The cardinal rule of touring: Never pack performance music in your checked luggage. Never. Under any circumstances. Never, that is, unless you are a clueless, naive Australian flute player flying to Dallas TX, who thinks “My carry-on will be so much lighter, and this couldn’t possibly be ‘my time’ to be screwed by American’s baggage handlers.” (A very big public thank-you to my fabulously patient housemate for tracking down my flute parts, scanning then emailing. I was a little smelly for the performance, but I had music!)
Nothing is more gratifying and inspirational than working in a masterclass setting that takes advantage of your particular talents as an ensemble. 8bb is well-known for playing from memory and incorporating movement into its concerts. I wrote last year about a wonderful, seemingly tailor-made residency activity with the fabulous young Arundo Winds, during which the University of Colorado’s graduate-ensemble-in-residence performed a movement of Hindemith’s Kleine Kammermusik from memory, and we worked with them on ways to develop a “staging”.
So it was a very welcome surprise, as we walked into Baylor University (Waco TX), bleary-eyed after 10 hours of transit time, to find a brass quintet prepared to play John Cheetham’s short Scherzo from memory. It was particularly gratifying to hear their generally very fine ensemble, good intonation and beautiful tone, especially given that none of the players had previously performed anything from memory. (The performance was almost derailed by a minor memory slip, which was entertainingly solved by some exaggerated and distracting foot-tapping.)
The Mac started proceedings by observing that the quintet seemed caught in “memory-land”: a state of near total isolation, where players roll their eyes up (”Because maybe you might catch sight of the part of your brain where the music is imprinted…”) and remain in a statue-like state of motionless.
Without stands to “anchor” (or disguise) an ensemble’s on-stage appearance, players have nothing between them and the audience. Effective stage presence becomes crucial; they have to know where to look, how to move. In short, they become actors.
We encouraged the (very receptive) quintet to physically communicate with one another on stage. The two trumpets exchange phrases at the opening of the work, with the tuba acting as a sort of musical go-between; the trombone and horn were the “oom-pah” accompaniment. The Phot came up with a “going too far” scenario (The Kap: “We always try to take things way, way too far in rehearsal, then bring it back for performance”): The two trumpets were placed antiphonally, downstage; the tuba stood in the middle, downstage; the trumpets faced the audience when they had the tune, then looked towards the tuba when passing their phrase to the other; the accompanimental parts stood upstage. This generated some giggles from the audience…
8bb also coached performances of Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue and Andriessen’s Worker’s Union (”You have to bleed while you’re playing this piece, and make the audience’s ears bleed when they hear it - this has to have the inhuman intensity of a factory”). I was struck by the similarities between two obviously very different pieces, written by composers who lived hundreds of years apart and wrote in wildly different styles. Both rely on driving, pounding rhythms that superficially are quite similar; both retain a very high level of volume, intensity and dissonance for much of their duration; both go on for “too long;” both demand great concentration from both listeners and performers.
After the class we ate some pretty bad Tex-Mex before taking part in a very relaxed Q&A with Baylor’s approximately 20 composition students, and their fantastic, any-more-laid-back-and-he’d-be-dead professor, Dr Scott McAlister. The session took place in Baylor’s old science building, now shared by the composers and Jewish studies. (Scott: “We always take part in their holocaust commemorations. This year we are doing Quartet for the End of Time.”) Below, you can still see the old science benches, taps and basins:
Scott was very proud of some very ancient technology (”Worth an absolute fortune these days”), including this heavy-as-lead “Electrocomp,” which helpfully comes with an easy-lifting handle. Not such a big step to the iPod, really…
Below, 8bb’s rock stars spending two hours in our studio the other night packing, weighing, re-packing, weighing, re-packing, discussing, re-packing, weighing. You can see the Phot standing on the scales, weighing himself (to get a reference weight, not because he is counting calories…). We rely on the two-bags-per-person rule, so when United Airlines halves its baggage allowance in May, we are, well, screwed:
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