By Whitney Smith
The Indianapolis Star

Unconventional sextet offers a unique twist

The chamber music that eighth blackbird plays is conventional, only to the extent that its repertoire works best in a small concert hall, and that its instruments -- violin, cello, flute, clarinet, piano, percussion -- are well-known in Western culture. Otherwise, all bets are off.

The Chicago-based sextet made its Indianapolis debut Wednesday night with a provocative program almost entirely created since 2000. And the players broke with convention at nearly every turn. Truly weird performance techniques (such as dragging a clarinet bell across the stage floor), plus strolling across the stage, peering into a video camera and interweaving instrumentals with poetry added up to an offbeat musical experience. But it eventually made sense, if you considered that the 12-year-old group took its name from a poem exploring various ways to look at blackbirds.

Pianist Lisa Kaplan, percussionist Matthew Duvall, cellist Nicholas Photinos, violinist Matt Albert, clarinetist Michael Maccaferri and flutist Tim Munro are all virtuosic soloists in their own right. And the choreographed projects they take on seem as difficult as the most challenging standard repertoire for their instruments.

At the outset, three players emerged in the dark house to seat themselves at low, lighted, resonant, wooden tables for a choreographed, cacophonous percussion conversation in Thierry de Mey's "Table Music," which the Belgian composer called a "ballet for six hands." Yale School of Music Professor Martin Bresnick's "My Twentieth Century" harked back to Arnold Schoenberg's song cycle "Pierrot Lunaire," except that there was no singer in Bresnick's 2002 piece. It opened with syncopated, minimalist phrases on piano, clarinet, violin and cello. Voicing changed constantly, as each instrumentalist took turns heading backstage to be captured on video, delivering Tom Andrews' bittersweet text that reflected on everything from the "ridiculous clothes" he once wore to his brother's death.

The finale, "Mirrors" was a highly interactive piece by composer Tamar Muskal and her husband, visual artist Daniel Rozin. Again, performers dashed about and were captured on a screen. But this time, the video camera was onstage, and digital images were distorted, such that the players resembled a modern-day Degas painting, or maybe even a psychedelic marching band.

Today and Saturday, eighth blackbird will be part of a "Post-Classical Symposium" in DePauw University's Thompson Recital Hall in Greencastle.

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