ligeti

I played my first concerts in Switzerland this week, performing Ligeti's Melodien for chamber orchestra as part of contemporary music series here in Lausanne and also in Annemasse, France.

First of all, it was great program, a composer portrait of Gyorgy Ligeti (1923-2006), a Romanian/Hungarian composer, including two orchestral works and two chamber music works. There was variety in the program in terms of type of ensemble, but the concert was also preceded by a lecture on Ligeti (which I did not listen to).

When I got on stage I was impressed by how attentive he audience was (and this was the last piece of the program, nonetheless). As we played the ethereal melodies and textures of the Ligeti, I realized, even through my intense concentration (this piece is quite demanding on the player...subdividing a beat into anywhere from 4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11, to 12 parts) I realized that there was a sort of hush in the concert hall, that the audience was captured by the music.

It's really cool to feel like that while playing music that can be inaccessible on first hearing.

In Annemasse, as well, two nights later we played the same concert. This time instead of a pre-concert lecture the conductor spoke briefly about each piece, and performers played brief musical examples. When it came to the Ligeti string quartet (really great piece, by the way) he talked about a sort of characteristic of Ligeti's music, of two opposing textures which he called "Clocks and Clouds." The clocks representing motives of a more driving, mechanistic nature, the clouds the atmospheric chords and harmonics that proliferate.

I didn't get the sense that the audience was shifting in their seats or bored out of their minds, as I sometimes do at contemporary music concerts. I was impressed at how lovingly and engagingly the conductor spoke of the music, dispensing, I thought, the right amount of information before each piece.

London, et al

I returned from London yesterday, where I was playing at the Frieze Art Fair, an annual contemporary art fair in Regents Park.

I was also there to see River, a good friend of mine for many years. It was great to met some of her people and catch up with her.

I was playing in an exhibition at the fair, the brainchild of a friend of her's who also lives/lived in Milwaukee. Their exhibit was called 'club nutz,' a replica of a small comedy club that exists in a gallery in Milwaukee as well. They billed it, (when people poked their heads in and asked) as "the smallest comedy club in the world." The point of their exhibit was to (I think) create a unique space for live performance, but also to break down barriers a bit, inviting eminent gallery owners and art world stars to come give performances (anything from readings of Adolf Wölflito telling jokes, to demonstrating a whiskey-pouring jokes) My rendition there of Bach's second cello suite was not completely ill-fitting. I also did a short demonstration with River of some ideas of Rudolf Steiner...as you can probably see, there were quite a varied set of acts at clb nutz.

I also had some quite interesting/eclectic interactions with people in London. I met some a British pair on the bus who I began talking to after we both realized we had no idea where we were going (I probably asked 6 people per day for directions, this being my second trip to London). He asked me what I was doing in London if I was from the U.S. (as in, why would you bother to come here?) then proceeded to explain to me that Brits were less attractive than Americans because of how Darwinism weeded out the less physically attributed when Europeans were settling the U.S. He also said, people in California are especially tall because it was hardest to get all the way to the west coast. hmmm. not sure I agree. He also complained of how mean Londoners are...suggested I go to Ireland or the south coast of England, like Cornwall.

I also met a few musicians from Switzerland while at a pub with Jenny, the friend I was staying with. They were so friendly to me--one told me my french was impeccable except for having a slight German accent (?). He then proceeded to fill me in on all the cool things to do in Lausanne.

It was great to be in London-I ran into a lot of cool people, saw some great art. But in some ways it was exhausting as well, and reminded me in that sense of New York. Lausanne, said one of the swiss musicians I met, "est tranquille" accompanied by a kind of relaxed gesture. "London, on the other hand is a place of extremes, all or nothing of everything you do. "

so a good weekend...lots of perspective.