While most classical-music organizations are still sweating
over whether to present 20th-century works to their watchful
subscribers,
Third Angle New Music Ensemble is on the prowl for
21st-century music. The city's new music pioneers present
"Views from Cascadia I," an entire program of newly commissioned
works by four of the Northwest's most distinct and imaginative
voices--Obo Addy, Robert Kyr, John Luther Adams and Arlie
Neskahi.
"My original intention was to have an entire season of
commissions," said the ensemble's director, Jeffrey Peyton,
"to acknowledge and embrace the native artists of the
Northwest." But Peyton also had to acknowledge that such
a season would be damned expensive.
Though he has to settle for two concerts of entirely
new works out of a five-concert season, Peyton isn't disappointed.
"It's the most new works we've ever premiered in one year,"
says Peyton, who's made commissions the organization's
objective since he became director five years ago.
But why these four composers? "There's no question we're
becoming more of a global community, and all aspects of
life are becoming more and more entwined," Peyton muses.
"Original works should create a sense of what the Northwest
is and is becoming, and we searched for artists who can
make this a reality." It's no accident that the folks
at Third Angle sought out composers they've worked with
in the past--and had dreamed of working with again.
Both Addy and Neskahi are essentially traditional music
composers who, according to Peyton, "can bridge the gap
to chamber music." A Ghanaian master drummer and longtime
Oregonian, Addy has proven his chamber-music mettle with
a past commission and subsequent recording by the Kronos
Quartet. He has an inexhaustible musical spirit and can
seemingly adapt his energy to any musical circumstance.
His recent African-jazz collaboration with trombonist
Julian Priester at Seattle's Earshot Jazz Festival was
a prime example of his musical flexibility, and the Third
Angle performance, featuring members of his own band,
should again show how far this composer can stretch.
Neskahi is another delight. Any-one who saw the closing
"Evocations" concert of Third Angle's '97-'98 season witnessed
a rare moment of ecstatic musical joy. The Navajo singer-composer's
incantation of waking to the new day was equal parts brilliant
composition and raw energy. "I was so moved by how the
audience responded to that," said Peyton, and it was that
audience reaction that was the impetus for enlisting Neskahi
for another piece. His new Kinji Suite for string
quartet, Native American flute, vocalist and drum will
feature more of this inspired melding of Native American
and Western music tailored to the Third Angle strings.
Kyr may be the Northwest's best-known composer. His commission,
Voice of the Forest (Violin Concerto No. 2), was
written specifically with Third Angle violinist Ron Blessinger
and the ensemble members in mind. It's one of the benefits
of working with a composer the group has worked with before;
Kyr, a University of Oregon professor, has reciprocated
by inviting Third Angle to Eugene for his current Festival
of the Millennium. In Forest, Kyr has taken the
traditional gamelan, the Javanese musical and theatrical
percussion orchestra, and combined it with the harmonic
principles of Western chamber music. Though he's not the
first to hear the cross-pollination potential in the gamelan,
Peyton says he thinks Kyr's method of "superimposing"
the two styles--the Eastern gamelan and the Western violin
concerto--over each other for a weave-like effect is unique
and mesmerizing.
It's also big--in fact, it's the largest ensemble piece
Third Angle has presented in its 14 years. Thirteen Third
Angle members and adjunct members are augmented by the
Pacific Rim Gamelan, an international group of 16 gamelan
musicians headquartered on the West Coast for what promises
to be a big and beautiful sound.
Seven years ago, Third Angle performed Adams' Coyote
Builds North America, and Peyton has been interested
in working with the North Country native ever since. The
composer's newly completed In a Treeless Place, Only
Snow has the kind of title that perfectly suits the
work. It's a piece inspired by the Brooks Range in Alaska.
Adams' music, says Peyton, "is informed by the space and
landscape of the Arctic." The composer describes the work
as follows: "White is not the absence of color. It is
the fullness of light. As the Inuit have known for centuries,
whiteness embraces many hues, textures and nuances." Adams
continues: "Silence is not the absence of sound. It is
the presence of stillness."
That sense of seeing and hearing the world a bit differently
is essential to the Northwest mystique, and Third Angle's
mantra of diversity fits right in.
