Like the city in which it was founded, the Talea Ensemble isn’t going anywhere. But also like NYC, it’s not exactly the same as when it started. While still adhering to its first principles of having superb, passionate, and well-prepared musicians apply their skills to ultra-contemporary music - mostly by living composers with whom they collaborate closely - there have been moves towards expanding the audience, deepening engagement with emerging musicians, and broadening the pool of artists we work with, recognizing that an ever-changing world requires us to follow suit. I say “we” and “us” because (full disclosure) I have the privilege of serving as board chair for this non-profit arts organization. But my dedication to Talea’s work was already firmly established before I joined the board. So I was stoked to take my seat in the sold-out hall at The Dimenna Center to kick off the 15th anniversary celebrations on March 16th.
One of the challenges of presenting contemporary classical music is how infrequently you get to play and hear works more than once. That’s something Talea has been addressing head on in their Encores concerts, the next iteration of which will be at the Church of St. Paul & St. Andrew on May 30, 2024, which will also be a 15th Anniversary Celebration with food, drink, and festivities. But Talea at 15! was more of a typical assembly of pieces, including one world premiere, a U.S. premiere, and three revisited works.
The night started with Hannah Kendall’s Tuxedo: Between Carnival and Lent (2022), part of a series of hers inspired by paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat. While it was premiered in London two years ago, this was its first American performance - and the first time Kendall herself got to hear it live. With a text based on newspaper headlines and Basquiat’s own words, there was great drama in the vocal part, delivered with intensity by Alice Teyssier who employed the unusual techniques - such as covering her mouth while she sang - with a perfect naturalism. Also unusual was the use of music boxes, their patterns interlocking, as a substrate for parts of the piece. There were drones created by harmonicas (Adrian Morejon and Chris Gross, who usually play bassoon and cello), violin (Karen Kim) and viola (Carrie Frey) that shrieked and grumbled, and in an effective bit of theater, a music box for Teyssier to crank as she intoned the last lines. The creative freedom engendered by Kendall in her conception of the piece was equaled by the performance, which was dynamically conducted by James Baker.
Next we were treated to the world premiere of Suzanne Farrin’s Suite from Dolce La Morte (2016/2024), a four-movement reduction of a piece based on Michelangelo’s poems that met with great acclaim when the recording by the International Contemporary Ensemble was released in 2018. The genesis of the piece, as Farrin related before the performance, was a chance encounter with those poems at The Strand. Besides discovering that the great sculptor, painter, and architect wrote poems at all (I suppose she was unfamiliar with Shostakovich’s wonderful Suite from 1974 - but that’s unfortunately all too common) she also learned that “he believed it was work of the artist to reveal,” which influenced her approach to setting the words.
Although I’ve been to Dimenna many times, I didn’t know they could adjust the resonance of the space, which they did for Farrin’s work. It worked wonders on the oboe solo (Michele Farah), ranging from rich and viscous to squeaky, that opened the piece, soon trading off to Morejon’s bassoon. Eric Jurenas was the countertenor here, as he was on the recording, and his singing was hauntingly gorgeous, contrasting with the phlegmy sounds from the bassoon. Then Greg Chudzik’s bass came in like a lightning strike, all high register and harmonics.
When the bass dropped out and the bassoon and oboe returned together, it was like having three voices on stage. Then Chudzik reentered and for a brief, wondrous moment they became an actual quartet, something that Farrin’s telegraphic scoring had thus far avoided - and then it was over. This new Suite could spark renewed interest in the piece - I know it did for me - and hearing Jurenas at any length was a privilege. Looking at the text later, it seems Farrin was spot on when setting words such as these to music:
“I fly with your featherless wings;
with your mind I am always carried to heaven; you decide
when I am pale or red, cold in the sun, or warm in the coldest mists.”
Wang Lu’s November Airs (2021) was at first also inspired by a text, in her case an 18th century Chinese novel, but “the story disappeared” as she was working on it, seemingly overwritten by the sounds of nature she was experiencing during regular walks in the woods
It began as quiet assembly of sound, accompanied by recorded forest noises. There were moments of brilliant synthesis, piano to strings, percussion to piano, Wang Lu ingeniously finding the common DNA in their sound profiles. David Friend leaned into the piano part, offsetting the music shelf to aid in producing big, dramatic strikes and what even sounded like bent notes, from the piano. The field recordings transitioned to feet walking through snow or leaves as Yoshi Weinberg’s flute fluttered over Marianne Gythfeldt’s almost subliminal clarinet, leading to a rapturous ensemble moment, followed by a woody, organic series of rustles and scrapes that built up to a crescendo…then silence. This fantastical work - par for the course for the amazing Wang Lu - was accompanied by an intriguing video by Polly Apfelbaum of what looked like an overhead view of a potter’s wheel. While certainly attractive, with an array of earthy colors, I found myself more drawn by the faces and fingers of the players as they performed.
After the intermission, a work by Steven Kazuo Takasugi (also a fellow board member) ensued, which was typically provocative - and that was the only thing typical about it! Drawing on the meta-poetry of Wieland Hoban, Strange Autumn (2003/4) is a masterful and discomfiting example of performance art for reciter, percussionist, and fixed media. It’s too bad Takasugi wasn’t in attendance as I’m sure he would have enjoyed seeing Morejon, also Talea’s executive director, sitting at a table, uncharacteristically grim, emitting the words, using bizarre whispers, glottal stops, and other verbal effects and vocalizations, including speaking without sound. The words were pretty out there to begin with - here’s a sample:
LEAF-WORT
das Blatt, baumlos
auf which
das Wort-Blatt
on the page
on
welchem the
word-leaf
turns
as I leaf through
the pages
Along with the electronic noise coming from the speakers, Morejon’s partner in crime was Sae Hashimoto who generated bits of white noise and a variety of percussive effects with just a violin bow, a notebook, and the table itself, aided by several contact mics. The overall impact was jaw dropping, an unmediated alien encounter delivered with the dispassionate gaze of an interrogator. Uncompromising stuff and delivered with absolute precision in a bravura performance by both Morejon (in his acting debut!) and Hashimoto.
Coming after the Takasugi, Georges Aperghis’ Wild Romance (2012) sounded positively lush. While it launched in fragmented, querulous fashion with Teyssier singing a fiery vocalise, just hearing the tones and timbres of the instruments was a balm to the ears. There were some marvelous effects, as when Hashimoto’s xylophone doubled with Friend’s piano, creating a sound like shattering wind chimes. There were also some wonderfully rhythmic ensemble phrases, full of color and incident, with Teyssier soaring over it all in an emblematic example of modern chamber music.
The whole night was a musical feast, warmly received by the audience, many of whom probably had their minds opened to new possibilities. And isn’t that was New York is all about?
From the archives:
Live Log 2023: Power, Passion, And Pain
Record Roundup: Catching Up (Sort Of)
Best Of 2018: Classical
Best Of The Rest Of 14: Classical And Composed
The Music of Romitelli, Talea, and Kaminsky
Go Talea On The Mountain