JAVS Fall 2012

The 8:00 p.m. Rochester Philharmonic concert fea tured the world premiere of Olly Wilson’s Viola Concerto, performed by Marcus Thompson. Starkly different from Gubaidulina’s Two Paths , this single movement concerto clocked in at about ten minutes and treated the viola in a more rhythmic, percussive manner. Atypical of most concertos, the solo viola was largely integrated (and even subsumed) into the orchestral texture, truly emerging only in a cadenza at the end, brilliantly played by Thompson. ` The day concluded with Kenji Bunch’s 10:00 p.m. after-dark session in Sproull Atrium, where he per formed works from his recent CD, Unleashed . Bunch’s program was more suited to the space than Mooke’s, and a few people danced to his music in the back of the atrium. Interspersing his perform ances with comments, Bunch claimed inspiration from such diverse sources as post-Katrina New Orleans, his dog Coffee, and the act of installing insulation in a house. Bunch invited Dwight Pounds

to read the prologue to the piece Unleashed , and I thought nothing could top Dwight’s vivacious read ing. Bunch proved me wrong with his encore: an Appalachian-infused vocal rendition of Staying Alive performed with viola accompaniment.

Violist Kenji Bunch

Sunday, June 3

The 10:00 a.m. recital by the Duo Jalal (violist Kathryn Lockwood and percussionist yousif Sheronick) offered an eclectic mix. Most attractive was Jubb Jannin , a work originally written for a Middle Eastern flute by Sheronick; Lockwood shined on this hypnotic piece with her varied tonal palette and ethereal playing. The concert closed with Kenji Bunch’s Lost & Found , a four-movement work that— like much of his music from the previous evening— employed scordatura and displayed a range of inspira tion from Heinrich Biber to West African music. At 11:00 a.m. Ed Klorman spoke to a packed house about Brahms’s Op. 120, No. 1 Sonata. His lecture suggested possible references to Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in the sonata, a theory that Klorman explained was not original to him. But Klorman expanded previous work on this theory with a review of sources, beginning with documented examples of Brahms’s borrowing from the St. Matthew Passion in other works (in the Op. 105 songs and the Op. 122 chorale preludes for organ). Combining an infec tious enthusiasm for the subject with a methodical working through the evidence, Klorman had the engrossed audience nodding their heads in agree ment throughout the session.

Kodak Hall, site of the evening orchestral concerts

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