review: American Festival of Microtonal Music '98

American Festival of Microtonal Music
MicroMystery Tour '98
May 7-8, 1998
St. Pauls Chapel, Columbia University, NY, NY.

day one

Dubbed "MicroMystery Tour '98" by festival
director and founder Johnny Reinhard, this years
American Festival of Microtonal Music festival was
held at New York's Columbia University, St.
Paul's Chapel. Microtonal are the intervals smaller
than a half step and every year the festival
spotlights microtonal music from around the
world. In contrast to recent years, most of this
years pieces were in just intonation - intervals of
whole number ratios.

Atom Turning In The Heart Of The Sun by Sasha
Bogdanowitch was a half hour epic journey.
Sasha sang in an expressive invented language,
danced across and around the musicians while
he illustrated his tale. In a 20 tone 7 limit tuning in
various instrumental combinations the musicians
provided a backdrop for his performance.
Extensively studies in eastern musical traditions
like gamelan and North Indian singing as well as
Western composition show as influences in the
work. I'm *just* a sucker for the instrumentation
and this is the one piece that totally knocked me
out this year.

Sasha Bogdonowitch - voice
Elizabeth Panzer - harps
John Schneider - just intonation guitar
Judith Hershman - just intonation marimba
Andrew Bolotowsky - flute
Jennifer Devore - cello
Johnny Reinhard - conductor

Virgil Moorfield's (Slight Return) tread the same
territory as his Tzadik release "The Temperature
in Hell is Over Three Thousand Degrees". Using a
48 tone equal temperament tuning in a
"coloristic" way, he still attacks the keyboard like
the drummer he is. The band was in attack mode
too: Cellist David Eggar and violinist Tom Chiu
aggressively bowed their instruments, guitarist
Steven Antonelli played lines full of large interval
jumps. At one point, Eggar picked up a bass
guitar and after a burst of dissonance, proceeded
to bow the instrument with an ebow and tune the
strings down. By the end of the work, the whole
band was bending notes, unwinding strings,
sliding all over the place. Before performing the
piece with his ensemble, the composer informed
us that although the he was going to explore a
psychoacoustic phenomenon called Just
Noticeable Difference, the piece was really
inspired by a beetle that flew into his ear once.

Virgil Moorfield Ensemble:
Tom Chiu - violin
David Eggar - cello
Evans Wohlforth - guitar
Tim Otto - baritone saxophone
Virgil Moorfield - synthesizer

John Schneider played Lou Harrison's Suite #2
for Guitar. Each of the five movements required a
different tuning. Schneider handled this with two
guitars, one with interchangeable fingerboards.
Suite #2 for Guitar is related to the Suite #2 on
the Just West Coast cd - Threnody and Waltz for
Evelyn are the common movements. As always,
Harrison's music is a joy to hear, much of his
music is lush and beautiful and stylistically is
influenced by both European and Asian music.
Schneider, of course, did extreme justice to the
music.

Schneider also performed his arrangement of
Fratres by Arvo P�rt, was rearranged for viola,
guitar and cello in just intonation. With the trio
spread out a bit - the cello drone was a few feet
back , the musicans arranged in a diamond - the
chapel bounced back a lot of the pitch creating a
shimmering cloud of meditation.

Anastasia Solberg - viola
John Schneider - just intonation guitar
Jennifer Devore - cello

Rumanian composer Violeta Dinescu's Din
Cinpoiu was performed on viola by Anastasia
Solberg. Spikey post-classical modern music.
Quarter tones. Yipes!

Like last years Odysseus Cello Concerto by
AFMM's Johnny Reinhard, Adam and Eve is a
new kind of theatre. Musicans act out the parts
and improvise polymicrotonaly all over the chapel.
Of note:

While Paul Savior dramatically intoned the
part of God into a microphone and guitar
amp, ji guitarist Jon Catler picked a couple
of chords for the opening section that
made the hair on my arms stand up.
Combine the sum and difference tones
with St. Pauls ambience - there's more
then a few seconds of reverb there, the
resonance of the room probably added a
few extra notes - and the result is a dense
consonant chord. The effect was so
stunning that some listener's later
complained that the guitar was too loud. A
tiny amp with the volume set to three:
Lightweights! That was God talking, what
did you expect???

Michiyo Suzuki was the perfect snake:
crouching down, pointing her clarinet up,
then down, standing up, wearing flowing
legato clothing.

Christina Coppola, who danced in last
year's Odysseus as a Siren, returned as
Eve. Her performance was equally
expressive this year.

Tree of Knowledge David Eggar, cello
wore a mask while abusing his cello and
Forbidden Fruit Ron Kosak, english horn,
skronked some serious harmonics.

Joshua Pierce produced rain by playing
the inside of the piano. The inside of the
piano is always fun and the AFMM director
sez that 12tet is microtonal!

Tom Chui and Matt Maneri, violins talked
back and forth as cats. Even as a cat
fight!

A double role was filled by Skip La Plante:
as Giant Sloth on double bass and
Anteater, using a long tube as a bass
didjeridu, pointing the instrument towards
the floor, the sky, even the stereo mikes
recording the entire event.

Johnny Reinhard as Adam, the dancing
bassoonist. I realise that there aren't too
many bassonists that dance at all. In high
school, I played bassoon for a few months
before the end and there was a guy trying
to get me to play in marching band! JR
danced his way into history with his light
footed performance and new works like
this should be performed more often.
Pretty funny too!

Of course Reinhard's solo was mind
blowing too. Dyads and triads on the
bassoon. Everybody should do that kind of
stuff on their horn.

Eve - Christina Coppola: dancer,
choreography
Adam - Johnny Reinhard: bassoon
God - Paul Savior: actor, Jon Catler:
electric just intonation guitar
Tree of Knowledge - David Eggar: cello
Snake - Michiyo Suzuki: clarinet
Forbiden Fuit - Ron Kozak: English horn
Fate - Frank Malloy, Orlando Colon: djimbe
Antelope and Sound - Don Conreaux:
shofar, gong
Wart Hog, Kudu - Tom Horgan:
contrabass racket, bass sordon
Birds - Andrew Bolotowsky: lutes
Cats - Tom Chiu, Matt Maneri: violins
Whale, Deer - Steven Antonelli: slide
guitar, mandolin
Giant Sloth, Anteater - Skip La Plante:
double bass, bass didjeridu
Rain - Joshua Pierce: piano
Punctuation - Virgil Moorfield: percussion
Set - Carol Lopresto and Orlando
Brugnola

Picks:
Atom Turning In The Heart Of The Sun - Sasha
Bogdanowitch
Slight Return - Virgil Moorefield
Suite #2 for Guitar - Lou Harrison
Adam and Eve - Johnny Reinhard

db
5/21/98


day two

Gong Elegy (author unknown) was performed by
Mysterious Tremendum Sacred Tone Ensemble with Don
Conreaux as gong master of ceremonies. A rather
beautiful mysterious affair, very much like a ritual. A pair of
monks glide in playing their instruments, a veiled woman
sits playing singing bowls, a man in white appears from
behind the altar and shouts while Conreaux in black and
sunglasses swinging the gong around.

Mysterious Tremendum Sacred Tone Ensemble
Don Conreaux - gong, conch shell and horn
Randee Ragin - Tibetan singing bowls, ting sha and
voice
Johnny Reinhard - bassoon
David Smith - vocals
Linda Wetherill - flutes, microtonal rods, voice
Andrew Salcius - cello, voice
Graham Hubbel - didjeridoo, conch shell,
shakuhachi flute, harmonica, voice
Doron Yomtov - didjeridoo, conch shell, ney, bells,
voice

Rebecca Pechefsky struggled through four of J.S. Bach's
Preludes and Fugues from the Well Tempered Clavier in
Werkmeister III. The performance was so tentative at first,
Pechefsky seemed to either have a case of stage fright or
she was sight reading the pieces. Towards the end as she
gained confidence, the harpsichord started to slip out of
tune.

James Tenney"s Spectrum II for wind quintet was a gem.
Full of long droning tones, pieces like this are perfect for
the resonant St. Pauls Chapel. The chapel must have a
decay of 10 or 15 seconds making Spectum II even more
lush then it already is.

Some people remarked later that the the piece "didn't
grab them", "wasn't as good as his other works" or even
that they flat out didn't like the piece. Nay folks, I thought
the piece was beautiful. Very much in the relm of Morton
Feldman or La Monte Young. The work used an 11 tone
19 limit harmonic just intonation tuning.

ratio 1/1 17/16 9/8 19/16 5/4 21/16 11/8 3/2 25/16 13/8 7/4
cents 0 105 202 298 386 471 551 702 773 841 969

Andrew Bolotowsky - flute
Ron Kozak - English horn
Michiyo Suzuki - bass clarinet
Johnny Reinhard - bassoon
Greg Evans - French horn

After years of hearing bad 1/4 tone music, neo-classical
Cozenage by Howard Rovics was quite a relief. I
particularly liked the up tempo last movement.

Andrew Bolotowsky - flute
Johnny Reinhard - bassoon
Judith Hershman - marimba
Howard Rovics - synthesizer

Johnny Reinhard intoned Harry Partch's December 1942
with John Schneider playing his adapted guitar. It's always
a joy to hear Partch performed, but I miss hearing his
voice. I look forward to hearing Schneider's forthcoming
recording of the piece.

Jon Catler's Sleeping Beauty started with him playing slide
on a guitar "prepared" with a bridge in the middle of the
neck. He'd play the play behind this bridge and the
vibrations of strings on the other side of the bridge would
be amplified by the pickups. In another section, while the
rest of the ensemble droned, Catler played arpeggios
while he stood on a wah wah pedal. Not the
wacka-wacka of Eric Clapton on White Room but a way of
focusing the chord. In other sections, melodies more
closely resembled the melodic material found on the
Birdhouse tape and the Catler Bros. cd "Crash Landing".
The acoustic instruments really should have been
amplified: Catler and ensemble turned in a fine
performance that was warped by the acoustics of the
chapel.


Jon Catler - electric just intonation guitar
Johnny Reinhard - bassoon
Young-Ling Chan - bassoon
Skip LaPlante - canon/dulcimer

Picks:
Gong Elegy (author unknown)- Mysterious Tremendum
Sacred Tone Ensemble
Spectrum II - James Tenny
December 1942 - Harry Partch
Sleeping Beauty - Jon Catler

Information about the American Festival of Microtonal
Music: http://www.echonyc.com/~jhhl/AFMM/

db
5/25/98


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* D a v i d B e a r d s l e y
* xouoxnoREMOVE-THIS@virtulink.com
*
* J u x t a p o s i t i o n E z i n e
* M E L A v i r t u a l d r e a m house monitor
*
* http://www.virtulink.com/immp/lookhere.htm