One change of note for New In Music, I am limiting the list to no more than the ten best releases of any given week. 

Here’s my top pick for New In Music: November 15^th:

TOP PICK: CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: LAND OF WINTER – DONNACHA DENNEHY – Nonesuch Records

The late actor John Hurt once told me that the best time to visit Ireland would be in May or late September. I hadn’t thought of his recommendation in quite some time until I heard this arresting new album from composer Dennehy.

Land of Winter is a 12-part composition with each part reflecting a month of the year. The composition begins in December and ends in November.  The first video is from July (the eighth section.) You can watch it HERE.

I wasn’t familiar with Dennehy’s music prior to hearing Land of Winter. I was, however, familiar with Alarm Will Sound and Alan Pierson who perform on this recording. They are masters of performing new music.

You don’t often hear of tone poems anymore, but Land of Winter is, to me, a contemporary tone poem. One that makes me want to book my trip to Ireland regardless of what month I go. I hope you’ll book time to hear this record!

Here is the rest of New in Music: November 15^th:

CLASSICAL MEETS JAZZ:  BEETHOVEN BLUES – JON BATISTE – Verve Records / Interscope

This is the first of two releases this week that has one feet in the classical realm and the other in jazz/blues. Pianist/composer Jon Batiste brings his unique musical expression to the works of Beethoven.

These are all solo piano variations on Beethoven’s music including such popular works as Für Elise (ask any piano student which composition that is), Ode to Joy (from the 9^th Symphony); Moonlight Sonata, the 5^th Symphony and my personal favorite of this collection, Waldstein Wobble which takes the Piano Sonata No. 21 as its inspiration.

It isn’t uncommon for musicians to re-imagine classical works. Amongst my favorites is the way pianist Marcus Roberts put a new spin on George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue on his Portrait in Blue album.

Batiste is a fine musician and a smart composer. This is a thoroughly enjoyable album that will be a safe space for people who are afraid of classical music. The hope is once they are engaged with Beethoven Blues they might listen to some of the originals. Which may be Batiste’s goal in the first place.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL:  PLAYFAIR SONATAS – ETHAN IVERSON – Ulricht Audiovisual

This is second of two new releases that blurs the lines between classical music and jazz. Iverson, long known primarily as a jazz musician (and one of the most intelligent jazz musicians), composed works within the sonata form.

There’s a violin sonata , a marima sonata, a sonata for clarinet, one for trombone, another for alto saxophone and yet another for trumpet. Almost all are instruments strongly associated with jazz.

To further his playing around with genres, Iverson (who plays piano on this recording), called on classical musicians to join him: Miranda Cuckson on violin; Tim Leopold on trumpet; Mike Lormand on trombone; Carol McGonnell on clarinet; Makoto Nakura on marimba and Taimur Sullivan on saxophone.

The album cover makes you think this will be a playful album. And I suppose on some levels it is. But it’s also a solidly written, produced and performed addition to the contemporary classical music canon – one filled with plenty of references to legendary jazz musicians which you can hear throughout. And if you can’t, he’s written notes to explain each piece and its inspiration.

Playfair Sonatas is an album I will return to over and over again.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: NGWENYAMA: FLOW – TAKÁCS QUARTET – Hyperion Records

In the opening 30 seconds of Flow, I was questioning whether or not I would be able to go with the flow of Nokuthula Ngwenyama’s music. But go with it I did and I couldn’t be happier.

This is an incredible composition performed brilliantly by Takács Quartet. This is a short recording. It’s just under 22 minutes. But I strongly recommend listening to it with no distractions. Just put on the music and let it wash all over you. I guarantee you’ll be surprised by how compelling and beautiful it is.

You can watch Takács Quartet perform the third movement from Flow HERE.

JAZZ:  CHASING SHADOWS – ZACC HARRIS – Shifting Paradigm Records

Guitarist Harris is one of the most revered jazz musicians in Minnesota. But the rest of the world caught up with him upon the release of his album, Small Wonders. 

This tight album of eight original tracks finds Harris joined by Chris Bates on bass; Pete James Johnson on drums; Bryan Nichols on piano and Brandon Wozniak on tenor saxophone.

The absolute stand-out tracks for me on this album are Worlds Apart which truly showcases all four musicians and the last track, This Day, a beautiful ballad.

JAZZ:  CITY LIGHTS: THE OSCAR PETERSON QUARTET – LIVE IN MUNICH, 1994 – OSCAR PETERSON QUARTET – Mack Avenue Records

Who doesn’t like a comeback story? This album is documentation of pianist/composer Oscar Peterson’s comeback after a stroke the previous year which left him unable to use his left hand.

Like any hero of a comeback story, his persistence and countless hours of physical therapy allowed Peterson to return to live performance. This 78-minute recording was his second concert after his recovery.

The album opens with There Will Never Be Another Year in a performance that is lively  – to say the least. No sign of weakness here. Amongst the remaining 8 tracks are five original Peterson compositions.

Peterson is joined by Martin Drew on drums; Lorne Lofsky on guitar and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen on bass (who composed Samba Petite which appears on the album as a solo for him.)

I love the theme to Rocky, but I’ll take Peterson’s redemption as much more inspiring.

MODERN OPERA:  THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE – KATE SOPER – New Focus Recordings

Composer Soper sums up her opera best when she said that it “is a good receptable for the messy complexity of the human condition in general.” This is a work that grabs you by the throat with all the trials and tribulations that being alive offers.

Joining Soper, who sings the role of “Shame,” are Ty Bouque, Phillip Bullock, Ariadne Greif, Anna Schubert, Devony Smith and Lucas Steele. The Wet Ink Ensemble (of which Soper is a member) also performs.

Certainly, this is not going to be a recording for those who aren’t willing to go there. Soper asks that audiences go there from the outset of most of her works. This first video, Meet Shame, is no exception.

But those who do will understand why Soper is one of the most daring composers working today and why she receives accolades and commissions on a regular basis. 

MUSICAL ADJACENT:  AMERICAN RAILROAD – SILKROAD ENSEMBLE with RHIANNON GIDDENS – Nonesuch Records               

This isn’t a musical. But it is a song cycle performed as a sung-through work by the Silkroad Ensemble. One that tells a specific story about the building of railroads in America and the people who did that work – people history doesn’t remember.

It’s a deeply powerful work that, I believe, is more successful than many a musical. You can watch them perform Mahk Jchi HERE.

Contributing to American Railroad are newly commissioned songs by Suzanne Kite, Wu Man and Cécile McLorin Salvant. The rest of the recording came from various members of Silkroad Ensemble and Giddens.

Hearing this recording makes me regret not having seen the show when I had the chance. Simply put, this is not just great music, it’s important work.

That’s all for New In Music This Week: November 15^th.

Enjoy your weekend!

Enjoy the music!

Main Photo: Album art for Ethan Iverson’s Playfair Sonatas (Courtesy Ulrich’s AudioVisual)

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Schubert now steps up for another challenge: the sole singing role in Kate Soper‘s Ipsa Dixit. Long Beach Opera is performing Ipsa Dixit at the Art Theater in Long Beach on June 8th and 9th. It’s a very difficult work that Soper wrote for herself to sing accompanied by three musicians on flute, percussion and violin.

For this production, director James Darrah is adding two dancers (Anna Souder and Leslie Andre Williams) from the Martha Graham Dance company performing choreography created by Janet Eilber.

There are also film elements from Carl Theodore Dreyer’s silent film classic The Passion of Joan of Arc. Christopher Rountree conducts.

Recently I spoke with Schubert about her passion for contemporary opera, taking over a role originally performed by composer Soper and finding the inspiration to tackle such complex roles. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: You are a passionate advocate for new works and for contemporary classical music. What do you think are the greatest misconceptions about what new music is today?

I think one of the greatest misconceptions is that the audience won’t understand it or won’t respond to it, or especially that new audiences will not want to see it. Every time I do any new work I have people come up to me afterward that say, this was my first opera, or, this was my first time coming to see something like this. I didn’t know opera could be like this. I didn’t know that this kind of music existed. And they’re always really excited, just entranced by what they saw. 

You have worked with Kate Soper before on The Romance of the Rose. What do you most respond to in her work? 

I think an advantage that Kate has as a composer is that she knows what she wants and she’s very exact about what she writes and how she wants it in the score. Oftentimes she’ll write staging out. In The Romance of the Rose there was staging written in already. With Ipsa Dixit there’s like 30 pages or so of performance notes before the score, that have text and translations and notes about what certain figures might mean – in terms of the sound that you’re supposed to produce. Everything is written in there for you. 

But there is freedom for you as an artist to bring what you do to it as well, right? It’s not regimented.

There’s plenty of room for artistic interpretation as well. But she is very meticulous in the details of her work. More so, I think, than other composers that I’ve worked with. But yeah, there is still plenty of room for like, how do I want my face to look or what kind of a forte do I want to make this. It doesn’t have to be the exact same as everyone else’s or hers. She was the first one to perform this and the person who most performs it well.

That gives her an advantage as a composer because she is writing for her voice, which means she must know very well how to write for voice. 

I think she knows very well how to write for a lot of instruments. She does write really well for voice, but I think also she has like a unique instrument that she writes for specifically. As a soprano, I rarely have to go below a middle C, and she goes below middle C a lot because I think she has a very unique range where she can just belt out in her chest voice. I think the lowest note I have to go down to in this piece is a D flat below which I had never sung out loud before. Then the highest note is a high D, so it’s a very rangy piece.

You’re kind of trying to fit into the the box that she created for you. If maybe you’re used to kind of existing over here, well, for this piece you need to exist here. So you better figure it out.

If you were to describe Ipsa Dixit to people who have no idea what it is, how would you describe it?

I don’t know, because it’s not an opera. And it’s not a song cycle. And it’s not really a chamber piece, but it is also all of those things. It is hard to define it. It is just like a doctoral thesis, encapsulated in a piece of music. It’s very, very, complex and intricate and there’s a lot of philosophical text; there’s philosophical questions posed and answered. There’s also drama. There’s also poetry. There’s the drama of opera, but there’s also the poetic nuance of art song and then there’s also a bunch of extended technique and the wild things that we’re doing.

Given how many different sources are used for the text, is there any part of the text that you most that most resonates with you that you are most passionate about?

I think the metaphysics movement – which is movement five of the whole piece. It’s this whole existential question where she’s talking about what is matter? What is existence, really? It’s the only part of the piece where I get a break as the singer, where the instrumentalists just take over for a few pages. It’s kind of eerie, but it’s also calming in a way.

This is not your first collaboration with Long Beach Opera. Nor is it your first collaboration with James Darrah, who, I thin, in the best possible way, is a disruptor. But only in the sense of moving the art form forward. How does this production accomplish that goal?

This is an opera company and this is a very nontraditional performance for an opera company to offer. I think something that James is very passionate about, and something that I appreciate as a performer myself and someone that loves to do new works, is that he programs so much new music on the main stage. It’s part of the main season. It’s not a side project.

Opera, whether new or old, I think is at its best when it’s dealing with really big emotions and complex issues. But what are the personal challenges of delving so deeply into this kind of material?

For me, that’s always been about having some kind of balance. I know with p r i s m, it just weighed so heavily on me while we were rehearsing it. I mean, how could it not? When I’m here, in my home, your time is your own. In the weeks leading up to this, I was just rehearsing by myself at home as much as I could. Now that we’re in rehearsals, I’m trying to keep my home a much more sterile place. I’m done rehearsing for the day, I’m going to go home and do dishes and make food for myself and see my family and take my dog on a walk. I think that helps compartmentalize.

When I spoke to Kate, she told me that she hopes that one of the reasons her stuff is you’re sticking around is because it’s just really challenging and interesting and a fun experience for the performers. Is this work fun to do?

I’m going to be honest, this is one of the hardest things I’ve ever put together. I was actually going to send her an email today saying as much. Memorization wise, it’s definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever had to memorize. All new music is more challenging than we’re used to when you’re only studying super tonal, melodic, beautiful, romantic things in school – which is often the case. I don’t think that this kind of music is studied enough or prioritized enough in conservatories, at least in the US.

This music is very, very challenging, and I’m sure she wrote it to be that way. But therein lies the satisfaction of putting it together. I think she’s right about that, because it is challenging. That’s one of the reasons that it’s had a long life because everyone wants to climb that mountain, right? When you see something difficult, you’re just like, well, I want to show people I can do that.

There’s a manipulated film component to this production and that’s Carl Theodore Dreyer’s, silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc. Dreyer is quoted as having said, “There is no greater experience in a studio than to witness the expression of a sensitive face under the mysterious power of inspiration. To see it animated from inside and turning into poetry.” How does the mysterious power of inspiration work in your life, both professionally and personally?

It’s still mysterious to me in a lot of ways. Inspiration strikes me at all those inconvenient times [like] when I’m trying to fall asleep at night. When I’m working on a piece and I’m just really in the thick of it, I find myself going to sleep at night and thinking about the words.

I tend to find the most inspiration when I am outside, away from overstimulation. Definitely on a hike. Or I like to be outside at night. I can’t count the number of times I’ve just gone on night walks by myself and listened to music that I love.

You have a whole universe swirling around because you’ve been able to just block out all the extraneous noise. The stillness in there. So that I think that is when I find my mysterious inspiration strikes.

To see the full interview with Anna Schubert, please go here.

Main Photo: Mona Tian and Anna Schubert in Ipsa Dixit (Photo by Jason Al-Taan/Courtesy Long Beach Opera)

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Soper used the stories of eight women from fiction, written by men, to explore how they were treated by their creators in her work which is a song cycle for voice and ensemble. Amongst the sources and characters to be found are Lady MacDuff from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Emma Bovary from Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Daisy Buchanan from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Jenny Wong will be leading Wild Up! in these performances.

Last week I spoke by phone with Soper about Voices from the Killing Jar and how timely the work feels now nearly ten years after she composed it. What follows are excerpts from that conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

A decade after completing Voices from the Killing Jar, what are your thoughts about the work and your relationship to it?

I guess I do sort of think of it as a piece from an earlier time, but in terms of my relationship, it has changed. I think it was the start of me becoming more interested in works that had explicit theatrical elements and a legible kind of quasi-narrative element. And it was really a chance for me to really see how versatile I could be as a performer. I think those are all the things that I kind of tried out for the first time with that piece that have become just part of my regular practice. I think like all pieces of music – probably for most composers – it’s also a record of a time in my life that had its interesting things. A time when I was really connected to the ensemble I was working with and I was finding my compositional voice as they say.

Do you think the #MeToo movement in some way now makes this work more prescient and more topical?

That’s not for me to say. That’s probably just for people receiving the work now to say. Of course, I have thoughts and sadnesses about how things have changed even since I wrote that piece. And in a way I think things haven’t gotten better necessarily with regard to gender equality.

Here we are on the call and you ask me about #MeToo. Of course, I get it. I’m not upset or even surprised that you would bring that up. But I don’t know. If people who are not in the majority point of view, everyone who’s not the straight white man, it’s like I did write this piece about these female characters. So I can’t really say that it doesn’t involve gender or my feelings about it or that it would be inappropriate for you or anyone else to want to talk about that in context of the piece.

To be clear, the reason I asked is that there are certain pieces of art that get created and then become more resonant because of what has happened, not as a result of that work necessarily, but just what has happened with time after their debut.

That makes sense.

I recently spoke with conductor Ruth Reinhardt and we talked about when it was going to be that a woman is a composer or a conductor and not a woman composer or a woman conductor. Do you see that shift in perspective happening in your lifetime?

I guess I’m not super optimistic about great strides for equality in my lifetime at the moment. This is such specific moment where it’s difficult to be optimistic about cultural shifts.

What was your reaction when Yuval Sharon suggested pairing your work with the Schoenberg?

I think we had talked about a couple different things of mine. I didn’t really realize that they premiered exactly one hundred years apart. That seemed very cool to me; a nice synchrony. I think it makes a lot of sense. They’re both minor dramas. They both have kind of like a weird instrumentation. They both are for unconventional singers. So I’m pleased and honored to be half of that double bill.

How challenging is it for you as a composer to get additional performances of a work beyond a premiere? Many composers with whom I’ve spoken said getting the first performance is easy, but getting the subsequent performances is much more challenging.

I’m very grateful that people are doing my work. Sirens has been done a couple of times and Voices from the Killing Jar, too. I was writing things that I thought would be really fun and challenging for me to do as singer that I wasn’t getting the opportunity to do. I want to be theatrical. I want to play an instrument while I’m up there or whatever. So I think what’s been really gratifying to me is to see other singers say, “that looks really fun and I want to try that” or “I’ve got some friends I want to do this piece with.” I hope that one of the reasons my stuff is sticking around is because it’s just really challenging and interesting and a fun experience for the performers.

As somebody who doesn’t sing, it’s doesn’t look like it’s easy at all.

It’s not easy. As someone who didn’t get a vocal degree and didn’t really start studying voice in any serious way until basically after I wrote for voice, I know it’s possible to do without achieving a higher level of vocality. The singers who tend to do my work tend to have more thorough training than I do. Maybe it’s an opportunity for them to do some of these others thing you don’t encounter in vocal pedagogy.

Composer and teacher Nadia Boulanger said “A great work is made out of a combination of obedience and liberty.” Do you agree with her or is there another way to describe what a great work or a great composition is today?

Well, how do you interpret what she means by that?

That that are certain rules you start following as a composer, but there’s this liberty to go off and do you want to do as well. That it’s this combination of the structure you’re taught and then what you choose to do with it.

Now there’s less of a sense of you’re taught about a certain structure because we’re even much further from any kind of common practice than she was. For me I’m trying to figure out what’s effective and it helps to have some rules. And you can do anything you want. I don’t know that I would say anything in particular is the characteristic of a good work.

I like a really good quote by Iris Murdoch, the novelist. What is it? It’s like the moment from after something is a space where the work hasn’t totally committed itself. Like it’s too late to go back, but it’s too early to say what it is, is like a really important moment. And that genius is when that moment is spread over the whole working process. I think it’s sort of this balance of trying to hone in on it, but also being open to changing your mind and breaking all of your rules at any given moment.

For tickets for Saturday’s performance, please go here. For tickets for Sunday’s performance, please go here.

Photo: Kate Soper (Photo by Liz Linder/Courtesy KateSoper.com)

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