By Rasmi Simhan, Bee Arts Critic
Sacramento Bee 

Sextet gives new music a good ride

Yet listeners can tune in for the same reasons they do to Bach or Beethoven. They might appreciate the musician's technical brilliance or emotive power, feel intellectually satisfied by the way the piece is structured — or simply be swept along by the mood.

But it takes a good set of musicians to guide people through music that is new to them. Such musicians forge connections between their own parts and the others, just as characters in a play relate to each other. The way a good musician plays is as unique and expressive as an actor's voice; intonation and even body language encourage an emotional response from the audience.

It's not as easy as selling a Beethoven symphony. But if anyone can pull it off, it's eighth blackbird, a contemporary-music sextet that played beautifully Saturday night at a half-filled Mondavi Center. The performance of the ensemble, which was formed at Ohio's Oberlin College in 1996, was part of the SummerARTS program at the University of California, Davis.

All six compositions and musicians shattered expectations of how an instrument sounds. Molly Alicia Barth's strident flute seemed propelled by raw energy — hardly the usual twittering bird or sonorous early-morning sound. If violinist Matt Albert and cellist Nicholas Photinos had had saws in their hands instead of bows, they could have sliced cleanly through their instruments at certain points. And Lisa Kaplan showed a breathtaking command of the piano's voice, molding it into everything from a drum set to drops of water. Her tone quality was achingly beautiful, especially in Steve Mackey's "Indigenous Instruments" (1989).

Though some sounds seem like aural jokes, they're hardly easy to make. One can learn the technique for producing a rich, full-bodied sound on the clarinet or a heart-tugging glissando on the cello. But no common wisdom exists for, say, making the clarinet produce a sound like feedback, as Michael J. Maccaferri did to startling effect. Both composers and musicians must experiment and uncover hidden personalities in their instruments — or in instruments called for in the score, such as the glasses of water in Gordon Fitzell's "Violence" (2001). The xylophone, subtly played by percussionist Matthew Duvall, created a haunting pulse in Laurie San Martin's "Octurnal" (2001).

The staging helped guide listeners through the pieces without becoming a distraction. During David Schober's "Variations" (1999), the musicians turned toward or away from each other to reflect the mood of each variaton, whether active and engaged or distant and cool. The eerie red-and-blue lighting during "Violence" accentuated the strangeness of the sounds the instruments made, from the high keening of the violin to the asthmatic flute.

The finale, Frederic Rzewski's "Coming Together" (1971), merged music with excerpts from a letter by Sam Mendes, a prisoner killed during the 1971 Attica prison riots. Starting with a quiet, deadpan rendering and building to a terrifying crescendo, the vocals and music illustrated the different ways words may be interpreted.

Composer Mackey, a Princeton professor and UC Davis alum, demystified the process of writing such music in a brief talk to the audience before the ensemble played his piece. For his work "Indigenous Instruments," the guitarist said, he played around on a cello with tape in place of frets. He liked the sound, but he wasn't sure what to add to it until he heard a UPS truck drive past: vrooom. He then tried to find a way to imitate that sound with traditional instruments. In short, composers don't jot down music that descends from the heavens, he said. "We take dictation from any place we can get it."

Performing "dictation" takes a lot of practice and a little bit of chemistry to create the impression that a sextet is a single powerful instrument. Works such as "Variations" and Adam Murphy's "A One Act in Two Parts" showcased the musicians' rapport and impeccable timing. They passed a note among themselves as easily as they would toss and catch a ball. It probably wasn't as easy as it sounded, but one imagines it was as much fun as the ensemble made it seem. Between pieces, they swapped grins and shared their enthusiasm about the Davis program.

Talented and engaging groups such as eighth blackbird can do much to dispel misgivings about new music.

Copyright 2003 Sacramento Bee