Photo Courtesy of Present Music
Present Music explored yet another new venue in its concert last week. (I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve written that sentence over the years.) The concert was at the Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts in Riverwest, a cozy, friendly space with a history as a bar venue for major jazz artists.
The program was titled “Give Chance a Piece,” implying focus on compositions calling for collaborative improvisation. That turned out to be true of only a couple of pieces on the concert, but is a catchy title nonetheless.
The music with the most impact had profound gravitas, echoing troubled areas of southeastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Iranian-American Sahba Aminikia (b. 1981) was heard in Shab o Meh (Night and Fog), a musical depiction of the composer’s harrowing experience of being abducted and slowly coming to consciousness after being beaten in the desert outside Tehran, with pepper sprayed eyes. A pistol barrel was put into his mouth and two shots were fired…unloaded.
For piano, violin and cello, this music has echoed in my head in the three days since hearing it. The amazing technique of pianist Cory Smythe allowed him to play seemingly endless fast repeated notes as the strings (violinist Eric Segnitz and cellist Adrien Zitoun) played tense harmonies. Aminikia was also heard in Elegy, dedicated to 60 Afghan children killed in a 2008 American airstrike, for viola and cello. Not surprisingly, the music emphasized the dark, low sounds of the instruments, casting a tragic mood.
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Brooklyn-based composer Mary Kouyoumdjian (b. 1983) was heard in A Boy and a Makeshift Toy (2015), a musical description of a photo taken of Albanian refugees in an abandoned train station. Hopelessness emerged, with Maria Ritzenthaler’s viola conjuring the warm, sad sound of a moaning mother. Smythe played crystal clear treble arpeggios, representing the young boy’s play.
Smythe strummed and stroked piano strings in Henry Cowell’s experimental The Banshee (1925). Dig the Say by Vijay Iyer (b. 1971) is a string quartet tribute to James Brown, with Segnitz impressively playing not only violin, but also a bass drum and foot-operated tambourine.
