Thursday, the first night of the festival. The following was the program:
Radio Waves In the Air
Aki Onda
Four For a Time
Brenda Hutchinson
AK47 with the Pharoah
Justin Frye
Conducing
Andrew Lampert
Pieces from Volac, Masada Book II "The Book of Angels"
John Zorn
Untitled
Shahzad Ismaily
Silence
Pauline Oliveros
Performers:
Aki Onda - tapes, electronics
Richard Garet - electronics
Ben Greenberg - electric guitar
Katherine Young - amplified bassoon, electronics
Sergei Tcherepnin - modular synth
Maria Chavez - turntables
Shahzad Ismaily - bass, synth, etc.
C. Spencer Yeh - violin, electronics
Erik Friedlander - cello
The opening piece by Aki Onda seemed to be a piece where a certain structure of the performance is told to performers and it moves from there. It started with Katherine, placed to the left of me within the audience, playing some long tones and jumping registers in pitches. This was shortly followed by Aki Onda carrying a radio with a small amplifier, contorting the characteristics of the resulting static, and slowly pushing his way through the seated audience–pushing chairs along the floor and knocking over my (thankfully empty) beer bottle. Other performers around the room joined in adding sparse textures.
Of all of the pieces that dealt with the use of what would typically be considered noise (basically everything performed other than the John Zorn), Radio Waves in the Air was certainly the most effective. It worked outside of the typical audience/performer relationship. Since performers were scattered throughout the space, it didn't suffer from a flattening of the aural image (see my previous post). I greatly enjoyed facing forward and listening to the soundscape move around me.
When listening to electronic music, I can't help but think of John Cage's opinion that it didn't make sense to make music in any traditional sense using electronic information. To him, a new medium meant the need for a new tradition. So why perform in front of the audience? Of course you can, but should it be the typical set up? Though a little quirky, I found Aki Onda's approach excitingly interactive.
And as appropriate as ever, the piece ended (possibly by chance) on a rock tune whose content concerned the sweetness of Alabama. I think it was Kid Rock.
Erik Friedlander, as always, did a spectacular job with John Zorn's Masada repertoire. Masada, of course, is Zorn's project that cross pollinates Jewish music along with jazz forms and practices. It is basically a large collection of "tunes", as I believe I once heard him say. These tunes have been interpreted by many different ensembles to great success.
Approaching this music as a soloist, Erik has created a very nuanced approach to music that sounds familiar and new. As a listener, you hear Klezmer, some dissonance, and a healthy dose of interpretation–all executed fluidly but without being too sterile. I cannot say enough about how much I enjoy Erik's work, especially his solo performances. His own series of compositions for solo cello are documented on Block Ice and Propane, an album that spans the breadth of Americana on his very Euro-centric instrument.
I also particularly enjoyed Shahzad Ismaily's piece which was for solo modular synth. Not knowing the inner workings of a modular synth, I could only listen and not analyze the approach. If you've never seen a modular synth...
So the result of all of these wires (at least what Shahzad crafted and Sergei performed) was a pulsating wash of sound, varying greatly in timbre. The piece slowly grew to a high dynamic level with a sound that to me was simultaneously static in its content but active in its internal interaction. It then quieted down to its ending. Judging by Sergei's reference to a small sheet of paper when everyone thought it has ended and then stating that it was over, I'm guessing Shahzad set up a series of directions to be interpreted from there. The end result was mesmerizing. (Perhaps a Stockhausen-esque directional piece? I'm guessing here.)
As for the rest of the pieces, they were somewhat of a wash for me. They all had their moments of interest, but differentiating a performance of Hutchinson's Four for a Time from Frye's AK47 with the Pharoah would prove difficult even after listening to them side by side.
Something that set Pauline Oliveros's piece from the rest was what must have been a direction to stop playing and to allow silence. And then to start again. This broke up the performance in a new way–basically getting people to shut up, which frankly can be a stimulating trick in a group of improvisors.
Lets hear it for Roulette. They continue to allow musicians with new ideas to perform. I'm looking forward to the new space and the new ideas to come.
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