Extending the bounds of classical music on the Aspen Competition – Seen and Heard Worldwide

United States Aspen Music Competition 2024 [5]: Harris Live performance Corridor, Aspen, Colorado. (HS)

The weekday recitals in Harris Corridor this previous week stretched the boundaries of classical music. If George Gershwin famously dabbled in jazz for his Rhapsody in Blue a century in the past, pianist Conrad Tao took it up a couple of notches, together with his new piece impressed by Gershwin’s. The American Brass Quintet launched music Tuesday that entertained whereas extending the borders of what trumPets, horns and trombones can do.

However nothing may high Wednesday’s jaw-dropping creativity in As We Converse, during which Zakir Hussain and Rakesh Chaurasia melded their musical roots in India with Béla Fleck and Edgar Meyer (from the American South) and made it completely wonderful. Once I heard them play this similar music final fall in San Francisco, I discovered additional depth within the music in contrast with the recording, which gained a Grammy. What we heard in Harris Corridor explored prospects with even better expanse as their disparate types melded extra coherently. An entire new type of music emerged earlier than our ears.

It helps that these 4, whose friendship goes again a long time, set the gold normal for his or her devices. Greater than virtuosity, the magic lies in how their particular person voices mixed go straight to a listener’s coronary heart.

Hussain makes his tablas converse, sing, chortle and cry whereas setting down rhythms and including torrents of complicated decorations. The opposite basis is bassist Meyer, an Aspen common who wrote most of the tunes. He can match musical wits with jazz masters like Christian McBride, and with bluegrass giants like Fleck, whose banjo can execute a J.S. Bach fugue flawlessly. Right here it stands in for a sitar because it meshes with Hussain’s tablas, with out dropping the instrument’s identification as a bluegrass staple.

Chaurasia floats haunting melodies on his bansuri, a wood flute, that extends the group’s sonic palette. His countermelodies and harmonies add a novel taste, whether or not weaving by the music or taking off on virtuosic solos of his personal.

Of the eight picks (from twelve on the album), ‘Pashto’ got here collectively greatest. Meyer laid down a drone and Chaurasia floated a winding tune over it. Rhythms and sounds of an earlier fusion – Celtic bagpipers and native musicians in Northern India – turned completely different aspects to the sunshine, and the piece gained in depth and complexity over its greater than twelve minutes. One other winner was the title tune, during which every musician had an opportunity to specific what their devices can do, which ultimately layered into a brand new sound.

These are all on the 2023 album, a lot of which was written and recorded after a pre-pandemic tour. Some, similar to ‘Beast’ and ‘Commerce Winds’ return a long time. The encore, ‘1980’, was written by Meyer in that yr, however took on an Indian tang with this group.

On Monday, Conrad Tao not solely explored the intersection of classical music and jazz however barreled down a couple of aspect streets in Flung Out, his new composition which absorbs a few of at present’s dance music. An advert hoc ensemble of scholars (aside from concertmaster Laura Park Chen) obtained into respectable grooves for each Gershwin’s and Tao’s items.

Rhapsody used the unique association Gershwin wrote and Ferde Grofé orchestrated for Paul Whiteman’s jazz orchestra, debuting in 1924 on a particular ‘Experiment in Fashionable Music’ live performance in New York. Not like the symphonic variations we often hear, it’s significantly extra raucous within the up-tempo components, and the so-familiar large tune feels much less lush. Piotr Wacławik (assistant conductor for the comPetition) drew out jazzier enjoying than Whiteman’s unique recording.

Tao wielded spectacular method in Gershwin’s glittery cadenzas and decorations, although with extra weight and depth than most pianists do, mixing in ear-catching improvisations. The vitality was palpable. The viewers responded with a roar after they all obtained to the acquainted end

If something, Flung Out was a number of levels rowdier. To my ears, one vital distinction was that Tao’s rhythmic grooves lasted just a few measures, shorter than Gershwin’s. One other was an embrace of spiky dissonances. In his introduction, Tao stated his inspiration was sounds of at present’s New York that he heard from his street-level condo. The twenty-minute tour rattled and banged incessantly earlier than it settled right into a lyrical tune (additionally a nod to Gershwin).

There was loads to chew on – the shifting rhythms are particularly intriguing – however for me it wanted extra distinction earlier than a welcome, rollicking end. Wind up large, and also you get applause.

For an encore after the Rhapsody, he selected what he described as his transcription of the good jazz pianist Artwork Tatum’s 1951 solo recording of ‘Someplace Over the Rainbow’. He performed with extra weight however simply as a lot agility, alongside along with his personal interpolations, somewhat like Tatum by the lens of Thelonious Monk.

Of their recital on Tuesday, the American Brass Quintet fielded preparations (by members of the quintet) of music from the early eighteenth century and earlier than, and new works they’ve commissioned, together with a world premiere and two from 2022. The winner was Jennifer Higdon’s E-book of Brass, which bracketed two virtuosic and vivacious toccata-like actions round gentler, extra legato fare. The writing took benefit of the quintet’s precision of execution and sensitivity to dynamics and tone. Anthony Barfield’s ‘Samsāra’ traced a beautiful if bittersweet arc in its eight minutes.

The premiere, A Homicide of Crows, described units of animals in 4 colourful, restlessly fitful actions that included ‘A Tower of Giraffes’ and ‘Shadow of Jaguars’ (that are chased off by a gang of otters).

All of the above outshone a set of nice courtroom dances by William Brade, organized by Raymond Mase (when he performed trumpet within the quintet), and two transient madrigals by Carlo Gesualdo organized by Brandon Ridenour, at present enjoying trumpet.

Harvey Steiman

15.7.2024, Recital by Conrad Tao (piano): Aspen ComPetition Ensemble / Piotr Wacławik (conductor)

Milhaud – La création du monde, Op.81
Conrad Tao – Flung Out (Aspen Music Competition co-commission)
Gershwin/Grofé – Rhapsody in Blue (unique jazz band model)

16.7.2024, Recital by the American Brass Quintet: Kevin Cobb, Brandon Ridenour (trumpets), Eric Reed (horn), Hillary Simms (trombone), John D. Rojak (bass trombone)

Brade/Raymond Mase – ‘Courtly Dances and Canzons’ (choice)
Anthony Barfield – ‘Samsāra’

David Sampson – A Homicide of Crows (world premiere)
Gesualdo/Brandon Ridenour – ‘Due sospira’
Jennifer Higdon – E-book of Brass

17.7.2024, As We Converse: Béla Fleck (banjo), Zakir Hussain (tabla), Edgar Meyer (double bass), Rakesh Chaurasia (bansuri).

Fleck, Hussain, Meyer, Chaurasia – ‘Beast within the Backyard’, ‘Commerce Winds Bengali’, ‘Movement’, ‘Pashto’, ‘Rickety Karma’, ‘Hidden Lake’, ‘As We Converse’, ‘B-tune’. Encore: ‘1980’