Essay: Accessing the Sonic and the Social: An Evaluation of Methodological Shifts in the Ethnography of Performance

Accessing the Sonic and the Social: An Evaluation of Methodological Shifts in the Ethnography of Performance

(MPhil Submission Lent 2012)

3500 Words

In his 2001 article 'Between Process and Product', Nicholas Cook comments on a recent paradigm shift in musicological literature away from the textuality of the score and towards performance. Since the mid-eighties there has been a growing attention to performance within scholarship; the

landscape of literature on performance before this point has been described by Jonathan Dunsby as 'fluid' and 'fragmentary' (Rink: 1996: 253).

Within the study of music, Cook identifies the growth of interest as a response to tensions in the musicological field, namely, Goehr's challenge to the autonomy of the concept of the Western 'musical work' through a delineation of the problems inherent within its ontological status, and the New Musicology's recognition of the importance of discussing music in terms of its social context, but their ineffective attempts to locate it within the score through hermeneutic analysis. The shift can also be seen against the backdrop of the larger 'performative turn' within the humanities and social sciences more generally; the work of Richard Schechner, along with others such as Butler and Goffman establishing 'performance studies' as a discipline in its own right.

Performance studies call for a greater attention to phenomena as a processes, rather than texts or objects, and Cook's article serves as a call to arms in the development of a musicology of performance, for fuller, more detailed explanations of it as both a social and sonic process. Ethnomusicology, which has predominantly devoted itself to the study of other cultures – which have often been remote, previously undocumented, illiterate, or without a system of notation – is a discipline that has constantly been forced to engage with music and culture as a process rather than a text.

However, this is not to say that ethnomusicological scholarship has provided an easily identifiable process-based methodological archetype, which musicologists can now hope to utilize. On the contrary, despite their close engagement with the act of performance itself, previous ethnomusicological scholarship has often taken an analytical approach, utilizing the musical process for the formation of a text through the act of transcription. Transcriptions which too often attempt to totalize the experience of the individual musicians making up the ensemble and abstract 'music' away from the social processes in which it is embedded, creating a new reified text (Cook 1999: 261).

It is not the mere difference between process of music making and the text produced that is the problem. As Dunsby states, the event and its documentation are not the same and never can be (Dunsby 1996: 97); one cannot hope to capture music – a present, performed experience, a 'living art' existing only in time – in verbal discourse (or indeed, notation) because of the unbridgeable epistemological gulf between the two (Rink 1996: 256). The problem, within certain types of scholarly methods including transcription is that they merely translate the performative experience, rather than explaining it.

Therefore, the aim of this essay is to evaluate certain key publications within the ethnomusicological literature, with an emphasis on methodology, acknowledging their contributions but also pointing out the ways in which they could take further steps to achieve a fusion between process and product – not one which transcends the boundaries of language or analysis: such a coalescence is unobtainable – but one that attempts to get closer to the musical event in both its social and sonic dimensions.

As a result of the shift of emphasis, many of these publications broaden the scope of musicological research has been extended to include document pedagogy, rehearsal, performance and the linguistic and gestural communication instrumental playing included within these practices. I shall delineate points whereby further scholarship would be beneficial where relevant.

In her 2001 article 'Towards an Ethnomusicology of the Early Music Movement: Thoughts on Bridging Disciplines and Musical Worlds', Kay Kaufman Shelemay advocates an approach which accounts for the social function of musical performance through ethnographic methods which give access to the study and experience of musical act and sound (2001: 3)

The article takes certain issues, central to the functioning of the Boston Early Music Movement – including distinctions between amateurism and professionalism, specialist performers and ensembles, uses of particular instruments, musical values and performance practices – and works small details into larger themes, situating them in a broad social context. However, although Shelemay paints an extensive and detailed picture of the movement as a whole, her use of ethnographic methods can be seen as falling short of her original aim – to access the experience of musical act and sound. Although she uses interview techniques to gain information about the meaning of the musical act to certain performers, the reflections she documents largely embody general points about musical style, (i.e. a reflection on what it might mean to be musically 'authentic') and do not talk directly about the musical act.

The one exception within the article illuminates musical phenomena which scholarship needs to address: “John was filling in the harmonies, but he was also inventing a third voice a lot of the time... there was some real invention going on in the keyboard playing, which doesn't get talked about much” (2001: 10) This quotation illuminates that clearly, if we are to understand music making in its experiential dimension, we need to extend ethnographic techniques to attempt to get closer to it: to explain the process and not just describe it.

In his seminal publication Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation, Paul Berliner undertakes this very task, using an ethnographic approach to explain the act of jazz improvisation in social and sonic terms. Whereas previous literature on jazz had often misrepresented the practice, 'mystifying' the act of improvisation and misrepresenting and marginalizing musicians through critical outsider perspectives which failed to see the music on its own terms (1994: 6), Berliner's ethnographic technique brings him closer to an emic perspective on the process of improvisation. He weaves together his informant's reflections on what they think they do during performance together with his own observations in order to de-mystify the processes Jazz musicians go through in order to develop the ability to improvise, confirming Dunsby's assertion that musicians “do not usually work in some sort of unreflecting trance”; instead they “think hard” (1996: 9). By encouraging reflection on the musician's practical and pedagogical engagements, Berliner elucidates the manner in which players gradually build up a vocabulary of harmonic gestures, which can be utilized in performance with increasing dexterity to create a 'dialogue' with other musicians. Berliner explains the relationship between improvised and pre-composed components of the artists' knowledge as cyclical: the improvised exploration of individual pitch combinations produces new vocabulary patterns which, when memorized, are transformed into pre-composed materials. When the soloist retrieves them in performance, however, they serve as improvisational elements that reintegrate in unique ways in the construction of phrases.

Berliner illustrates examples of these materials though transcriptions, ranging from basic building blocks for fashioning individual parts to extended group performances. Although Berliner provides us with the theoretical framework through which to understand the transcriptions in the main text of the book, there is definitely more scope for a fuller integration of musical text and the performer's reflection on the processes happening. Berliner states that the transcriptions are intended as guides for readers who may wish to immerse themselves in the original recordings (1994: 12). However, although the recordings are noted to be of important pedagogical value to Berliner's informants, a set of transcriptions which document the 'great' jazz standards – Booker Little, Miles Davis, and Charlie Parker amongst others – misses an opportunity to fully explain the repertoire from the perspective of those who perform it. In the latter transcriptions showing improvised group interplay, Berliner uses the picture of improvisation he has built up in the previous chapters in order to discuss the recording. However, although his detailed analysis gives us an insight into the music, it is predominantly descriptive rather than explanatory. Given that Berliner obtained some of the improvisational variants on the traditional repertoire through conversation with his informants, and learned the intricacies of jazz improvisation directly from the musicians themselves, performing and recording with a group he had organized (1994: 5) it is surprising that Berliner did not think it appropriate to record and transcribe various groups in practice, and use the method of the interview to present an explanation of stylistic choices and which tied details to larger theoretical frameworks he outlines: Part 2 of the book.

Berliner's account is outstanding in its extensive scope and the rigor with which it contextualizes the jazz tradition within wider cultural practices, and its seminal insights into jazz improvisation as a process. However, in terms of the objective I outline in my introduction, there is opportunity for development. For a greater synthesis to be reached, a higher degree of specificity is needed – reflections need to be made, pertaining to both social and sonic elements in relation to particular events, which can be displayed through musical notation and backed up by audio recordings, pertaining to Nicholas Cook's observation in Between Process and Product, that a “musicology of performance really demands the integration of sound, word, and image achievable through current hypermedia technology (2001: 29).

A perspective which embraces hypermedia technology, in order to document a successfully integrated account of music as a process, is Amanda Bayley's 2011 article 'Ethnographic Research into Contemporary String Quartet Rehearsal'. Bayley utilizes an audio recording of a rehearsal, concert performances, a filmed performance and photography, alongside the more traditional methods of interviews, questionnaires, observations in order to present a picture of the interactive and collaborative processes which take place between a composer and performers of his work. It documents the progress of Micheal Finnissy's Second String Quartet, from composition, through the rehearsal and performance process with the Kreutzer Quartet, and finally, to reflections on performance (2011: 386).

Although Bayley has broader research concerns, she states her primary objective is to discover more about how professional musicians structure their rehearsal time, and why they approach Finnissy’s piece in a particular way. Taking the audio recording of the rehearsal, Bayley uses a quantitative method to examine how much rehearsal time is spent on particular activities. She uses the 5 main categories taken from Davidson's and Good's (2002) examination of the social and musical co-ordination between members of a student string quartet in rehearsal and performance: social conversation, non-verbal social interaction, musical conversations, non-verbal musical interactions and musical interactions. Due to the predominance of the conversation, she breaks this down further, into more specific areas.

However, the problems inherent in such a method undermine its apparent precision. One issue, which Bayley recognises, is the level of simplification of the event that such a process entails when distinguishing between overlapping categories. For example, one conversation may have two objectives, such as solving a problem relating to technique and notation or to sound quality and technique. Furthermore, talking and playing often merge in rehearsal: if an instrument is utilized to produce sound within the conversation about another point, then should it be reclassified as musicking? Bayley points to an inherent methodological weakness when she admits that where musical and/or verbal interactions overlap or collide, the categorisation has been made according to what was most audible (2011: 396).

Most importantly, in terms of the research objectives, is that this type of analysis fails to explain music as a process. Bayley notes some of these quantitative analyses also fail to show the swift transitions between humour or chit-chat and playing; which points were made by whom, who was being directive, and interplay between musicians changed in the course of the rehearsal. As Bayley herself states: a graphic representation of data is a useful way of gaining a sense of the proportion of various elements that make up the rehearsal but has limited value because it fails to show how the rehearsal progressed (2011: 398) Moreover, although it may be useful to show that more time was spent doing certain activities, this is not a direct reflection of their importance.

However, extremely illuminating insights into the rehearsal process were made by qualitative analysis:

The first issue regards the function of metaphor in communicating the composer's sonic preferences to the performers: At the beginning of the rehearsal Finnissy chose metaphors such as ‘sort of saltier’, ‘frothier’ and ‘like spiders crawling’ to help describe the nature of the sound he wanted. In a later interview, he explained that such metaphors were not fixed, but that they emerged in relation to the sound that the musicians were already making. Bayley places this in a larger theoretical framework by pointing to Feld’s observation that metaphors categorize musical experiences in relation to similar or dissimilar experiences, to place an item or event in meaningful social space through ongoing interpretive moves. These moves do not fix or freeze a single meaning; meaning is emergent and changeable in relation to various combinations of moves made by specifically situated speakers (2011: 403).

However, although this theoretical framework gives insight, it does not provide us with an insider perspective, which may help explain the process of 'emergent meanings' in more specific terms. Although her research includes scripts of dialogue in the rehearsal process, and notes from a conversation with Finnissy, the perspectives of the performers are not interwoven into the main fabric of the article, but consigned to a detached section at the end. The documentation gained (a questionnaire, completed a month after the filmed performance) could not have been worked into a broader explanation, since the four players give differing and contradictory responses. In answer to the question ‘Are there important elements of the composition that Michael clarified in rehearsal which were not evident from the notation or other markings in the score? Please give details’, there was no consistent answer between players: two replied yes; two replied no. However, the specific responses conveyed different interpretations of similar themes, showing that given a more dialogic methodology, progress towards an insider's account of the process could have been attained. Heyde and Trandafilovski differed on whether they had understood Finnissy's metaphors to describe sound, or character and expression, and Sheppard Skærved’s negative response was ‘all of the important details are apparent; all that Michael did was to show that they were in front of us'. These comments suggest that there is a deeper discussion here to be had on the relationship between the score, sound, language and communication (2011: 406).

Another illuminating insight is provided through a discussion Bayley documents on coordination and movement: Finnissy’s compositional is (for lack of a better term) semi-indeterminate – a degree of freedom is composed into the parts for the explicit function of varying vertical alignment on each iteration as well as transitions between different sections of the piece. Towards the end of the rehearsal, Finnissy commented that he felt that the players had become too coordinated with the viola and cello parts, and that it was not producing the right effect. Finnissy wanted them to create “a feeling of initially not really being within reach, as if an unattainable plateau that they’re on and you’re desperate to reach it.” Once the players knew how the parts worked together, they had to find a way of ‘unlearning’ that knowledge, resisting the urge for highly co-ordinated playing to attain a controlled ‘un-coordination’, a style of performance determined by the composer’s intention for the character of the piece.

Bayley claims she was aware of the implications of the loss of visual information, but felt it important to only use audio in order not to impede or affect the rehearsal process. However, the lack of data on movement and gesture prevents her from working towards a theory of the nonverbal methods of communication, which would elucidate the way in which this co-ordination and un-coordination might take place.

Visual information is also of crucial importance to the discussion of Finnissy's metaphors, partly because the taped concert performance reveals that Finnissy consistently uses gestures as he talks to accentuate and refine his meaning, but also since the production of sound is dependent on the process of movement and thoroughly aggregated with the notions of 'expression' and 'character'. In fact, as I stated above, through the rehearsal process, Heyde took Finnissy's comments to pertain predominantly to expression and character rather than sound. Whilst much work has been written on the distinctions between the terms in abstract philosophical terms, a discussion of what they have meant in pragmatic terms, as 'discourse frames' for instrumentalists negotiating a rehearsal has not been fully documented.

Hence, although Bailey uses hypermedia documentation which Cook suggests can help us bridge the gap between process and product, she does not go far enough in seeking to relate the individual forms of collected data (the taped rehearsal, the filmed concert performance, the interview and the questionnaire) to one another. However, to rectify this I am not suggesting that Bailey should merely take her analytical approach further in positing interrelations – such an approach may induce dangerous level of abstract theorizing. I am positing we take an approach that places informants nearer to the center of the research, and encourages a dialogue through a method called video playback, predominantly used within music psychology.

In their forthcoming article “Exploring creativity in musical performance through lesson observation with video-recall interviews”, James, Wise and Rink (from hereon in referred to as James) utilize video analysis, to document specific moments of 'creativity' within the pedagogical engagement between teacher and student. Lessons are filmed and the footage is used as a memory prompt and participants are invited to talk in depth about their experiences. James contends this has the potential both to allow insights into their experiences that could not be gained from viewing the footage alone, and to facilitate participants’ conscious access to processes that they may not often think about or articulate, thereby “building an effective bridge between research and practice” (forthcoming: 2).¹

The video-recall method is not without its problems. Firstly, as Bayley feared in her research, there is a chance that the presence of a camera will cause participants to act in a manner slightly different they would have done otherwise, however, this can be reduced by getting used to being on film. Secondly, although the use of video lessens participant's likelihood of forgetting details, misremembering, or interpreting things differently than reflection without video data might induce, seeing the lesson from a different angle and after a period of time, however short, introduces an inevitable element of interpretation in hindsight, and it is therefore possible participants can confuse revelations they have through reflection with revelations they had at the time (forthcoming: 26). However, a reflexive manner which does not make participants feel that they have to offer explanations to fit analytical categories demanded by the researcher and an acute scholarly look at the data which may identify erroneous comments, such problems can be minimized.

James's methodology gave the participants control over the research process, initially asking participants to select excerpts of tape they felt were important to the creative process. The advantage of this method is that it that it creates a directed but flexible structure which can cater for new questions and issues that emerge through the research process – the importance of which is demonstrated to be important by Bayley's research, and the unexpected impetus on metaphor and gesture.

Therefore, I propose that in future ethnographic research, the video-recall method should be utilized if relevant to create a bridge between product and process through discourse. Traditional ethnographic fieldwork methods such as the interview and the questionnaire will remain highly important for the initial observation issues which may become central to research and for collecting data to provide a cultural context for the research. However, a more detailed focus on the experience of music should use video recall both with musicians individually - to enable them to express their insights to the researcher away from the social pressures of the ensemble – and in a group context to enable participants to work towards a mutual understanding of the terminology used, and to avoid the incompatible conceptions of terminology found in Bailey's questionnaire approach, which prevents the construction of a more extensive conceptual framework. Results from individual interviews and group interviews should be compared and contrasted, with the possibility of re-interview either in a group or on an individual basis as a control method to ensure that terminology is being used consistently, and that group politics are not prohibiting reflection.

It will be necessary for researchers to undertake preparatory work in order to define research questions about the exact object of their study, and to refine the full methodological approach accordingly, yet they should be prepared for other research questions to emerge and aware that changing procedures to cater for these may produce more illuminating research. Research can perhaps best be presented in an essay format, with whichever supporting documentation is appropriate - scores, lead sheets, rehearsal charts, etc. - but access to full documentation of the recorded performances (or other) should be presented alongside to allow readers to contextualise academic observations. The written documentation should make specific references to the points in the video that are being discussed, either expressed in time, or with the possibility of larger-scale synthesis through computer programming. Imperative in research conducted with a significant focus on sound is that the quality of audiovisual data is as high as is possible, to ensure that reflections on sound quality are not misguided.

In conclusion, performance itself and its documentation may always be separated by Dunsby’s ‘epistemological gulf’, and performance practice may inevitably continue to be conditioned to a varying degree by a number of binaries, including performer and audience, creator and reactor, and subject and analyst. Yet the best way for scholarship to proceed is through an understanding of these differences not as dichotomies, but as positions of proximity and distance. This notion is made more lucid by Dunsby's assertion, that in performance there are no “pure doers” (1996: 49); language is constantly present as an inner monologue throughout our experience of music as both listeners and performers. Indeed, as Karol Berger states, “The hermeneutic element cannot be wholly banished from the arena of performance; there is no such thing as pure experience, uncontaminated by interpretation” (Berger 2005: 501) Therefore, the video-recall method is not only an attempt at 'translating' their sensual actions and feelings into words, (although undoubtedly this might form part the method); it is a report or 'second reflection' on thoughts, words, that they experienced at the same time as sensation and action.

In sum: by understanding music as a process, rather than as a product, and by taking an ethnographic approach which places musicians' emic perspectives at the centre of research in the aforementioned ways, we may gain a more complete understanding of music in its sonic and social terms.

Words: 3815

Bibliography:

Bayley, Amanda, 'Ethnographic Research into Contemporary String Quartet Rehearsal', Ethnomusicology Forum, Vol. 20 No. 3, (2011) pp. 385-411

Berger, Karol, Musicology According to Don Giovanni, or: Should We Get Drastic?

The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Summer 2005), pp. 490-501

Berliner, Paul, Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation (Chicago: 1994)

Cook, Nicholas,' Analysing Performance and Performing Analysis' Rethinking Music, Cook and Evereist eds., (Oxford: 1999)

Cook, Nicholas, 'Between Process and Product', in Music Theory Online, Vol. 7, No. 2, (April 2001)

Davidson, Jane W. and Good's James M. 'Social and Musical Co-Ordination between Members of a String Quartet: An Exploratory Study', Psychology of Music, Vol. 30, (2002), pp.186-201

Dunsby, Jonathan, Performing Music: Shared Concerns, (Clarendon Press: 1996)

James, M., Wise, K., & Rink, J. 'Exploring creativity in musical performance through lesson observation with video-recall interviews', in Scientia Paedagogica Experimentalis, (forthcoming)

Rink, John, Review of Jonathan Dunsby, Performing Music: Shared Concerns, in Music & Letters, Vol. 77 No. 2, (1996), pp. 253–7

Shelemay Kauffman, Kay, 'Towards and Ethnomusicology of the Early Music Movement: Thoughts on Bridging Disciplines and Musical Worlds', in Ethnomusicology, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Winter 2001), pp. 1-2

1See also: (Davidson & Good: 2002)

News Story: Major Comissions for Britten Centenary, Classical Music Magazine

News Story: Major Comissions for Britten Centenary,  Classical Music Magazine
Second July Issue 2011 
350 Words

The Royal Philharmonic Society and The Britten-Pears Foundation have announced a series of major co-commissions to mark the RPS’s bicentenary and Britten’s centenary in 2013. The organisations have confirmed that six leading international composers including Harrison Birtwistle and Judith Weir will continue the RPS's prestigious commissioning history, enabled by funds from both organisations.

Whilst composers are being given free reign in terms of compositional style, they will be working with ensembles which reflect the range of Britten’s compositional output: Wolfgang Rihm will write for symphony orchestra, Judith Weir for chamber orchestra, Magnus Lindberg for ensemble and Per Nørgård for string quartet. Richard Rodney Bennett will uphold Britten's enthusiasm for educational works with a children’s song cycle, and Harrison Birtwistle will honour Britten's substantial output written for his partner Peter Pears with an extensive 30 minute song cycle for tenor and piano (with words by David Harsent).

Britten was a keen champion of keeping the classical tradition alive through new music and, unsurprisingly, all composers in question have noted their elation at being asked to engage with a project which so aptly encapsulates Britten's spirit. Reflecting on Britten, composer Magnus Lindberg comments: “I've always admired Britten as a composer for the clarity of his scoring and the amazing range of his output - he could turn his hand to anything. He also had an innate sense of drama, audible in both his instrumental music and his operas. His legacy continues to be important for living composers and contemporary music in general."

 2013 will see UK premieres given by the Hallé Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Vertavo Quartet, Mark Padmore and Till Fellner, before the works go on to be performed internationally. The project forms part of a year-long celebration of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s bicentenary, featuring concerts and special events nationwide. The centenary of Benjamin Britten’s birth will be marked internationally by publications, exhibitions, broadcasts, educational projects and performances, including a series of opera productions supported by the Britten-Pears Foundation’s Britten 100 Award

Journal Entry: Exploring Bach

Review of London Bach Society's 3rd BACHFEST, for the BACH CLUB page, in their journal BACH NOTES. Sept 2011
500 words

Exploring Bach


2012 is the year baroque virtuoso Rodolfo Richter sets out to complete one of his life ambitions: to record all of Bach's output written for the violin. The audience of the third Bach Club meeting were present for a preview of what is to come at the Foundling museum, where we gathered to listen to Sonata's No 1, 2 and 4 for violin and harpsichord.

Like myself, Richter is convinced that Bach should be for everyone, for the young and old; for those who have grown up with the tradition, and for those who have arrived at Bach from other pathways. I wanted to find why Bach fires Richter's ambition, and what his love of Bach can tell us about the ways in which we can experience the composer.

“What makes Bach's music so enjoyable for me is the fact that it is unbelievably rich at so many levels”, Richter comments. It's true; we admire Bach for his tight technique, his astute balance of melody and counterpoint. For performers the complex inner workings of the composition provide provide an endlessly rich source for interpretation. But, as Richter implores “he's never academic, because even when he's obsessed with the complexity and rigidity of his own technical challenges; he knows when to break free.” Indeed, each note is always present, but it is the art of choosing which colours, tones and shapes to accentuate; the way one might turn a diamond to let it glimmer in the light.

Richter's performance encapsulated the equilibrium of this ordered, yet entirely expressive art; especially in the allegro movement of the first sonata. The music was exquisite. His nimble bow soared over the strings, spinning silken melody lines, effortlessly interlocking with the accompanying harpsichord counterpoint. The relationship between the two was precise, alive; instinctual.

When I asked him why it is important to help young people engage with Bach today, Richter replied that it is important to help them open up a new path of discovery. A discovery of both Bach's music, and a self-discovery. It is specifically the emotional and technical richness of Bach's music that enables such a deep exploration. As Richter says, “These different levels contain so many other layers, that one feels no one can't get to the bottom of it all in a lifetime.”

This sense of exploration and growth created a depth throughout Richter's performance. The emotional shading was that of one who has taken a journey with Bach, returning to the same music to nourish the different stages of his life; finding new meanings there and refining his interpretation. Each movement achieved a subtle profundity through its nuanced colouring. The opening siciliano largo of the more well-known Sonata no. 4 was especially poignant with its slow, careful dignity and tender expression; giving melodic lines their full expressive potential whilst implying a hint of reservation; never rushing ahead into their familiarity.

In the concert I was struck by the memory of a phrase a play-write friend recently expressed to me: “There's one story; you get that for free, but look again, and there's another, and if you give the time then you get something far bigger than the price you paid for admission.” Ultimately by offering tickets at reduced prices, the 18-30 Bach club offers young people a way of coming to know Bach, yet what they take away with them is their own decision.

It was wonderful to see the evening was brought to a close with wine, and an informal dispersal of people around the Foundling Museum, talking to one another about their experiences with Bach. A group of students set themselves up round the harpsichord to play and talk about certain passages and show off their keyboard skills. One of my friends listened with intrigue to one lady's description of a previous musical life she had led in Berlin. Others were admiring the extravagant architecture and curiously wandering to have a look at the paintings. For everyone involved, the evening acted as as a mirror for their own lives; different chords, melodies and interactions resonating in different ways for different people.

Festival Review: Tête à Tête & Grimeborn Opera Festivals

Article reviewing the opera festivals Tête à Tête and Grimeborn for Classical Music Magazine, Oct 2011
900 words


What direction is contemporary opera moving in? According to 2011's new-opera festivals: every direction possible.

This summer, East and West London went head-to-head, fighting to bring opera into a new array of styles and subjects. Hammersmith's Tête à Tête festival earned it's boast as the ‘most imaginative laboratory for new opera’, presenting a diverse patchwork of finished productions alongside works in progress. Meanwhile, the 5th Grimeborn Festival ran in East London's gritty Dalston; a series of innovative operas and musical theatre pieces staged in the squat-chic Arcola Theatre.

Both festivals blurred the boundaries of traditional styles, forming operatic hybrids from movement-theatre, street entertainment, live electronics and performance-art. Themes ranged from traditional subjects (Greek mythology and Austen novels) to today's politics (ecological and middle-eastern issues) to the macabre and downright bizarre (drunk artists, sexualised nursery rhymes and the story of Ziggy, a cabaret-singing aborted foetus). Here is an overview of the works likely to remain with us for longer than one season:

Grimeborn launched with the London premiere of Jonathan Dove's new take on the Austen classic, Mansfield Park. 'When I first read Mansfield Park, over twenty years ago, I heard music' Dove claims; the appeal being to give expression to the quiet sufferings of the heroine, Fanny Price. The libretto, by Alasdair Middleton, distills Austen's story, making the Cinderella aspect its kernel. Herritage Opera commissioned the work, to add to their repertoire of chamber operas they perform at stately homes around England, using only a piano for accompaniment – an appropriate medium to set a 19th Century classic. Musically, Dove wanted to write something which was not bound by the stylistic procedures of the period, but would be recognisable and appropriate to the era. The result is an attractive and engaging work, which is reserved yet not lifeless; which manages to capture the charm of the period without becoming too chocolate-boxy. Dove's melodies for his characters are memorable, although at times the work could have benefited from more changes of key and harmony to move the action forward and prevent a feeling of stasis.

The 'traditional with a twist' idea was echoed elsewhere in the festival; Barefoot Opera reinvented Handel's Alcina for the Grimeborn, presenting it as a stripped-down version which kept the original melodies of the arias but accompanied them with just a clarinet and a harpsichord, adding an english narrator, folk interludes and pieces of movement theatre.

Other librettists, meanwhile, ventured into uncharted areas. With subject matter influenced by the recent successes of quirky opera-biogs, such as Anna Nicole, Steven Crowe's The Francis Bacon Opera, presents a humorous yet intelligent look at the life of the 20th Century's most revered painter. Staged inside a irregularly-shaped yellow scaffold – a motif featured in many of Bacon's paintings – the work uses an exact transcription from the 1985 Melvyn Bragg interview, which won awards for it's brutal honesty and controversial subject matter. Musically, we can see the attraction of Bacon and Bragg to the composer; Bacon's philosophical spiels about art and beauty were stretched into long luxurious melody lines, whilst the intonation of Bragg's questioning grew ever more ridiculous and high-pitched as he steadily grew more drunk.

The decadent and the absurd provided a recurrent theme, particularly for Tête à Tête, where the Jerwood Opera Writing Programme protégés Luke Styles and Peter Cant premiered the first scene of their unfinished work A Fetus in America, which breaks stylistic boundaries, bringing together drag, musical satire and cabaret to critique pro-life issues and American politics.

However, the most innovative material of the festivals – two Tête à Tête works that are clearly holding the torch for the future of new opera – were SizeZero Opera's The Boy Who Lived Down the Lane and Frances M Lynch's collaboration with Alejandro Viñao: Baghdad Monologue.
The Boy Who Lived Down the Lane was a short but truly outstanding work by Singaporean composer Diana Soh, which told a story of Jack and Jill in sexual pursuit of one another through a cut-and-paste libretto made entirely from snippets of nursery rhymes (James Currie). Dressed in a baby-doll dress the lead soprano and founder of the company, Laura Bowler, hurled herself through a series of schizophrenic ramblings, lending a sexual element to the originally innocent text. The score's rhythms were neat and articulate, its pace was fast and its material was fresh. However, its real innovation lay in the way that it combined different tonalities – simple, childlike, melodies in a major key against dissonant chords and obscure timbres – to achieve the effect of distorted innocence.

Baghdad Monologue was a work for a solo performer and live electronics which commented on the middle-eastern intervention, inspired by Eliot Weinberger's book What I Heard About Iraq. It was constructed from small soundbites, some abstract noise, others obvious references to everyday life: the call to prayer, George Bush's voice; the innocent sound of children playing. These were blended into Lynch's voice, used to punctuate it; they faded in, out, were sometimes distorted or bled into one another to create an exquisite patchwork of politically-charged aural meanings.

What united both works in their success was music's central and irreplaceable role. Whereas with Dove's Mansfield Park, or Crowe's Francis Bacon the music adds to the libretto, these works are entirely reliant on their medium in order to even make sense. The Boy Who Lived Down the Lane depends on it's music for its sense of befouled innocence; Baghdad Monologue depends music to refer to different cultures. If we want to see contemporary opera continue to flourish, then undoubtedly, this 'gestalt' approach is its foremost champion.

Journal Entry: LBS Bach Club Publication, Bach Notes

Article for London Bach Society's BACH CLUB page, in their journal BACH NOTES. Sept 2011
500 words

How should we promote Bach to people ages 18-30? What should London Bach Society's BACH CLUB be, and do, to communicate Bach's music to this audience? How can we help those already persuaded by Bach's music to take their interest to new heights, whilst also providing an introduction to those unfamiliar with or undecided about his work?

Whilst electronic composition classical composers such as Glass, Reich, Eno, Xenakis and Feldman receive a natural social platform in current society, Bach is a figure more isolated to contemporary life. Many young people come to minimalism through an experience of film scores, which provide an emotionally evocative platform for music similar to what they are listening to already in its tonality, chord progressions and repeated idioms. Others turn to electronic composers and the neo-modernists in an extension of their interest in experimental popular forms and concept albums.

Bach possesses less of these observable 'lead-ins' to his music through contemporary culture. Often, he is spoken of as being a 'cerebral' composer. The intricate part writing in his fugues are said to play themselves out with almost mathematical precision, the passion of his cantatas is ignored, and instead they are praised for their architecture, structure and form.

Yet words such as form and structure are misleading, mathematical terms, they can give the impression that Bach is to be understood in the same manner you would understand the workings of an engine. They are, understandably, an unnattractive and pressurised way to promote music, whose allure lies in the emotional reaction to sound as much as the sound itself.

So, for newcomers to Bach, it is important to realise that, it is possible to appreciate him just by listening, not thinking: the same way you would appreciate any other music. By moving, mentally and emotionally with each arching melody, each expected and unexpected chord change, each vigorous upbeat and poignant cadence you can open yourself to, and experience Bach. You may find your emotions amplified at specific points in the composition or you may decide Bach has nothing for you BUT the only way for this realisation to occur, is through experiencing it directly.

Thus: in November 2009, London Bach Society launched BACH CLUB, for those aged 18-30. All BACH CLUB events are free for students and a modest cost for others. From November onwards BACH CLUB meetings will happen twice a year, but, as we see the BACH CLUB grow members and develop interest, we hope to increase this to more.

The meetings are modelled on the weekly events Bach himself headed, in the city of Leipzig. At the forefront of artistic life, Bach and his students would use the time to discuss and perform new music, new ideas and new meanings. Likewise, BACH CLUB wants to push music into new areas. The meetings will not just favour seasoned performers but will introduce new interpretations of Bach's work by new performers and première works by new composers influenced by Bach. Over drinks it will also give artists a chance to talk about their work, offer audience members opportunity to ask questions, share thoughts and make useful contacts for future performances, concerts and careers. Whilst this will provide a cultural 'lead-in' for those who have had little experience of Bach (and this is where YOU come in to invite as many curious friends as you have BACH CLUB events) the social space the meetings create will allow everyone to pursue Bach to their own level.
Please seek us out on Facebook, Twitter, and on the London Bach Society website, and we hope to see you in November

News Story: Boulez Festival, Women at the Vanguard - Classical Music Magazine

News Story - Boulez Festival, Women at the Vanguard - Classical Music Magazine - Second July Issue 2011
350 Words

SouthBank Centre Celebrates 'The Godfather' of new music with exquisite labyrinth: The music of Pierre Boulez culmonating in Boulez conducting his seminal modernist masterpiece.
Friday 30 September – Sunday 2 October 2011

Mr Boulez has been modern music's most active voice and participant over the last 60 years. His compositions utilize a range of compositional styles, from twelve-tone technique, controlled chance and aleatoric music, to the use of electronics.

The festival, running from 30th September - 2nd October, offers an opportunity to witness each of Boulez's experimental facets through exciting collaborations from the the leading figures of today's contemporary music scene, and will include performances of his major works. Experts are also to deliver their insights in an in an International Study Day, which will take place at the Royal Festival Hall on 1st October.

The programme also boasts a high level of female performers - who are becoming increasingly prominent in contemporary music - including finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki, pianist Tamara Stefanovich and Finnish soprano Barbara Hannigan, who will undertake a fiendishly difficult vocal role in the climax of the programme, the work Pli Selon Pli.

On Friday 20th September, the Royal Academy of Music's Manson Ensemble will kick off the celebration with a selection of Boulez's acoustic works. The concert will feature Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna, alongside two versions of his Domaines. The works explore the notion of musical space as a solo clarinetist transforms the work's soundscape by moving about the stage, interacting with different musical groups.

On Saturday 1st October, leading Hungarian composer Péter Eötvös will conduct London Sinfonietta,flautist Micheal Cox and violinist Clio Gould in a collaboration with a sound engineer and computer music designer from IRCAM to perform the electronic works Explosante-fixe and Anthèmes 2 for violin & live electronicsare.

The will weekend culminate on Sunday 2nd October, when all of Boulez's piano works are to be performed in three short recitals over one afternoon by his friends Piere-Laurent and Tamara Stefanovich. And, as a grand finale, Boulez himself will be conducting soprano Barbara Hannigan, Ensemble intercontemporain (which he founded in 1976) and the young musicians of the Lucerne Festival Academy Ensemble in his own seminal masterpiece, Pli selon pli (Fold by fold). The 70-minute work takes its inspiration and, more innovatively, its structure, from the poems of Stéphane Mallarmé.

Gillian Moore, Head of Contemporary Culture at Southbank Centre, describes the weekend as 'the perfect opportunity for curious audiences to discover and enjoy the vertiginous thrill of modernist music, brilliantly performed.’

Preview: Laurent Korcia & HKPO

Laurent Korcia /HKPO/Yip Sing Wei on two dates for Le French May Arts Festival
15th April: Lam Lan Chee/Bernstein/Stravinsky
16th April: Items from Korcia's album Cinema
For TimeOut Magazine, Hong Kong
400 Words

Laurent Korcia has a split personality, or at the very least, is a man of many sides. The Frenchman, having graduated with the Premier Prix from the Paris Conservatoire and won an abundance of prestigious accolades, including the Paganini Jacques Long-Thibaud and Zino Francescatti International Competitions, is certainly an acclaimed performer of classical repertoire. But in recent years, he’s also indulged his more ‘pop’ side, finding widespread success with films, television commercials, and his 2009 release Cinema, a collection of movie score themes from Gershwin to Morricone. This fortnight, he shows off both of these sides to Hong Kong audiences.

Ruminations on love, virtue and mortality provide the theme for the Hong Kong Sinfonietta’s season-opening concert, with Korcia performing Bernstein's elegant Serenade after Plato's Symposium. Yet, in his second performance, he reveals a more playful side with a programme of party-pieces, filled with favourites from Cinema.

Rather refreshingly, Korcia sees little distinction between these musical genres. “I don't think of the [classical] repertoire as a special repertoire. To me, it is interesting that whatever I play I don't think of categories,” he says over the phone from Paris. “I think music is very universal and it talks about emotions that are very universal. I think that what people want in music is the integrity and intensity of playing and composing, and then this has little to do with what kind of repertoire they choose to perform.”

There has traditionally been a bit of snobbery over classical-mainstream crossovers, but this has started to change, thrust along by artists such as Korcia bringing the identity of the crossover artist to a new technical and conceptual realm. And for Korcia, this metamorphosis all starts with how you approach the music. “[Film music] is like any music. At the moment you play, you have to forget about your conceptions. As an interpreter, I always think it's good to be fresh in front of the piece of music.”

Indeed, cinematic scores seem to have a particular resonance with Korcia, especially in its ability to bring past experiences and images back to life. Korcia’s attitude is almost summed up in his in his own orchestration of Grappelli's Les Valseuses – a work that references films about youths living in the wilderness, wartime tragedy, and history, and that he will play in his second Hong Kong concert. Says Korcia: “I like the way that music brings you back to emotions or memories that you could have forgotten; with just a few notes it can bring back so much.”