Review: Orchestra 2001 rocks hard
Nobody ever said Orchestra 2001 couldn't rock - a modern ensemble has to be able to do anything - but perhaps no previous program has challenged this group (a 10-player version) to prove it so vehemently as the one Sunday under guest conductor Jayce Ogren at the Arts Bank. Four composers were heard at their most raucous, in performances that displayed a controlled abandon seldom heard in new-music concerts.
Nobody ever said Orchestra 2001 couldn't rock - a modern ensemble has to be able to do anything - but perhaps no previous program has challenged this group (a 10-player version) to prove it so vehemently as the one Sunday under guest conductor Jayce Ogren at the Arts Bank. Four composers were heard at their most raucous, in performances that displayed a controlled abandon seldom heard in new-music concerts.
The idea was to show how rock-and-roll has been morphed by minimalists such as Julia Wolfe and Louis Andriessen, as well as more mainstream figures such as Jennifer Higdon. The composer with the most overt rock allegiances - Princeton's Steve Mackey - had the concert's hit with Five Animated Shorts, a suite of textured, sophisticated tone poems using the usually folksy cimbalom.
Most "shorts" had dueling zones of sound, whether melodic or contrasting, highly colored gestures that worked for and against each other to create a narrative, some highly specific. The best was the reflective finale that takes off from Mackey's excellent Lonely Motel with the instruments sounding spare notes, like voices in the wilderness.
Higdon's Zaka is turning into an unlikely calling card - sort of the anti-blue cathedral - that she describes as a concerto for numerous instruments without orchestra. It's mostly fast and frenetic, with her typical taste for unusual timbres. The especially fine slow movement is like the eye of a hurricane, with solos that suggest instruments warily creeping out of secret places.
Wolfe was a student of Andriessen, and their pieces had a strong minimalist kinship. Unlike the dreamy Philip Glass or spiritual Arvo Pärt minimalism that implies more than it says, this is what one might call atheist minimalism: It is only about the interaction of notes, often in a cool, machine-tooled manner that's about squeezing music from the slightest of launching points. Even at her most severe, Wolfe's 1994 Lick somehow conveys glee.
Not so Andriessen's 1975 Workers Union, played by loud instruments with ongoing dissonances. There was so little variation in its punchy main theme I couldn't help but hate it. But that doesn't mean the piece shouldn't have been played. Such challenging programing is exactly what Orchestra 2001 should be doing.
Whether or not Ogren, one of four candidates, becomes music director, I hope he's a frequent visitor. He presented this difficult program, both musically and with spoken introductions, in a way that made you want to like it.