the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players
San Francisco Conservatory of Music Concert Hall
50 Oak St, San Francisco, CA
8 PM, Monday, January 28, 2013

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After parking on Fell St, I hustle around the block, only to realize that I've left my ticket at home. Drat! Fortunately, the box office is well-prepared, and the issue me a substitute after looking me up on the subscriber list. It's a few minutes after 7 PM, and while we wait in the upper lobby to enter the Concert Hall, someone announces that the pre-performance talk will take place in the Recital Hall instead, so we dutifully file downstairs to the other venue. I'm happy to find an open seat on the aisle of the third row where I have a bit of extra room to stretch my legs.

About 7:20 PM, Stephen Schick comes out and begins a wide and free-ranging talk about his experience working with Steve Reich and performing the pieces on tonight's program. It's fascinating, and makes me really regret being unable to attend yesterday's longer spotlight lecture. Upon conclusion of the talk at 7:44 PM, we encounter a major logjam trying to move to the concert hall, as that room has not been opened, so that the now-full lobby lacks room to accommodate the 100-odd listeners from the earlier talk. Ugh! I hate being squished into a crowd in an enclosed space! Oh well, nothing to do but breathe deeply and put on a cheerful front when my toes get squished. Happily, once the concert hall is opened, I am rewarded for my patience with a seat in the center of the 3rd row. Sometimes good things do come to those who wait!

[8:05 PM lights down, introduction by Stephen Schick]

[work ends 8:13 PM]

• Chris Froh
• David Kennedy
• Stephen Schick
• William Winant

Clapping pairs: Schick & Kennedy lead; Froh & Winant drift

(brief pause to get the guitar ensemble set up)

Comments by Stephen Schick

i. Fast
ii. Slow
iii. Fast
[set ends 8:31 PM]

• Travis Andrews: solo electric guitar;
• Matt Bacon: guitar;
• Nahuel Bronzini: bass;
• Adam Cockerham: bass;
• J.C. deLuna: guitar;
• Renaud Cote Giguere: guitar;
• Christopher Hague: guitar;
• Alexandra Iranfar: guitar;
• Matthew Lyons: guitar;
• Paul Morton: guitar;
• Kyle Sampson: guitar;
• Tatiana Senderowicz: guitar;
• Tim Sherren: guitar;
• Sarah Stallings: guitar;
• David Tannenbaum: conductor, musical director;
• John Zientek: guitar.

[8:47 PM, lights down; getting ready]

i. Pulses
ii. Section I
iii. Section II
iv. Section IIIA
v. Section IIIB
vi. Section IV
vii. Section V
viii. Section VI
ix. Section VII
x. Section VIII
xi. Section IX
xii. Section X
xiii. Section XI
xiv. Pulses
[show ends 9:55 PM]

• Jeff Anderle: clarinets;
• Kate Campbell: piano;
• Chris Froh: percussion;
• Stephen Harrison: cello;
• Peter Josheff: clarinets;
• Daniel Kennedy: percussion;
• Jeffrey LaDeur: piano;
• Roy Malan: violin;
• Steven Schick: percussion, vibraphone, conductor, artistic director;
• William Winant: percussion.

• Collin Boltz: percussion;
• Mckenzie Camp: percussion;
• Matt Dodson: percussion;
• Elizabeth Hall: percussion;
• Justin Sun: percussion.

• Sara Hagenbuch: vox;
• Amber Johnson: vox;
• Emma Lacenski: vox;
• Anneka Quellhorst: vox;
• Chengcheng Zhao: piano;
• Xin Zhao: piano.

I think I should start off by saying I'm a sucker for Reich. I discovered his music during my college years, and something about it resonated with me strongly enough so that even today, I'll rearrange my schedule to hear performances of his music. Which is a long way of revealing that I'm a biased listener.

So what did I think of tonight's gig? In a nutshell, superb! Although I've heard it at least a half-dozen times, I was happy to experience Clapping once more, and the piece swept me away into that no thought, no time zone as effortlessly as I could hope for. A truly minimal work, the piece consists of two pairs of percussionists clapping the same 8-impulse rhythmic pattern (borrowed from a West-African Yoruba clave pattern, according to music researchers) in phase with each other, but gradually drifting further out of phase (like a broken canon piece) as the “second” pair adds an extra beat to the pattern every 8 to 12 repetitions. And having heard Glenn Kotche only a few days earlier, I was surprised and interested to find a piece he wrote for a percussion magazine analyzing this piece and his reaction to learning it.

I'm pretty sure this was my first exposure to a full-group ensemble version of Electric Counterpoint, and while I enjoyed it, for me it served as a bit of filler in the program – pleasant to listen to, but not meant as the meat of the program. A small plate of pasta after the tasty appetizer, no?

There's no doubt that Music for 18 Musicians was tonight's entrée – Schick was buzzing about it in his pre-show talk, the audience was buzzing about it both before the show AND during the intermission, and I'm buzzing about it even a few weeks after the event. Whew! That's a lot of buzzing!

In case you're unfamiliar with the piece, you might find the hoopla about it (“most important work of the 20th Century!”) to be a bit baffling.

You might ask, “How can it be that I've never heard this piece if it's so darn important?”

To which I respond, blame it on the mass media. Reich's music is not popular – pop – because people have been trained to listen to 3-minute lumps of sugary goodness. Anything different is necessarily foreign, perhaps less interesting, and certainly far less salable by the mainstream purveyors of musico-cultural products.

In any case, Music for 18 Musicians begins with a rhythmic pulse of repeated 8th-notes on a single piano, which proceeds to inflate across an expanse of eleven chords, spread across the various instrumental timbres of the larger ensemble. Following this introductory movement, each chord becomes the basis of a short section, and the work returns to finish with a repeat of the pulse section after about an hour. In his preconcert talk, Schick took pains to emphasize his rôle as chief listener, as opposed to conductor – his job was to listen to each chord section and signal the transition to the next when the time was right. I'd say he did a pretty darn good job tonight!

While I could quibble that the tempo and timing wasn't necessarily as accurate or precisely aligned as when I've heard Reich's own ensemble perform the work, I'm glad to say that the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and their student allies from the Conservatory of Music pulled this off with panache!

Bravo!!

Joshua Kosman’s review for SFGate
Richard Scheinin’s review for the SJ Mercury News
Steven Schick’s piece from the program
Duncan Reilly's notes about helping put this concert together

Back to the previous event ☸ Back to the 2013 yearbox ☸ Back to the 2013 event list! ☸ On to the next event!