Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers<\/p>\n
Virtual International Conference<\/p>\n
October 17, 2020<\/p>\n
The First Concert \u2013 music by Ken Davies and Robert Myers<\/p>\n
This concert took place at 2:15 pm Eastern Daylight Time. Amazingly, this concert and the other events were presented via Zoom to an audience in six time zones and six nations. Six CFAMC composers\u2019 works were featured, so we examine in this second of three blogs music by Ken Davies and Robert Myers.<\/p>\n
Coastal South Mississippi composer Ken Davies contributed two extraordinary works to the program, the Crystal Kaleidoscope for Horn and Vibraphone <\/em>and the Twitter Rhapsody for Clarinet and Fixed Audio<\/em>. The former work is a single movement with five sections: Garnet, Topaz, Emerald, Amethyst, and Crystal Collage. Davies describes each section as built on \u201cmusical crystals,\u201d a description I treasure as the concept is one with the subject and the musical depictions. These musical crystals, as Davies further writes, are pitch-class sets, or, as musicologist J\u00fcrgen Thym more aptly described them, \u201cinterval constellations.\u201d While the composer would just as soon that we simply enjoy the kaleidoscope of sonic designs as music, I believe a brief examination of these interval constellations may help us here, because it can explain how beautifully the architecture of this work depends on these singular, yet interconnected interval constellations. Garnet uses 0257, or translated, C-D-F-G. Many of us would recognize this as a quartal chord (D-G-C-F) or as a sus4 or sus2 chord together, and all those combinations and their three-note subsets (such as C-F-G) are easily discerned both in the melodies and chords used in this section. The same is true in Topaz with its constellation 0159, or C-Db-F-A. This could be described as a major triad or an augmented triad with a half-step added, and all these combinations will be clearly heard in the music. I prefer to think of this constellation as the augmented-major 7th<\/sup> chord or as the minor-major 7th<\/sup> chord, two of my favorite \u201cdifferent\u201d 7th<\/sup> chords that are used frequently here. Emerald uses 0259 or C-D-F-A which we would hear as a minor 7th<\/sup> chord or as a major triad with added 6th<\/sup>, a warm and sensual sound, especially with the soft vibe chords in vibrato. Amethyst uses 0268 or C-D-F#-G# which comes off as part of a whole-tone scale or as a French augmented 6th<\/sup> chord as a basis for an energetic toccata that contrasts well with the previous section and leads us deftly into Crystal Collage, that combines all these musical crystals. And why does this work so well? Because, as distinct as each musical crystal is, there is actually quite a bit of overlap. Garnet\u2019s 0257 is but one pitch different from Emerald\u2019s 0259. This, in turn, differs from Topaz\u2019 0159 by one pitch. Amethyst\u2019s 0268 differs from Garnet\u2019s 0257 by two pitches, but it\u2019s the last two pitches and both are raised just a half-step. So, there is a lot of interlocking with these musical crystals, which means they can interact in kaleidoscope fashion in the rollicking closing section quite effectively. James Boldin, hornist, and Mel Mobley, vibraphonist, both professors of music at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, were as one in their world premi\u00e8re of this work, and are well worth watching at https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YtzjY9klH9I<\/a>.<\/p>\n It is easy on the first encounter with Davies\u2019 Twitter Rhapsody<\/em> to dismiss it as a comical commentary on Twitter and elegant wordplay that involves clarinets, birds, the color blue (and the musical reference as well). Perhaps the tongue-in-cheek program notes from the composer might even encourage this, but there is a serious side, as this excerpt from the notes illustrates: \u201cWhile we busy ourselves twittering on our Androids, computers and iPads, we might recall the painter of \u2018The Twittering Machine,\u2019 Paul Klee, who was bothered by science and technology concerning themselves with art.\u201d The Twitter Rhapsody<\/em> appeared to be an amalgam of quoted texts (read by the MacIntosh computer male and female voices) with a fabric of quoted music, and some members in the audience wondered if we were picking up a radio station because of the background voices! But the quotations from seven authors (including Davies\u2019 wife, Judy Davies, an accomplished poet) are woven together to take us from the shallow artificial chirps of our electronic toys to the more profound beauties and tragedies of birds in nature, music (Charlie \u201cThe Bird\u201d Parker) and other associations. The musical tapestry grows out of quotations from seven composers ranging from Parker to Igor Stravinsky, but invoking Olivier Messiaen\u2019s Quartet for the End of Time<\/em> most prominently and ending peacefully with allusions from Ralph Vaughan Williams\u2019 The Lark. <\/em>Don\u2019t get me wrong; there are some humorous touches, especially the place where the MacIntosh voice suggests that human clarinetists are no longer needed, to be sharply rebuked by Sarunas Jankauskas, the brilliant clarinetist equally at home with Messiaen, Parker, or George Gershwin.<\/p>\n I am tempted to compare this work with the 2013 Pulitzer Prize work for a cappella<\/em> chamber choir Partita <\/em>by Caroline Shaw, in which there are many spoken parts that glide in and out of singing. Many of those words are directions from visual artist Sol LeWitt to draftspeople who actually drew his Wall Drawing 305.<\/em> So, the text does not seem to be as significant and profound as it is in Twitter Rhapsody.<\/em> If you are like me and did not \u201cget it\u201d the first time, or even if you did, you should listen and watch again at https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ED-iAui_Sks<\/a>.<\/p>\n Keller, Texas-area composer Robert Myers and Charles Ives share at least two things in common: both were heavily involved in the business world to make their livings, and both love the early American camp-meeting hymn \u201cThere is a Fountain Filled with Blood.\u201d Ives used the same tune throughout his Third Symphony \u201cThe Camp Meeting\u201d (which won the 1947 Pulitzer Prize 36 years after it was written), and now Myers has composed the Meditation on CLEANSING FOUNTAIN which, somewhat like Ives, challenges the tune\u2019s very traditional harmonies, but in different ways. Myers makes his intentions known from the start with a four-tone cluster that blossoms into a quartal chord (built on 4ths rather than 3rds) and these propel the meditation into snippets from the tune along with a pandiatonic approach to C Major, in which the tones of this scale become more equal to one another and less subservient to the \u201ctonic,\u201d C. He also steps up the rhythmic energy through vivid asymmetrical meters such as 7\/8 and 5\/8, much as B\u00e9la Bart\u00f3k would have done. Oh, and did we mention the saxophone quartet? Myers hopes \u201cthe listener will experience the fresh and the familiar and find something newly revealed in this exploration of an American treasure,\u201d and, indeed, we do, especially in this fine performance by the SAGA Saxophone Quartet (Andrew Alle, soprano sax, Matt Tracy, alto; Greg Dewhirst, tenor; and Andy Wright, baritone sax), for whom this work was written very recently: https:\/\/wheatmyermusic.com\/product\/meditation-on-cleansing-fountain\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n Up next: Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers, <\/em>Virtual International Conference, The First Concert \u2013 music by Josh Rodriguez and Larry Warkentin.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers Virtual International Conference October 17, 2020 The First Concert \u2013 music by Ken Davies and Robert Myers This concert took place at 2:15 pm Eastern Daylight Time. Amazingly, this concert and the other events were presented via Zoom to an audience in six time zones and six nations. Six… Read More »CFAMC Virtual International Conference: music by Ken Davies and Robert Myers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,74,73,92,75,78,83,89,12,76,84,91,90,1],"tags":[94,96,7,14,5,93,95,97,6],"class_list":["post-1360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cfamc","category-christian","category-christian-fellowship-of-art-music-composers","category-clarinet","category-composer","category-conference","category-ken-davies","category-mississippi","category-music-reviews","category-new-music","category-robert-myers","category-saxophone","category-texas","category-uncategorized","tag-caroline-shaw","tag-charles-ives","tag-classical","tag-music-reviews","tag-new-music","tag-partita","tag-pulitzer","tag-twitter","tag-walter-saul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/waltersaul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/waltersaul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/waltersaul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waltersaul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waltersaul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/waltersaul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1361,"href":"https:\/\/waltersaul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360\/revisions\/1361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/waltersaul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waltersaul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waltersaul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}