Author: kschubring

On Saturday, December 10, UMS will present the internationally-acclaimed vocal sextet, The Kings Singers. The Seattle Times hailed the British a cappella ensemble as a group that “can do almost anything a full-sized chorus can do, with a degree of perfection that drops the jaw and delights the ear.”

Founded in 1968, the Grammy-award winning group will be presenting a program of wintertime favorites, just in time for the holidays. Pieces that will be on the program include Christmas classics like White Christmas, Silent Night, and Sleigh Ride, as well more traditional works by composers Lassus, Tchaikovsky, and Holst.

The concert will be on Saturday, December 10th at 8pm in Hill Auditorium. Tickets are available at ums.org or at the League Ticket Office. Come soak up the sounds of the season!

Last night, the Contemporary Directions Ensemble presented a concert of works by established living composers, their second of the semester. The five works on the program varied greatly in instrumentation, but they were tied together by the overarching theme of the power of words. The members of the ensemble are hand-picked from the School of Music and range from upperclassmen to grad students. Their high level of playing was obvious, and gave me the freedom as a listener to develop opinions of the pieces themselves that they presented.

Opening the evening was Missy Mazzoli’s “Set that on Fire” for piano, violin, clarinet and bass clarinet, flute and piccolo, and trumpet. While the composer’s program note promised a piece that builds a “seemingly sturdy musical structure that quickly explodes, disintegrates, and blazes into something unexpected,” I felt that at most the piece achieved a crackling, dancing campfire, rather than the powerful explosion that I was expecting. The fluid, interlocking parts created an interesting chord progression and strangely solid texture, but this quickly plateaued. Overall the piece lacked a certain “tightness,” and seemed to continue for the sake of continuing.

I thought that Rzewski’s “Coming Together” was a much stronger addition to the first half of the program. I had actually heard the piece performed  two years ago, and it was an enjoyable experience for me to hear it again, as my taste in music has gotten dramatically more open-minded since my first listen. The large ensemble work has a peculiar instrumentation, most easily categorized as a sinfonietta with the additions of synthesizer, an extra percussionist, and narrator. Overhead projections on the back wall of the stage before and after the piece told the story surrounding this deeply political work, which is a setting of a letter by Sam Melville, who was one of 43 inmates who died as a result of the 1971 Attica prison riots. The rhythmic tightness lacking in the Mazzoli was drastically made up for in this piece, which was driven by incessantly repeating rhythmic patterns that kept building the intensity as the narrator read and reread Melville’s cryptic letter. The ensuing silence that resulted at the conclusion of the piece from  the overhead projection’s continuation of the story was an apt way of providing the victims of the riot with the respectful silence that the New York government seems to have failed to pay them and their families.

The second half opened with Lembit Beecher’s beautifully colorful and evocative “The Art of Remembering,” with flowing textures that interacted profoundly with the percussionist’s tubular bells near the end of the piece. Caroline Shaw’s “Taxidermy” for percussion quartet followed immediately after, with no applause in between the pieces. The quirkiness of the  piece was embodied in the unusual instrumentation, which consisted of marimba, vibraphone, and 8 pitched porcelain flower pots (the performers jokingly told me later about how annoying they must have been as they struck all of the pots in Home Depot in order to make their instrument selections). Still, the simple harmonies and delicate timbres gave the piece a sparklingly beautiful quality.

David Lang’s “Increase” for large ensemble provided a similar “going out with a bang” effect as the Rzewski. Driving ostinato patterns that never seemed to exactly land on the beat carried on throughout the entire piece, propelling it forward as it gradually, as promised, increased in volume and complexity.

After the concert, I asked for the opinions of some of my fellow music majors who attended despite their unfamiliarity with contemporary music.  Their reception of the concert was quite positive.  Seeing their excitement over music that they’ve only begun to expose themselves to made me equally excited for the future of new music. It is remarkable to go to a University that gives students the opportunity to hear today’s music at such a high level. I’ll be eagerly awaiting CDE’s next stellar performances in the upcoming semester.

Tomorrow evening, SMTD’s Contemporary Directions Ensemble will present an entire program of works by living composers, their second concert of the semester. This student ensemble, under the direction of Oriol Sans, is known for their expertise in taking on the difficult music of today.

On the program for this concert is Lembit Beecher’s “The Art of Remembering,” in which the University of Michigan alum captures the “pain and sorrow beneath the placid surface of [his grandmother’s] storytelling,” in addition to Frederic Rzewski’s “Coming Together,” a deeply political work for spoken voice and ensemble. In her program notes, Missy Mazzoli says that “Set that on Fire” captures her goal as a composer to operate “in favor of the fire,” capturing “the potentially dangerous and vibrant ideas that come out of nowhere.” The program also includes the “grand, awkward, epic, silent, funny, and just a bit creepy” percussion quartet, “Taxidermy,” and “Increase” for large ensemble, which were written by  Pulitzer Prize winning composers Caroline Shaw and David Lang.

If you’re not very familiar with contemporary art music, it might be in your best interest to click on the links above and listen to the pieces beforehand. I went to CDE’s last concert, where they presented works by Kaija Saariaho and David T. Little, and it floored me. I am looking forward to hearing what they present next!

The concert begins at 8pm and will take place in Hankinson Rehearsal Hall, which is inside the Earl V. Moore Building on North Campus. Admission is free. Come listen to the music of today performed at a very high level!

Speaking of religious music, I have a confession to make.

Even though I had never heard the piece in its entirety before, I was not particularly looking forward to seeing Handel’s Messiah. I have never considered myself to be baroque music’s biggest fan, and committing to seeing such a large work by a composer who isn’t my favorite seemed to be a daunting task. But because of my job here, and the sense of duty I feel as a composer to experience as much live music as I can, I decided to swallow my preconceptions about Handel and head for Hill Auditorium.

Between the large chorus, orchestra, harpsichordist, organist, 4 vocal soloists, and the conductor, there must have been at least 200 people crowded on the poinsettia-lined stage, waiting for the performance to begin. As I watched the rest of Hill Auditorium slowly become just as packed with veteran audience members, who chatted around me excitedly in anticipation, I braced myself for the worst.

I have never felt more pleasantly surprised about a piece of music in my life. From the strings’ opening, sighing e minor chord to the final, powerful blast of a D major chord that ends the massive work over two hours later, I felt engaged throughout all 53 movements of the piece. It helped me because each movement, a setting of 1-3 Bible verses that fit into the narrative structure of Christ’s coming, death, and resurrection, varied in length, character, and by who sang each movement. Like a dialogue, the singing switched from soloist, to chorus, to orchestra, and every combination in between.

The four soloists were absolutely sparkling. They each had a beautiful and unique color, but they also blended together surprisingly well. Soprano Janai Brugger had a crystal clear tone that floated silkily above the other voices, and her high register, piano notes were breathtaking. The alto soloist, Meg Bragle, exuded her rich, velvety tone color throughout her several demanding solos. I was amazed by how seemingly effortlessly tenor Michele Angelini soared above the orchestra, and equally overwhelmed by bass Shenyang’s potent but tasteful resonant timbre. The chorus, although quite large, was so unified that it often sounded like one powerful voice.

I appreciated the detailed program notes that accompanied this performance, because they made it very easy to follow along with the story of the piece. But the singers had such marvelous English diction that it was not really necessary to rely on program notes for understanding, for which I was grateful.

I pitied those who left after the famous Hallelujah chorus (which, I learned, does not come at the very end of the piece, but the end of Part II), because Part III contained some of the most beautiful melodies I had ever heard. The ending of the entire work is even more powerful than the Hallelujah chorus. Organist Scott VanOrnum switched from his smaller, baroque organ to the large Hill Auditorium instrument for the final movement, and the powerful sound created by this instrument in combination with the others was absolutely breathtaking.

Overall, the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, UMS Choral Union, and some extremely talented soloists successfully showed me why seeing Handel’s Messiah is an annual tradition for many in Ann Arbor and around the world.

This weekend, one of the great musical traditions of Ann Arbor continues as UMS, along with the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and the UMS Choral Union, presents two performances of Handel’s Messiah. This epic, 275-year-old English oratorio received its Ann Arbor premiere in the 1879-80 season, and has since been welcomed every year as a celebrated holiday tradition. 

This particular oratorio by Handel is in three parts, and it uses Biblical text to tell the story of Jesus Christ, who is the Messiah, from the prophecies predicting his birth through his death and glorious resurrection. Maestro Scott Hanoian will conduct a Baroque orchestra and chorus that features soloists Joseph Gascho on harpsichord as well as vocal soloists Janai Brugger, Meg Bragle, Michele Angelini, and Shenyang, 

 Ending the large-scale, dramatic masterwork is the unmistakeable, triumphant Hallelujah Chorus. These performances offer the opportunity for listeners to hear the entire work from which that famous movement originated. 

You won’t want to miss this time-honored holiday tradition of epic proportion!

Performances are Saturday, December 3rd at 8pm and Sunday, December 4th at 1pm in Hill Auditorium.

Tickets are available for purchase online or at The League Ticket Office.

Last night, the School of Music’s own University Symphony Orchestra and University Philharmonia Orchestra came together to present a concert of orchestral works with French influences. The program was quite diverse, including works by Mozart, Debussy, Bitsch, and Berlioz, which allowed for the orchestra to showcase their skill in playing music from the classical, impressionist, romantic,  and modern eras. 

The concert opened with Mozart’s 31st symphony, nicknamed the “Paris Symphony” due to his composing the piece while looking for work there.  The piece is charming, and the USO demonstrated precision and attention to the stylistic idioms that come with playing in the classical style. This was followed by the gorgeous and evocative Sacred and Profane Dances by Claude Debussy, a concerto for harp and string orchestra, which was performed gracefully and beautifully by the School of Music’s harp professor, Joan Holland. Then, Daniel Fendrick, the winner of the School of Music’s 2016 Concerto Competition, performed the Bitsch Concertino for Bassoon. I had never heard the piece before, but found that it was modern and exciting, often reminiscent of Gershwin’s compositional style, but with more atonal figures. Fendrick had an amazing sound that filled Hill Auditorium, but at times the orchestration was too thick to be able to fully appreciate some of the virtuosic passages.

The first half of the concert was played by about a half-sized version of the USO, since the other half performed in the pit orchestra of the recent opera production, Roméo et Juliette. For the second half, members of of UPO joined them onstage, doubling the size of the orchestra for the grandiose and revolutionary Berlioz piece, Symphonie Fantastique. In this work as well there are several wonderful solos that showcased the talent of several orchestra members, particularly the woodwinds. The piece is programmatic, meaning that it follows a specific storyline, and all of the players certainly told a story with their musical expressivity.

In my opinion, this performance was not the orchestra’s strongest showing, as at times there seemed to be some issues of playing exactly together. That being said, USO and UPO do not play easy music, and they always amaze me because of the amount of quality concerts they give every semester. There is absolutely no denying the talent and dedication of every member of both orchestras. I was thoroughly impressed by all of the soloists both within the orchestra and without, and the orchestra’s ability to support them. 

Overall, this concert certainly made for an exciting and enjoyable way to spend my Tuesday evening!