Oregon Music News

Beta Collide, a new music ensemble co-founded by flutist Molly Barth and trumpeter Brian McWhorter, has explored a lot of sonic territory since arriving on the scene just a couple of years ago. The group has kept an active schedule, playing at Standford University, the Oregon Bach Festival, and contributing to Mark Appelbaum’s “Sock Monkey” album. Now Beta Collide (Barth, McWhorter, pianist and celestist David Riley and percussionist Phillip Patti) has released its first recording, “psst…psst” (Innova), performing pieces that have a random, improvisational feel.

The CD starts with the Beta Collide’s arrangement of György Ligeti’s “Mysteries of the Macabre,” which combines vocalizations (Sprechstimme) and just plain old grunts with squeals from the trumpet. There are moments in which a single note on the piano glides seamlessly to a note from the trumpet and when a tone from the trumpet slides to a note that is spoken and sung. It is jarring at times, but also engaging.

Two pieces by Frederic Rzewski, “Mollitude” and “Nanosonata No. 7,” have a sporadic mood with lots of stops and starts, intriguing slapping sounds from the flute, and melodramatic riffs on the piano. Stephen Vitiello’s “Waterline” has all sorts of blurry, fuzzy sounds as if the ensemble were playing underwater. A distortion of sound seems to give it a slightly psychedelic edge, as well.

Vitello’s “Yellow” combines distorted sounds with burps and gurgles that evoke a nightmare on a water bed. Another really edgy piece is “Kryl” by Robert Erickson, which has a fascinating interplay between vocalizations and the trumpet. Sometimes the two border on teretts syndrome.

Valentin Silvestrov’s “Trio” trumps the playfulness between the flute and trumpet with a a myriad of music box-like overtones from the celesta. Robert Kyr’s “Memories of an Echo” has single tones that are held for a long time so that the flute and trumpet echo each other in a pleasing way.

The album concludes with Beta Collide’s remix of Radiohead’s “Nude,” a nice change-up, but it would’ve been interesting to hear one more Ligeti number.

The Third Angle New Music Ensemble put the accent on improvisation with an engaging and slightly maddening concert of works centered loosely on the idea of chance. The performance took place on Friday evening (March 5) at the Hollywood Theatre, an ornate movie house that was built in 1926 during the silent film era. Because each piece in the program used the large movie screen, the theater was an excellent choice for the concert.

The program opened with Ramon Sender’s “Fish Tank Opera,” which featured a large aquarium with four big, tropical fish swimming in it and ledger lines taped to the sides of the tank. Three instrumentalists (violist Brian Quincey, violinist Greg Ewer, and cellist Hamilton Cheifetz) and one speaker (artistic director Ron Blessinger) were each assigned a fish, and they played (or recited poetry) according to where the fish moved.

A camera helped to project the fish onto the screen so that the audience could follow along, and it seemed that each musician did his best. Perhaps a note was missed now and then, but this was no watered down affair. The music, for the most part, wiggled and flowed slowly and sporadically. The audience responded to the novelty of the piece with solid applause and chuckles.

Next on the program came Mark Applebaum’s “The Metaphysics of Notation,” which features a score made up of visual graphics and some numbers and letters instead of standard musical notation. Again the theatre’s movie screen came in handy, because the score scrolled across the screen and allowed the audience to see what the musicians would react to. What then transpired was a freeform performance in which various members of the ensemble wandered down the aisles, onto the stage (or not) and played all sorts of tones, microtones, blurs of notes, splats, blats, whaps, and everything in between.

The piece also had a bit of theatrics. At one point, flutist Molly Barth yelled at trumpeter Brian McWhorter to stop playing, and he yelled the same at her after she started playing. Flutist Alicia DiDonato Paulsen exchanged her flute for Ewer’s violin. Trumpeter Micah Wilkinson marched in lockstep with saxophonist John Nastos, and percussionist Mark Goodenberger. Todd Kuhns removed the mouthpiece from his clarinet and made some bird calls. Cheifetz was the least mobile but played gamely along with Quincey and ringmaster Blessinger, who at one point sat down and began an earnest conversation with an audience member. It was all sort of silly and probably very liberating for the performers. Some of the audience members realized that they too could join in the fun, but most were content to watch.

Following the chaos, the Third Angle Ensemble (with Beta Collide members Barth and McWhorter) assembled themselves on stage to perform David Schiff’s “Mountains/Rivers.” Picture’s of the Columbia River Gorge floated onto the screen while the musicians played Schiff’s lively and slightly jazzy piece. Schiff conducted the first part (“Mountains”) and played an electric keyboard during most of the second (“Rivers”). Soloists Barth and McWhorter improvised passionately with the orchestra, and the orchestra got a chance to improvise, as well, in the second piece by deciding (individually) how long to repeat a phrase.

The concert concluded with Terry Riley’s “In C,” which consists of 53 short, musical phrases that can be repeated an arbitrary number of times by each musician in an ensemble but must be played more or less sequentially. Third Angle handled this music with panache, but the accompanying abstract visuals were overwhelming.

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Extra Note: Third Angle will be travelling to China in May as guest artists at the Beijing Modern Music Festival, and they will perform “In C” with a number of Chinese musicians.

Expect the unexpected at the Third Angle New Music Ensemble’s concert this Friday (March 5) at the Hollywood Theatre (4122 N.E. Sandy Blvd. Portland), because improvisation will be a feature of each piece. Some of the works on the program, like Mark Applebaum’s “The Metaphysics of Notation” will offer improv in the extreme, while other works, such as David Schiff’s “Mountains/Rivers” go half and half with a composed part for orchestra and improvisation for soloists. The ensemble will also perform Terry Riley’s “In C,” which consists of 53 musical phrases yet each phrases can be repeated an arbitrary number of times, and that gives the piece a serendipitous quality. And to get you in the mood for the concert, Third Angle will present Ramon Sender’s “Tropical Fish Opera” in the lobby of the theater before the concert gets underway. Sender’s piece uses a real fish tank with fish, and musicians who react to the where their assigned fish swim.

For this concert, the members of Third Angle will be joined by the Grammy-winning flutist Molly Barth and trumpter Brian McWhorter. Both are members of Beta Collide and assistant professors at the University of Oregon.

Also, after the concert, you can join in a discussion with 3A’s artistic director Ron Blessinger and composers David Schiff and Mark Applebaum. Here’s more information about the Schiff and Applebaum from the press release:

David Schiff, the R.P. Wollenberg Professor of Music at Reed College, says the two movements of his composition are quite different in structure. “Mountains is full of windows for the soloist(s). The orchestra part is set but these windows can be expanded if desired. In Rivers, the orchestra part is much more indeterminate. … After thirty years of living in Oregon and writing New York music I think that Mountains/Rivers is my first piece that reflects the experiences of living in the Northwest.”

Mark Applebaum is associate professor of composition and theory at Stanford University. His Metaphysics of Notation is a graphic score teeming with evocative glyphs and densely arranged pen and ink pictographs. The meaning is deliberately left undefined by the composer. The original score consists of twelve wide panels (10″ x 70″) that are installed for a year at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. Every Friday at noon different artists from a variety of disciplines are invited to interpret and respond to the piece in a free performance.