Cal Performances presents the CalArts Sila Ensemble (with members of International Contemporary Ensemble and red fish blue fish) performing John Luther Adams: Sila: the Breath of the World (2014) (Northern CA premiere) under the direction of Steven Schick
Faculty Glade
U.C. Berkeley, Bancroft Way at College Ave, Berkeley, CA
6:00 PM, Thursday, June 18, 2015
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Like Inuksuit, today's performance unfolded quite slowly. Lots of long, exhalation-paced notes, with relatively little in the way of traditional melody. Like listening to a giant Aeolian orchestra. The subtitle, Breath of the World gives an apt key to focus the listeners ear: can we interpret this constellation of sounds as the breath of Gaia? A suitable challenge!
Unlike Inuksuit, today's piece was traditionally orchestrated, utilizing discrete bunches of performers, grouped mainly by instrument type: strings and vocalists under the big Oak near me, woodwinds down in the Dell on the northeast edge of the glade, and brass grouped under another oak at the northwest end of the glade; the percussion element was far reduced: only thirteen pieces, according to the performer I talked to after the event ended (though strangely, the program lists seventeen – well then, details, schmetails!). And what with this last group spread about over the large area spanned by the glade, their presence amounted to an accent element rather than the driving force for this musical work.
As with Inuksuit, my brain imprinted a bit of call and response structure on the experience, but I can't say whether or not that was actually part of the score. This work followed an arch structure, crescendoing slowly from silence to a climax of sorts and then diminishing slowly until the ambient sounds of the audience overwhelmed the quiet of the performers, quickly punctuated by the reflexive applause of those too nervous to continue sitting still in contemplation of the event that had just concluded. Schick was standing nearby at the end of the work and he seemed pretty darn pleased, soaking up the applause and laughing graciously at the yahoo that yelled “encore!”as if it was a joke worthy of the moment.
All in all, it was a pleasant hour, and I'd be happy to see the tradition of these outdoor shows continue, assuming that suitable material could be found for the performance. My first thought in that regard is that Terry Riley's In Cor Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians would be neat choices, but that just reveals my bias for things I'm familiar with! I bet there's probably a dozen other large scale works that would fit nicely into this paradigm…
Giacomo Fiore posted a few thoughts about the gig in his review summarizing the entire Ojai at Berkeley festival for SFCV.
Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2015 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2015 event list! ☸ On to the next event!