Cal Performances presents an Open Rehearsal featuring Kronos Quartet
2016-12-03
Zellerbach Hall Auditorium
U.C. Berkeley, Bancroft Way at Telegraph Ave, Berkeley, CA 94305 USA
3:30 PM, Saturday, December 3, 2016

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2016 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2016 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

[4:10 PM we enter while the group is performing; practice continues with starts, stops and intragroup discussion]
[4:14 PM David pauses to announce that they are about to begin a run-through of Silent Cranes]

Mary Kouyoumdjian (b. 1983): Silent Cranes (2015)

1. [4:15 PM] i. slave to your voice
2. [4:24 PM] ii. you did not answer
3. [4:30 PM] iii. [with blood-soaked feathers]
4. [4:41 PM] iv. you flew away
   [work ends 4:46 PM]
   [additional practice on bits of part iv]
    
   Practice on a potential encore for tonight
5. [4:57 PM] Scott Johnson (b.1952): It Raged (second movement from How It Happens (says I.F. Stone) (1991-93))
   [work ends 5:05 PM; discussion between David & others]
    
   Practice on other works from tonight's program
6. [5:09 PM] N. Rajam (b. 1938), (arr. Reena Esmail): Dadra in Raga Bhairavi † (arr. 2015)
   [work ends 5:15 PM]
   [brief Q&A session with audience]
   [5:19 dead air while David heads backstage for a mute]
   [5:21 noodling & scratching]
7. [5:26 PM] Anna Meredith (b. 1978): Tuggemo (2016)
   [work ends 5:30 PM; rehearsal ends … the band heads off to have dinner]

Kronos Quartet

• Hank Dutt: viola;
• David Harrington: violin;
• John Sherba: violin;
• Sunny Jungin Yang: cello, † cello-percussion.

• David Barsamian: poetry used in Silent Cranes, excerpts from “A Century…”
• Scott Fraser: sound design;
• Brian Mohr: sound design, Silent Cranes;
• Laurie Olinder: projection design, Silent Cranes;
• Brian H. Scott: lighting design.

I arrived exactly on time for this event, having lucked out with a free parking space on my first pass through the area; thank-you parking angels! Seems like there's a water polo meet going on at RSF, I could hear the Cal band blasting through a ragged version of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk as I walked over to Zellerbach Hall. Checked in, picked up a rich, buttery pecan cookie, refilled my coffee, then sat down to wait for the hall to be opened. Nice to be un-rushed despite the busy day!

After a short wait, we are admitted to the auditorium, where the group is in the middle of rehearsing for tonight's gig. I claim the throne… B107, and settle in to listen.

Unlike other rehearsals I've unattended, the band really does ignore us: for the most part, they continue their work as if we weren't present. This is great for giving the fabled “fly on the wall” perspective; not so great for knowing what's happening over the course of the afternoon.

Eventually, the band takes a break, and David asks us if we have any questions.

I'm sure it would have been interesting to attend the pre-show talk scheduled for 6 PM with David and Mary Kouyoumdjian, but I needed a bit of a break, so instead I hustled off to my car and back up into the hills for a few hours break before the main event.

Program Notes

Partial (or full?) text of Barsamian's poetry posted last year in the Armenian Weekly.

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2016 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2016 event list! ☸ On to the next event!