Oregon Music News

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.

Ron Blessinger is now in his tenth year as artistic director of the Third Angle New Music Ensemble, a Portland-based group that specializes in the performance of contemporary music. Blessinger is also a member of the violin section of the Oregon Symphony, which he joined in 1990. But I thought that I would talk with him about his work with Third Angle, its upcoming concerts, and its latest recording: “Chen Yi: Sound of the Five,” which was noted by NPR as one of the top ten CDs of 2009.

On the kitchen table in his home in the Irvington neighborhood, Blessinger showed me a roll of music that didn’t have notes on it. It had symbols and images, instead, and looks like this:

This is a musical score?

Blessinger: Yes, it’s Mark Applebaum’s “The Metaphysics of Notation,” which we are going to do in our March concert. That concert is called Chance/Perchance and each of the pieces that we are going to perform on that program grants more or less control to the performers. Actually, “The Metaphysics of Notation” gives total control to the performers.

How are you supposed to read this score? It doesn’t use notes like regular music. It just has some graphics?

Blessinger: This is music that asks you to respond. You respond to the image that you see.

Does this roll of music fit on a music stand or is it projected somehow?

Blessinger: I haven’t quite figured it out yet. Beta Collide, which is a Eugene-based ensemble, has performed it several times. This month they are going to Stanford where Applebaum teaches and they will be performing it there. It’s an installation at the Stanford Art Museum that has 12 panels and a couple of mobiles. We aren’t using the mobiles in our version because we have to use the travel edition.

The exhibit at Stanford goes through January. Every Friday at noon they have a free concert at the Stanford Art Museum, and a performer or group of performers comes and interprets the piece. They’ve had dancers, sheet metal artists, jazz musicians and all sorts of performers interpret this piece.

We are going to do the same thing in February.  Every Friday at noon we will have a free public performance of this piece at noon at the Armory in the Pearl District. Thus far, we have lined up the Quadraphonnes (a female saxophone jazz quartet) and the Spare Room Poets Collective. The fifth week is our Friday, so Third Angle will do it.

How long does it take to perform “Metaphysics of Notation?”

Blessinger: The length of the piece depends on how the performer responds to the images. Some performances might be faster, some slower. There’s no standard length. It could last 20 minutes or an hour.

What else are you doing on the March program?

Blessinger: We will also play a piece by David Schiff, who teaches at Reed College. Piece is called “Mountains and Rivers.” It’s a concerto for improvising soloists. Members of Third Angle provide a jazzy background for the soloists.

The concert will conclude with Terry Riley’s “In C.” The musicians move through this piece like a flock of birds. An individual doesn’t get too far ahead or too far behind the group. He or she senses where the group is.

[At this point in our conversation, Blessinger showed me the score for this piece. The score is one page. That’s all. It has a number musical phrases written out. Usually just one bar of music. Each one is called a section.]

That’s all?  Just one sheet of music?

Blessinger: Each player gets this same sheet of music. It can be for any number of instrumentalists. Each player can play the sequence of notes when he wants. It’s sort of like a gamelan [Indonesian orchestral - ed. note] piece.

“In C” is a landmark minimalist piece. It was the inspiration for Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians.” We might go to “In C” when we go to China in May.

Congratulations on being invited to the Beijing Modern Music Festival and also for your recording and the selection by NPR.

Blessinger: Thanks! We got a royalty check for the sales of our Chen Yi CD. The record label, New Harmonics, just sent us a check for 150 dollars. It was cool!

There’s a real focus on Chen Yi and that generation of Chinese artists. When we go to Beijing for the festival, it may help to lay the ground work to do more recordings of a number of very young Chinese composers. Some people are calling this group the Sunshine Generation.

This is the first year that the Beijing Modern Music Festival has received significant government support. It had been mostly privately supported up to this point. The Cultural Revolution happened only 20 years ago. They have only been allowed to push the boundaries for the past 20 years. How far are they going to go with this?

I guess we should’ve started this conversation with Third Angle’s concert in January. Can you tell us about that program?

Blessinger: Ursula Le Guin will read from her story “A Ride on the Red Mare’s Back.” It’s a children’s story that was inspired by the wooden Red Horse that you find in Sweden. The music – incidental music – that accompanies her text was written by Bryan Johanson, who is chairman of the music department at Portland State University. The music is very beautiful and evocative, and art work from the book will be projected as Ursula reads.

You’ve also got Gregory Vajda’s “Gulliver in FaReMiDo” on the program.

Blessinger: Yes, Vajda’s piece involves a lot of tricky coordination with the narration. So, Ken Selden will conduct the piece. Selden is the conductor of the PSU orchestra. It’s great to have him here in Portland, because we were classmates at the New England Conservatory of Music.

We are also ding a new Robert Kyr piece, “Serpentine Variations: The Serpent King.” Michele Mariana, whom you might have seen in the Portland Center Stage production of “Cabaret,” will be the narrator. The story refers to a short story by Italo Calvino. The entire Third Angle ensemble will perform plus an alto saxophonist from the University of Oregon.

The January concert also has “Greetings from 1984” by John Deak. It’s for violin and piano. I have to play and narrate, which is not easy to do with a violin. It retells Orwell’s story as a sort of love story and comedy.

I should add that in late March and early April, Third Angle will be the pit orchestra for Portland Opera’s productions of Bernstein’s “Trouble in Tahiti” and a one-act opera by Monteverdi. So, we have plenty to do this spring.

When did Third Angle begin?

Blessinger: We started in 1985 so next season will be our 25th anniversary. Third Angle was started by a group of young freelance musicians who wanted to work with local composers and bring their music to the public.

We call ourselves a new music ensemble, but we’ve done everything from tango to film scores for Turner Classic Movies. We do collaborations on several levels. We’ve performed with dance ensembles like Body Vox. We’ve done jazz concerts.

We don’t take an attitude to contemporary music that says “We know better, and if you don’t get it, you’re an idiot.” We take the attitude that says, “We need you to get it.” We like to see ourselves as the hub of a wheel that extends out to other disciplines and all sorts of styles. We like to highlight the artistic resources of our region. That has included the Jefferson Dancers, the Portland Art Museum, the Halprin Conservancy, the Oregon Symphony and many other organizations. So we are about celebrating Portland culture via music. Kind of like that stuff in a Petri dish, we’re the goo that helps to grow the culture here. We’re the primordial ooze.

[Laughter]

And you draw funding from private and public sources.

Blessinger: Right. We are trying to figure out how to draw an internet audience for what we do. There are always funding sources for worthwhile projects – no matter what they are. Once you get a proven track record for projects and prove that you can live within your means, then people will support you.

In spite of this terrible economic situation, we’ve met all of our goals for fund-raising. We are supported by foundations because we can complete projects within budget, and we come up with real cool ideas. Some of the themes may seem a little disjointed but we live in a fast paced world in which you can listen to any kind of music that you want from one second to the next. You can give yourself aural whiplash.

[Laughter!]

True!

Blessinger: So the themes that we choose reflect my eclectic artistic taste.

Appelbaum’s music has to represent your goofy side.

Blessinger: Right! Steve Reich makes no apologies for wanting to be entertaining. He says that if it’s good enough for Mozart then it’s good enough for him. I feel sort of the same way.

In the March concert at the Hollywood Theater, the first thing that people are going to see when they come into the lobby is the “Tropical Fish Opera” by Ramón Sender. He was one of the founders of the San Francisco Tape Center. Sender is a disciple of John Cage’s idea that everything is music. Well, that’s not quite true. Cage wanted to take all of the bad personality out of music. He wanted the personality of the performer to be taken away so that we could experience life as it is. Sender takes this idea in a comical direction. His “Tropical Fish Opera” uses a real, four-sided fish tank with music ledger lines on three of the sides. The fourth side has some poetry arranged according to I Ching principles. Each of the four players is assigned one fish, and when the fish swims by their ledger line, they play the note. So the fish determines the piece. And the reader’s fish determines which words are narrated.

Wow! So, this will take place in the lobby?

Blessinger: Yes. It’s an infamous piece, but it works perfectly with the theme of the concert, which is Chance/Perchance. The program is built around the idea of chance principles determining the form of the music. We are calling it a musical happening.

This reminds me of something Steve Mackey at Princeton once said about improvisation and classical music.  He said that it’s like the old joke that goes like this: what do violas and peeing in your pants have in common?

I don’t know.

Blessinger: They are both warm, personal experiences that no one can hear!

[Laughter!]

Blessinger: That’s the danger with improvisation concerts. They can be moving and significant to the performer but to no one else. So, we need to be careful about how we do those kinds of concerts.

Good luck!

Blessinger: Thanks!