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CONCERT REVIEW | Three Out of Five Ain't Bad

By Arthur Kaptainis on February 19, 2015

New Music Concerts: Robert Aitken, conducting Photo: Daniel Foley
New Music Concerts: Robert Aitken, conducting with soprano Stacie Dunlop. Photo: Daniel Foley

New Music Concerts, with conductor Robert Aitken, soprano Stacie Dunlop and violinist Véronique Mathieu. At Betty Oliphant Theatre, Saturday, Feb. 14.

New Works from East and West was the well-travelled theme of the New Music Concert Saturday at the Betty Oliphant Theatre. You could certainly tell them apart without a program, even if there were some instances of what sounded like cross-hemispheric dialogue.

One such case was Impression (given, like the other selections, in its world premiere) by Yanqiao Wang, a veteran from Beijing who came to Canada in 1991. Distinctly of the gongs-at-midnight school, this evocative septet had a touch of the concerto grosso about it, as the spotlight passed from player to player. First among equals was Weiwei Lan, who made it clear that the pipa is capable of more than soft plucking. There were fascinating washes of sound, accomplished with the utmost finesse. Dianne Aitken captured the mellow essence of the bass flute.

Unfortunately, the pipa writing was less imaginative in Mountains and Seas by Fuhong Shi, a professor at the Central Conservatory in Beijing who studied at the University of Toronto. The only revelation in this septet is that Western composers have no monopoly on the gratuitous use of tremolos.

Best from the West was Norbert Palej’s The Grey Hour, a bleak but fascinating setting of a traditional Polish text in which a peasant calls on the sun to set and put an end to the labours of the day. Here the female voice was eerily static as six instrumentalists supplied the motion and variety.

Not that there was much of either. This was minimalism in its true sense. Indeed, interludes of silence formed part of the discourse near the beginning. A burst of drumming provided the climax, frightening in its quiet context. Normally I prefer more fibre in my music, but there was an innate feeling for drama and narrative here, and an admirably creative use of percussion.

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Soprano Stacie Dunlop and violinist Véronique Mathieu. Photo: Daniel Foley

Soprano Stacie Dunlop had more to do (and did it well) in Adam Scime’s from what hand to speak, a setting of poetry by Oana Avasilichioaei. Texts were withheld on ideological grounds; the performance was supposed to contribute to the process of oral storytelling. Noble intentions, I suppose, but the reality is that sopranos are not easy to understand. Nevertheless, the piece was an effective duet with violinist Véronique Mathieu. Scime is not afraid to use the voice and violin in lyrical as well as more progressive ways.

Most of these scores were under 15 minutes. Laurie Radford’s meaninglessnessingisms for soprano, six players and electronics was longer and sounded it. Isolate any brief segment and you might surmise that a reasonably effective contemporary piece was in progress. The whole was much less coherent. Eight-channel playback added little interest.

Robert Aitken was the steady conductor of the Shi, Wang and Radford. Palej led his own piece (while Robert Aitken picked up the flute). Performance standards from a squad of old pros were exemplary. Erica Goodman was the sure-fingered harpist.

Arthur Kaptainis

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