Hi Everyone,
After a whirlwind two weeks at the Charlotte New MusicFestival (CNMF), the Beo String Quartet is now in the air and headed to Minot,
North Dakota for Dakota Chamber Music! Although the onboard entertainment
is very tempting (Delta Studio!), I'd like to take a few moments instead to
share some details about our activities at the festival...
First off, rehearsals!
Having lived with the music written by participants and
faculty for several weeks, meeting the composers and playing their pieces to
them for the first time was exciting. For me, it was also a little
nervewracking. When a composer shows a deep emotional connection to their
music, and they care so much for the sound and shape of their piece, I can't
help but want to do my best! Being able to speak with the composers in
person was not only great for getting answers to questions that had really
puzzled us, but it also brought us into contact with some really compelling
ways to shape the music, many of which we simply hadn't thought of on our own.
CNMF sponsored a string quartet composition competition, and
out of ninety (90!)+ submissions from across the country, Beo selected Andrew
List's piece Time Cycles. Andrew (pictured with Beo, above) is
faculty at Berklee College of Music in Boston. We were grateful for his
fair and demanding rehearsals with the quartet, and we were also impressed by
his commitment to teaching, often sitting down with student composers to see
what they were doing and to offer advice on technical and musical
problems. Congratulations, Andrew!
In the same way the composers showed us new perspectives on
the music they had written, Beo had the opportunity to give a two-hour talk on
new music from the performer's perspective, focusing on expressive markings
(tempo, slurs, dynamics, articulations, extended techniques) and how they
change the sound of the string quartet. We took a short musical example
and, without changing any of the notes, played it five very different ways
depending on the markings we saw. I was surprised at how drastically
different each version sounded! There were lots of questions from the
participants and discussion about the clearest ways for a composer to
communicate on the page with a performer. After all, most composers will
never meet the performers playing their piece, so the written markings are what
musicians rely on to communicate.
These are views of the technical setup for Charles Nichols'
piece At the Boundary. For this piece, Charles takes in some of our
instruments' sound through acoustic pickups and plays it out again through the
speakers during the performance with different effects such as distortion,
delays, phasers, etc. We rigged up a metronome click in our ears to keep
us on track. I didn't want any doubt whether I was playing with Sandro or
"Sandro's echo" by mistake!
And of course, despite the intensity of the rehearsal and
concert schedule, it's necessary to make time for fun. After all, if we
take a day to do interesting and goofy things and come back to rehearsal
refreshed and rested, the music will be much better than if we had pushed ourselves
too far. Charlotte offered some incredible food, a beach, and
movies! We also celebrated with the composers at an open mic night and a
very. long. karaoke!!!
Excited to begin working with students at Dakota Chamber
Music!
-Mr. Ryan
No comments:
Post a Comment