Volume 8 Issue 1 - September 2002

HEAR Be Now (NEW MUSIC)

HEAR Be Now (NEW MUSIC) by Paul Steenhuisen Well worth a fide down the 401, the Guelph Jazz Festival will fea­ Here I am, still wondering exactly ture a September 7 (10:30 A.M.) rehow I could have Il)issed the Nihilist tum concert by esteemed trombonist Spasm . Band's performance with George Lewis with his "dream team," . Sonic Youth at the Koolhaus in mid- an all-star quartet featuring piano great August, and already the blitz of a Marilyn Crispell, kic ensemble the Maryem more weight each year, though with Tollar Group on Friday Sept 13 at each group humming along indepen- Emmanuel United Church in Waterdently, the benefit of curatorial unifi- loo. That same night, in the serene cation eludes.local large-scale new beauty of the Wolverton Hills (same music presentation. Not that I want · location as last year's Qnnabar f'hoegroups to overlap or homogenize their nix), Patria Music/Theatre Projects programming with any regularity, but opens a run of R. Murray Schafer's this year, without the NUMUfost/ The Enchanted Forest, an environfyfassey Hall Festival, it's apparent mental music drama (call 705-741- that we have moved ever further from 4488 for more information). the type of event that Toronto's wealth The Music Gallery PIANO SERIES: ~ of talent and sophisticated audiences Vibrations of Melqart is Thursday could support- something along the Sept 19 at the MG with John Farah lines of the film festival. · in what is described as "a winding 1 river of bizarre piano improvisations, ; Improvisation is too good to leave to fueled by laptop electronics and beats, a chance - Paul Simon soundworld in which free jazz, contem­ These are days when no one slwuld porary art music, electronica/techno, rely unduly on his "competence." ambient minimalism and Middle-East­ Strength lies in improvisatWn - Walter em textures breathe together". Benjamin , ' Ongoing between Aug 20 - Sept In honour of John Cage's 90th 13, Barry Prophet will be exhibitbirthday (Sept 5), the Music Gallery ing his sound sculptures at the Canapresents a new composition bY, Udo dian Sculpture Centre, Exchange Kasemets performed by Stephen Tower 130 King St. W. (Tues-Fri, Clarke, Sanya Eng, Udo Kasemets, 12-6pm, www.cansculpt.org). And Rebecca vander Post, Richard Sacks, Sept 28 brings WHAT NExT: Willem Ryan Scott and Linda Catlin Smith Breuker Kollektiefto the Music Gal- ( see Composer2Composer). · . lery. . M~S .1 C Alternative Music GALLERY INSTITUTE FALL SESSION STARTS OCTOBER 1 ,Education for All Ages Computer - Assisted Music Multiple Guitar Ensemble Creative/World Percussion 0 /8week course (plus annual registration fee) REGISTER NOW 'FRESH EARS' FAMILY CONCERT SERIES BEGINS, OCT. 6 , .For full details log on to www.musicgallery.org · John Cage Music Toronto's Oct. 1 concert includes the Gryphon Trio performing the world premiere of a new work by Patrick Carrabre a5 part of a series of 4 nights throughout the year called Contemporary Classics. And on Oct 2, get out your boxers to check out Tapestry's 2nd annual Opera Briefs -- results of this summer's composer-librettist workshops. ARRA YMUSIC begins its season with what I anticipate will be a very interesting two days centering on composer.Walter Zimmermann After a Sept 21 concert at the Glenn Gould Studio, Zimmermaiin's work will be heard in an afternoon workshop at The Goethe Institute, with guest artist Simon Fryer. Australian musicologist Richard Toop called Zimmermann "a resolute outsider within a culture based on common currents and.continuities. Though his musical thinking is, in many respects, . very evidently Germanic, his attraction to American culture·was clear even in early pieces such as the piano duet As a Wife Has a Cow, a 'seismography' of a text by Gertrude Stein, ... From the start, Zimmermann drew inspiration from unusual sources, such as Noam Chomsky's generative grammar. His works dis~ play an extreme reduction of means, and a cool, unemotional objectivity which is, at one level, a symbolic purging Qf European thinking ~d tradition. Nevertheless, a characteristically European introspection is never far below the surface of Zimmermann's music, for all its·outward (and entirely sincere) allegiances to .. .. composers such -~ Cage and Feldman". Finally, even without the ad-hoc concerts and underground gigs that will emerge in large numbers over the course of the year, the collection and diversity of new f!1USic groups active in the region is truly impressive. I encourage interested readers.to bookmark the following dedicated web links (listed in reverse alphabetical order) to check out their new seasons. (We will pass on other web calendars as they become available.) Many of these ensembles offer reduced-price subscriptions, and full-time students should look into the Canadian Music Centre"s Cheapseats'program. It can be found at Www.musiccentre.ca/ CMC/Ontario/OntarioSet.html). Tapestry· New Opera www.tapestrynewopera.com Soundstreams www.soundstreams.ca Riverdale Ensemble www.riverdaleensemble.com NUMUS WWVI( .on.numus.ca New Music Concerts www.newmusicconcerts.com Music Toronto www.music-toronto.com Music Gallery · ' www.musicgallery.org Esprit Orchestra - www.espritorchestra.com Ergo Projects www.ergoprojects.org ' Continuum www.interlog.com{- jwaring/continuum Amici Chamber Ensemble www.amiciensemble.com Arraymusic http://www.arraymusic.com And www.torontohearandnow:com, the evolving online counterpart of this section of WholeNote magazine. ~~ t!U souni post Canada's String Shop vioijns,.violas, cellos & bows expert repairs & rehairs , strings & accessories at guaranteed lowest. prices · Canada's largest stock of string music fast mail order service all prices in CDN $ - Not a US$ price in the store! 93 Grenville St., Toronto M5S 1B4 tel 416-971-6990 fax 416-597-9923 contact Barry Prophet at 416-588-2514 or bprophet@idirect.com 16 www. thew·l:h-::0~1 1 e::n:-:o:-:t;-::e:-.c:-o:-m::--~------s~e-p-:-t-em-:-b-e-r "!",-_ ""o,...c-to""'b_e_r_7--20_0..J2

~ Udo Kasemets ' Udo Kasemets interviewed by Paul Steenludsen On September '5•h, composer Udo Kasemets and friends will present a free concert entitled CAGE 90: MEMORYECHOESOFJOHN CAGE, featuring Kasemets' new 90-minute Cage-inspired piece. Recordings of Cage reading from his diaries will also be heard, and the following night (also at the Music Gallery), Cage's film One 11 will be shown. Additionally, late October brings a Music Gallery-hosted Cage mini-festival, with James' Tenney playing the Sonatas and Interludes (Oct 24), Stephen Clarke playing , Cage and Tenney (Oct 26), and Udo Kasemets and Malcolm Goldstein playing and discussing Cage on Oct 27. Given the current focus on Cage's work, it was necessary to learn more. KASEMETS: When Cage died (August 12, 1992) it was a real blow for me and many others. I made a ·promise that every year I would do something where I zero in on his , music, perform it and talk about it. In the 50's, when things came together in Cage's mind with 4'33" . and the Music of Changes, and his work with chance procedtires and the I-Ching came to fruition, it began to resonate with people quite a bit. In the 60s there was an opening in peoples thinking - scientifically and socially. The Beatles came around, drugs, the pill, feminism, everything · came into being, and' this was a wonderful, wonderful time for theatre, poetry, visual arts, dance, and art and' technology. Even in academic circles, there was interest in all of these things. People were keen, and there was tremendous hope. The sad thing about it all is that in the '80' s came a counter-movement which eliminated many of these dynamics, settling back into a very traditional way of doing and think- happens only in the listener's ear and mind. The listener is always the . actual mlli!ic maker. STEENHUISEN: How does ing. ·Society was moving in a mar- , someone who has never touched a ketplace direction, which affected piano .. · .? everything. The whole marketplace andglobalizationsituationsllffocated KASEMETS: That's exactly the the cultural situation, and creativity. point. What developed from the 60's and STEENHUISEN: It has to be 70's was cut off. There were artifi- heard tQ eXist? If a tree falls in the cial links with the past, but nqt or - forest? ' ganic connections. KASEMETS: If there is no !is- ' STEENHUISEN: So with these tener, there is no sound. Sound · eoncerts you're trying to establish happens only as a collaboration organic links? between action/energy (natural or KASEMETS: Yes. September 51h mechanical) and the ear. When I am is the birth date of Cage, so that talking, I'm setting vibrations of air would be his 'X)lh birthday. We'll molecules into action. There is no perform a piece using exclusively sound in my vocal chords, there are Cage's music as source material, and only vibrations started here, 'which using different kinds of organiza~ move through the air. There is no tional systems, including the I-ching sound in the air, only vibrations of and other statistical systems to draw all kinds. Our ear responds to a the material for a 90-minute long certain amount of these vibrations. piece. The backbone of the musical. The ear does a clear analysis of , organization is that famous span of sound, the frequencies and characteriStics - it's a wonderful, (;Ornplex time 4'33", which has. been from the beginning a very misunderstood system. The brain then takes stock work. People thought it was a hoax, of all of this, and differentiates, and but it really was a profound statement recognizes sounds it likes, and decides what is music. Cage felt that that introduces what always has been the basis of all.music - that music CONTINUED NEXT PAGE BOX OFFICE: 416.204.1080