This is the best megafest going, forget Bonorpaloozer.  I believe we are playing on Sunday for 20 minutes.

Meredith Monk Music
at The Whitney Museum of American Art
February 1, 2009

A four-hour career retrospective of Meredith Monk’s work ended with The Whitney’s Peter Norton Family Gallery being surrounded by a middle school choir, vocal ensembelists, percussionists, The M6, and Monk chanting and polyrhythmically sidestepping. “Panda Chant II” is a sunny, surprising, manic, you’ve-got-to-do-it-now-and-so-does-everyone incantation circle. Monk, known for site specific performances, had wrapped up the filled-to-capacity room with childlike language, PAN-DA PAN-DA PAN-DA; the string quartet had put down their instruments and were wide mouthing PAN-DA; the percussionist, still with drumstick apron on, abandoned his vibraphone riser and stood alongside a ten year-old and rallied PAN-DA.

This afternoon review of Monk’s work featured performances with The M6, a group that has dedicated efforts to passing on the oral tradition of Monk’s work by performing and transcribing her music, So Percussion, The Meredith Monk Vocal Ensemble, The Theo Bleckmann and John Hollenbeck Quintet, and a laundry list of accomplished musicians and performers, including a reading from author Rick Moody.

Another highlight of the program were selections from Ms. Monk’s 1991 opera, “Atlas.” “Choosing Companions,” a piece that evokes universal ideas of travel and partnership, combines elements of Monk’s trademark revolving piano riffing and choreographed folk-play as different characters enter from stage left and knock loudly on the piano to signify their bid to be chosen as a companion. Each contestant singsongingly offers a nonlanguage campaign message to be taken along on adventure with Monk the frontierswoman, and then they do a short bit of dance and body posturing. It was technically simple; however, the modest made-up language message from each singer-candidate was heartfelt and representative of many life situations–from general courtship, to, well, more bubblegum media courtship, like, auditioning for American Idol in front of Paula Abdul.

Secondly, from “Atlas,” was “Agricultural Community,” which invited the entire Meredith Monk Vocal Ensemble and M6 onstage to sing with the string quartet. I don’t remember what was announced before this number touched off, but the effect was that of an entire cast of a village singing rainbows out of their mouths introducing their Arcadian way of life. It was as if Monk had rounded up representative members of a benevolent “Dogville” and united them towards a munificent act.

It is also refreshing to see large names in music and performance acting like normal people; many renditions of Monk’s songs featured other members of the Meredith Monk Vocal Ensemble singing lead parts and Monk flanking as a backing voice. A very unostentatious display of her abilities–it was as if Monk was passing the torch of her music on to the next generation.

Finally, and pardon this comparison if you totally hate it, but, as this was my first time seeing Monk perform live, I could not help but think of Monk as Finn Razael, the benevolent spell-stress of Ron Howard and George Lucas’ Willow. Monk has the agrarian fantasy, enchanting animorphism, sagaciousness, powerless-yet-powerful, a rod of birch beats Bathmorda’s evil army. Evil and seasonal winter affect had been dispersed that Sunday afternoon and it was time to rejoice back at the village.

PLAN A: So Percussion @ The Loft at UCSD. Crafting busy, sublime pieces using only percussive objects, So Percussion takes the modern compositions of Steve Reich and David Lang and makes them accessible to the mid-20s crowd. PLAN B: The Bird and the Bee, Obi Best @ The Casbah. The Bird and the Bee’s Inara George recently made an album with baroque pop composer and former Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks. Meanwhile, current Beach Boys fuehrer Mike Love continues to collaborate with John Stamos, best known as Uncle Jessie from Full House. BACKUP PLAN: Eagle & Talon, Dame Satan @ Bar Pink. –Todd Kroviak

Music video of the day: 

I like to think that the woman dancing in this video is the same one who called into the Ellen show. You know, Gladys, the mall-walker that loves Jesus but drinks a little?

Quick Picks:

Crocodiles, Blessure Grave, Spirit Photography, DJ Mario Orduno @ Soda Bar

Hotel St. George, The Traditionist, Silverleaf @ Radio Room

“TNT”  with Team Abraham, The Heather, Golden Red @ Museum of Contemporary Art, Downtown

Todd Snider, Keith Sykes @ Belly Up

“Worst Music Ever” with DJs Dimitri, Daniel, Mark @ Whistle Stop

With the big day approaching quickly, we are finalizing the details of the program for Meredith Monk Music @ the Whitney on Sunday February 1. Meredith Monk herself will perform with many of New York City’s most accomplished performers including her own Vocal Ensemble, composer/percussionist John Hollenbeck, singer Theo Bleckmann, violinist Todd Reynolds, next generation vocal ensemble The M6, and the powerhouse experimental percussion ensemble So Percussion. Special guest performers also include NYC public school students from the Special Music School Middle School Chorus. We are so excited to have all of these incredible artists join us to celebrate Meredith’s work!

The performance will start at 2pm and will last until about 6pm. Doors are at 1:30pm. It’s free with museum admission that day so you’ll need to pay for a general admission ticket, but there is no extra charge or special ticketing for the performance.

And yes, we know it’s also Super Bowl Sunday. Think of this as a very special tailgate party!

Below is part one of a documentary P4k made about our old friend Steve Reich. I’ve been a fan of his for a while, but to see some of these pieces played live, albeit on flash video, really is something else. Bonus interview with Thurston Moore & Reich at no extra charge. Part 2 here.

Friday night I saw a performance by So Percussion in collaboration with Kneebody at the Whitney Museum of American Art. So Percussion is a an eclectic group of musicians who hit an incredible assemblage of objects to create a kind of music even So Percussion finds difficult to describe. Their music swung pleasantly from dramatic to jazzy to ethereal. The gaggle of talented musicians played a traditional drum set, a glockenspiel, vibraphones, bowed marimba, melodica, overturned pots, metals, keyboard, clarinet, saxophone, and a trumpet.

After the concert, I was talking with the friend I’d gone with about how gripping and exciting we both find percussion music. Like a lot of other music I hear live, I have a particularly hard time listening to percussion and not wanting to dance around a little bit. I realized that a lot of my favorite contemporary composers, particularly Philip Glass, have very rhythmic, repetitive styles that have a pulse similar to percussion. Interestingly enough, when I went home and looked up So Percussion, I realized that their 2004 album “Drumming” was master minded by none other than Steve Reich. Reich is considered by a lot of people as Glass’s contemporary counterpart in his purely minimalist style that includes lots of repetition, loops, patterns, and canons. So Percussion even describes themselves as being “devoted to dreamscapes” of Reich, John Cage, and others.

Check out So Percussion’s website where you can listen to their music.

As my handful of loyal readers already know, process_sound goes silent around times when I’m pressed to finish a new piece and perform it away from home. It would be more interesting if I could balance things better, and maybe even blog from the event, but that’s what wish lists are for.

This recent journey took me to the Third Practice Festival, at the University of Richmond (VA). Ben Broening started this festival in 2001, and quickly carved out an interesting niche in the EM festival calendar. Ben has always had a good ear for programming a variety of interesting music, and since 2004 the festival has benefited greatly from having eighth blackbird as their ensemble in residence. But 3p07 moved a step further, with a range of concerts and performers that one rarely sees at an EM Festival.

While a more complete review will appear in an upcoming SEAMUS Journal, it is worth highlighting 3p07’s book-ends: an opening concert featuring So Percussion and Trollstilt; and a closing concert featuring eighth blackbird and I Gusti Putu Sudarta (shadow puppetry). The opening concert consisted of the hour-long performance of Five (and a half) Gardens, music by Dan Trueman, with texts by Jennifer Trueman and animated paintings by Judy Trueman. The percussion battery presented by So ran the gamut from resonant tubes to wheel barrow. More striking than their instrumentation was their ability to shift and meld a widely diverse range of styles and musical ideas. Trollstilt expands the musical realm even further, incorporating folk-inspired (Norwegian and American) new music into the already extensive landscape. This was a fascinating work and performance, and I found myself constantly impressed by how easily the piece and performers shifted among musical styles. It went beyond the basic ideas of postmodernism into something truly new.

The closing concert featured eighth blackbird and I Gusti Putu Sudarta in a presentation of experimental Balinese Shadow Theater. The merging of the western classical tradition with traditional gamelan was a starting point, but the most fascinating elements were the merging of traditional shadow puppetry with virtual shadow puppetry. Working with technology developed by Semi Ryu and Stefano Faralli, Sudarta could combine leather shadow puppets with virtual counterparts controlled by a Nintendo Wii-mote.

My own contribution to the festival consisted of a new work, Bent Metal, for live laptop performance. It’s still very much a work in progress, with another performance upcoming on the 12th here at BSU. Perhaps I’ll keep the blog sounding and share some reflective thought about working in this new (for me) domain.