Lisa Moore solo concert

This post was written by Maria Grenfell:

On the sweltering hot Friday at 3.00pm we all trooped up to the Aula Bahyse (town hall) in Blonay to hear a recital by Australia-American pianist Lisa Moore. Trained in Australia and the USA, Lisa resides in New York City where she collaborates with a wide range of musicians and artists.

(photo by Lisa Moore)

We were treated to a wide diversity on this recital, beginning with Robert Schumann (yes, the 19th-century composer) and ending with a work by Moore’s husband, composer Martin Bresnick.

Music10 Composers 3 and Final Vote

Last night was our third and final concert of new works by Music10 participant composers. I found it to be a tremendously varied, adventurous evening of music. For logistical reasons, many of the most difficult works of the festival ended up on this program, making it a tour-de-force for many of the performers.

Louis Chiapetta's ...and again... created an ethereally drifting musical environment, with soft bell-like sounds occasionally interrupted by more intense outbursts. The piece, scored for the same instrumentation as Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, managed to incorporate the influence of Messiaen without being overshadowed by it.


(photo by Lisa Moore)


L'ange pale by Amy Kirsten was an explosively radiant work. Set to her own French poem, Amy's piece crystallized the words through singing, humming, and chanting among all of the musicians. Lindsay Kesselman's wildly ecstatic vocal lines were complemented by Tim Munro's flute playing, and contrasted by a wide array of percussion sounds from Jeremy Malvin and Christian Smith.

Music10 Composers 2

This post was written by composer Ted Goldman:

There are many places to play music over the summer, but not quite so many where one can take a trip to Mont Blanc with new found friends after the festival ends. That trip at the end of Music09 was just one of the (extra) musical experiences that led me to return this year. Spending two weeks and three meals a day with musical colleagues in little Blonay is like listening to a piece composed with a limited amount of material: it creates a highly focused and memorable impression and allows for rapid development in a short span of time. The materials of my last two summers


(photo by Lisa Moore)

at MusicX consisted of day hikes with my performers, conversational ping pong, and of course intense music making.

The latter activity was well represented in Wednesday night's Music10 composers' concert. Douglas Pew's En Los Muros De Arlés contained a beautiful variety of marimba timbres: quiet tremolos created by rubbing the mallets between two keys, and unfocused woody sounds made from bamboo-sheave mallets, among others. These colors were arrived at in cooperation with percussionist Yu-Chun Kuo - one of the many sorts of collaborative experiences that make the MusicX environment rewarding.

Music 10 Composers 1

Another post by Maria Grenfell. :)
***
The title of the concert held on Tuesday 29 June really sounds like an imaginary World Cup score.  Fortunately, in this case, the composers won and there wasn’t a vuvuzela within coo-ee.  Sorry, that’s my fake Australianness coming out, while surrounded by Americans here in the beautiful Swiss alps...

The first concert of works by participant composers featured a wide variety of pieces that we have come to expect during this week of multi-faceted music-making.  Opening the program was “Quartet (after...)” by Wenhui Xie.  This is a re-working of material from her Symphony no. 1, and commemorates the tragic loss of many children during the 2008 Chinese earthquake.  Long static lines were punctuated by sharp gestures, breath tones and key clicks from clarinet, circular motions on violin strings, speech from the percussionist, and playing inside the piano with fishing line.  Absolute control was required by the players, and it was a dramatic way to begin the evening.

Ecstatic Dances

Here's a post by composer Maria Grenfell. The photo is also hers.
***
An abundance of exciting contemporary flute music gave eighth blackbird flutist Tim Munro the grand idea of staging a concert at the Music 10 Festival featuring music written for flutes of many sizes and in various combinations.  The opening concert of the Festival on Monday 28 June, Ecstatic Dances, treated the audience to music by composers from Estonia, Australia and the USA.  With contrasting approaches to timbre and musical materials, the performance showcased the superb talents of the musicians at Music 10, whose dedicated approach to learning and performing new music is at the heart of this unique two-week collaboration between composers and performers.


Opening the program was UNCLOSE, by New York composer Hannah Lash, a participant at the Festival.  Written for soprano, two percussionists and piano, the piece featured a range of extended techniques for voice and piano, punctuated by scraping and sighing unpitched percussion sounds, silences, as well as the extraordinary voice of Lindsay Kesselman, who seemed to pluck high notes effortlessly out of nowhere and wove the syllabic text and vocalisations on the composer’s poetry in a performance that held the audience captive.

Day 8

Today's post was written by participant composer Amy Beth Kirsten:

If last night's concert was the only musical event that I got to experience at this festival it would have been worth the trip. I don't know about you, but those transcendent, life-altering musical experiences don't come along that often and when they do, well, it's powerful.

From the accidental prologue of church bells, to Matthew's final winding down of the woodblock in Hartke's Meanwhile, I had completely lost myself...and found music all over again - isn't it great to fall in love with sound? Oh yes, it was one of those concerts.

The whole concert was so terrifically paced; I don't think it could have been programmed better. With Hartke's Percolative Processes it was impossible not to be drawn in - quiet waves of intense and ever-shifting color that, to me, evoke earth elements - it was the perfect door to walk through. Once fully inside the metaphoric "room," we had the pleasure of experiencing Bresnick's My Twentieth Century. Like many of the fellows here, I'd only ever heard this piece as a recording. As effective as it is as a recorded piece, it profoundly aches with heartbreak when experienced live. The obsessive and unrelenting rhythm married with a joyous harmonic language creates an emotional conflict that feels so honestly born from the text - as I said last night, "you had me at 'fireflies.'" And I just have to say that the delivery of lines of text was so much more than mere delivery - each one of you felt truly plugged into the energy and sound of words in such a visceral way...all I have left to say is WOW.

Day 7

Sunday began a new chapter in our time here at Music10. After our final round of composer presentations, guest composer Martin Bresnick and guest pianist Lisa Moore arrived around lunch time.  It's really great to have them here! Several participants already knew them, so they have been catching up over meals and hanging out on the porch. Those of us who did not know them are enjoying getting to know them. As we have mentioned before, one of the big advantages of this festival is the continual interaction between everyone here. We get to know each other personally, as well as artistically.

(Music10 flutists Pethrus Gärdborn, Tim Munro, and Kelli Kathman)


That night we had our first concert, held in the Bartok Hall here at the Hindemith Centre. The performance mostly featured contemporary flute chamber music, but also included UNCLOSE by participant composer Hannah Lash. (Hannah's work was programmed on this concert because she needed to leave on Monday.) Scored for soprano, piano, and two percussion, UNCLOSE juxtaposed sung poetry with humming and percussive vocal effects, which were mirrored by brushing and murmuring in the instrumental parts. Soprano Lindsay Kesselman, pianist Erika Dohi, and percussionists Matthew Duvall and Christian Smith gave a wonderfully sensitive performance of this haunting, ethereal work.