Performance Review: Music
A Gentle Power Persists
Utah Chamber Artists at Twenty-five
by Gregory Walz

Style and passion, with remembrance—these attributes, when elegantly assembled, create a realm fit for a silver anniversary. For Utah Chamber Artists (UCA), its annual Collage concert at the Cathedral of the Madeleine can provide the bridge to such a needed domain. The expansive, golden-lit glow of the interior of the cathedral offers just the necessary vibrant atmosphere. The sense of style continues in a sustained, playful, and at times resolutely moving fashion. This year’s concert was an understated triumph to the start of the 25th anniversary season for UCA, which was founded in 1991.

This choir of 48, that also counts with it a chamber orchestra of 35 local musicians, phrases and balances smoothly, in a supple and all-embracing vista of sound. Its co-founder and principal conductor, Barlow Bradford, uses his effusively nimble conducting style to obtain a choral tone polished like obsidian, but with warmth to share. The assistant conductor, Eric Schmidt, from Germany, who studies under Bradford at the University of Utah, supports this style with his own concentrated flexibility. This is a desirable combination.

UCA’s Collage programs often include a number of brief choral works or excerpts combined with instrumental solos. These are sometimes then augmented with movements from concertos for a particular instrument. That was the case for this evening’s performances. Each composition lasted five to ten minutes.

The Collage concerts also feature lighting design by Chip Dance, who has worked in this capacity for a number of years. The designs range from almost fully-lit to those immersed into total darkness, with only the choir or another soloist highlighted. Such thoughtful design discretely augmented the performances.

The passion was channeled tellingly from the beginning in British composer Kenneth Leighton’s Let all the World in Every Corner Sing. Leighton lived from 1929-1988. This composition is a brief anthem for choir with organ, and the words are by the English poet George Herbert. Gabriele Terrone, the cathedral organist, was at the keyboard, with the choir perched up with him in the organ loft. The choir phrased this work richly and with translucence. The words “…the heart must bear the longest part” were especially energizing. The organ’s rhythmic lyricism peppered the chorus’s vivacious harmonic lines, and ended the piece in a poised flurry of emotion.

The lighting here evoked little lanterns of beehives resting on a bed of honey. While at first glance not the most inviting composition to begin the evening, Let all the World in Every Corner Sing left a distinct impression to take notice and listen intently to what follows — it served its purpose well in this instance.

French composer Maurice Ravel’s (1875-1937) two piano concertos grace Abravanel Hall about once a decade. Hearing one in a cathedral acoustic somewhat dampens its intricacies but not at the expense of its overall appeal. The G major concerto (composed 1929-1931) is a finely crafted and delectable concoction, and the second movement, an Adagio assai, is an almost-jazzy reverie. Here pianist Richard Marshall, a former UCA accompanist, was succulent with his harmonies, sensitively direct phrasing in the meandering melodies, and pensive passion. This was an idiomatically dreamy, wistful, even romantic take on the movement—a twinkling twilight taking time to rest, and the orchestra was excellent. As a hint of twilight, the lighting was darkened entirely, except for above the orchestra and pianist.

Twentieth-century American composer Aaron Copland’s second and final opera The Tender Land (premiered 1954) has never been performed by Utah Opera. His small output of choral music is heard occasionally, but “The Promise of Living,” the last song from the second opera, often appears separately on choral programs. Its gently bittersweet poignancy pierced the reverie that floated from the preceding Adagio assai from the Ravel concerto. The entries of the chorus were lush and clear, and the intense lyricism and gently radiant harmonies rendered themselves with fervor and discipline.

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was perhaps the pre-eminent French composer of the mid-20th century. The cathedral organist, Gabriele Terrone, used the cathedral’s organ to perform a brief section from L’Ascension following the Copland. This organ work is an early composition of Messiaen, for whom the organ was the instrument of choice. The selected section was Transports de joie d’une ame Âme decant la gloire du Christ qui est la sienne, translated as “Transports of Joy from a Soul Before the Glory of Christ which is its own Glory.”

With its densely saturated harmonies, Transports found an inviting dwelling place in the vast spaces of the interior of the cathedral, unsheathing its densely rumbling colors and textures. The warm lyric urgency of The Promise of Living now faded and descended into a dawn-lit canyon seething to notice light. Transports‘ cascading rushes of harmonies, explosive rises and descents in color, and impulsive, almost deafening surges in dynamics were resplendent. Terrone suavely shifted the dynamics, spotlit the dark colors, and bounced the harmonies and rhythms robustly. The monumental architecture of this excerpt was sifted into a convincingly played quieter ending. For those who thrive on the unique world of organ music, this is a thrilling composition, but those less attuned to the wonders of the organ may have found it all too overwhelming.

A skillful rendition of Sed Amore by the American composer Dale Warland (b.1932) followed. Rocking gently in its harmonies and translucent textures, a lightly painted pallet passed its poise to a drifting eternity. The piano accompaniment was crystalline. This was a striking contrast to the Messiaen, but these two compositions joined in their celebration of instrumental color—only the human voice can rival and conquer the king of instruments.

A composition by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) seldom detracts from any musical program, but it can at times overshadow—especially in its complexities—the works it complements. Indeed, his sonatas and partitas for solo violin remain at the summit of all violin repertoire. The Largo from his Sonata in C major BWV 1005, played by local 17-year-old violinist Aubrey Oliverson, now studying in California, engaged the aural senses in the cathedral’s ascending monumentality with its comfortingly tart and tensile harmonies. There was a mixture of pensively wandering ones seeking the gleam they wish for, and by having Aubrey play in the middle of the main center aisle with only two lamps to guide her, the sense of a soloist merging with the attentive audience was sustained.

The Largo was followed by a Barlow Bradford (b.1960) arrangement of the hymn tune For the Music of Creation, with a text by Shirley Erena Murray. For the Music of Creation was especially successful in its expansive and lush lyricism and harmonies with a touch of stark longing. It roared most gently like the halo of a bursting star. The choir’s precise diction and enunciation augmented the powerful impression this arrangement made—a most suitable choice for the conclusion of the first half. Both For the Music of Creation and Sed Amore were accentuated by being interspersed with the Bach between them. For the Music of Creation was the cresting wave of the evening’s performances—the most emotive by many horizons.

To launch the second half, after a 20-minute intermission, Latvian composer ?riks Ešenvald’s (b.1977) New Moon held the cathedral’s sky cohesively in its resonance. It was sung by the choir in a half circle around the baptismal font, with lighting just above and the rest of the cathedral in darkness. This composition relies more on tone colors and textures to generate lyric urgency, and is far more soft-centered in its harmonies than the Leighton, which is imbued with astringency and a vortex of rhythmic dynamism. New Moon, in its center section, moves its harmonies into a trancelike vortex, abetted by a faint twinkle of chimes and a ringing gauzy glaze from the fingers of some choir members circling rims of champagne flutes partially filled with water. Utah Chamber Artists has augmented its repertoire in the last few years with intelligently chosen compositions by living Baltic composers, who are some of the most adventuresome choral composers writing today. Its performances of these compositions have all been superb, and this one was no exception.

The third and final movement of the Ravel Piano Concerto in G came next. It is marked Presto, and using its scampering, sensually motoric rhythms and minutely dashing and splashing colors, pianist Marshall’s pellucid sense of line spread the colors in invigorating fashion. The orchestra played with precision.

Samuel Barber (1910-1981), along with Aaron Copland, was one of the most prominent mid-20th century American composers. His Violin Concerto is by far his most performed piece. His few choral compositions conceal themselves closer to the fringes of even the choral repertoire. To Be Sung on the Water, one such piece, was conducted by Eric Schmidt, UCA’s assistant conductor. He and the singers garnered a panoply of sounds into a tightly and flexibly wound coil, with its aqueous, sensuously vigorous harmonies and seeping rhythms accentuated. In a suggestive move—wood with water—this piece was sung behind the wooden screen that partially hides a portion of the cathedral’s ambulatory on its northern end.

Goin’ Home was presented in an arrangement by Barlow Bradford, based on the Largo theme from the Czech Antonín Dvo?ák’s Symphony No.9, with a text by William Arms Fisher. Jim Sorenson (co-founder of the UCA) was the tenor soloist, and his daughter Cami Mower (a current member) the soprano soloist.  Their solo introductions and duet, with piano, were simply moving, with unadorned poignancy. This was a touching moment, with some needed hint of fragility in an otherwise exultant program.

The Gloria from the Missa Rigensis (premiered 2003) by the Latvian composer U?is Prauli?š (b.1957) possesses an urgent, robustly fine lyric line, with a shifting sense of rhythms. There is an atmosphere of ethereal neutrality in the harmonies. All of this was conveyed by the choir alone and conductor Eric Schmidt in a smoothly dramatic performance that gracefully attempted to surround the baptismal font.

Fritz Kreisler’s Preludium and Allegro (published 1910) for violin and orchestra opened with dramatic, lush harmonies, then settled into rhapsody, with soaring melody and a hint of concealed regret. The Allegro‘s quaint urgency, soothing bustle of lyricism, and spiky drama gave violinist Aubree Oliverson space to exhibit her playful ease with melodies. Kreisler (1875-1962) was an Austrian violin virtuoso and composer on the side, and this is one of his signature pieces.

The finale was another Barlow Bradford arrangement, this time of the almost universal—at least in North America—hymn tune Amazing Grace, with a text by John Newton. This tune was published circa 1779. Jim Sorensen was again the soloist. With its warmly streamlined textures and melodic urgency gathered in an overwhelmingly caressing fashion, it ended the concert with a vibrancy all present could savor.

In its rapturous tonal clarity and blend, Utah Chamber Artists defines choral excellence in the state’s arts community. To experience this with even more sustained passion, music lovers should attend one of its performances that presents a more extensive work complete. The Mass for Unaccompanied Double Choir by Swiss composer Frank Martin beckons for the new year.

Performance Review: Theatre
Baked Goods & Bulletproof Smiles
SLAC's Blackberry Winter explores the emotional toil of caring for parents with dementia
by Shawn Rossiter

The premise is unalluring: a smartly dressed, middle-aged woman stands in front of the audience and recounts the struggles of caring for a parent with Alzheimer’s.

Yet an emotionally taut performance by April Fossen; a sharp, engaging script by Steve Yockey; and the fairy-tale interludes of Glen and Linda Brown’s puppetry make for a compelling 90 minutes of theater.

Salt Lake Acting Company’s season opener, Blackberry Winter, is the first staging in a rolling world premiere that will see seven productions of Yockey’s new play across the country during the 2015-16 season.  Directed here by Sandra Shotwell, it’s a work that manages to express itself beyond the “issue” upon which it is hung, as important as that may be.

Vivienne Avery is an impeccably polite and minutely organized mother, wife and small-businesswoman, struggling with her mother’s descent into dementia. A letter from her mother’s care facility, which she presumes will announce the end of their services and the need for a nursing home, spurs a night of reflection, remonstration and tentative reconciliation.

Her emotions stretched taut like the “bulletproof smile” she maintains even when she’s dropping quarters into the swear jar, Vivienne moves about Keven Myhre’s sparse set of glass and steel, and, prompted by household items displayed there— an iron, a trowel, a bottle of iodine—recounts the accumulation of discovery, frustration, anger and sadness that is the fate of millions of caregivers across our country. It is an emotional confessional, an inward night of the soul where anger, grief and shame are added to her mother’s famous recipe for coconut cake.

Vivienne’s confessional is broken up—90 straight minutes of this soul-bearing would be too much for character, actor or audience— with the staging, in three parts, of Vivienne’s invented “Origin Myth for Alzheimer’s.” Shadow puppets, played by the Browns and company, project the story on screen while S.A. Rogers narrates the part of Mole and Kalika Rose that of Egret. It’s not a moral fable, explaining why these things happen. Just that they do.

It is Vivienne’s attempt to come to terms with “the awful person thing” that has her considering at one moment whether or not mom would be better off going for a walk in the woods.

The mature, graying audience of opening weekend may simply be indicative of the demographics of theater audiences (which for SLAC are up—a record-breaking 3,250 subscribers this year) but one can’t help but imagine that among those baby boomers a good percentage are providing care for their own ailing parents and loved ones (it’s estimated that Americans provide 17.9 billion hours of uncompensated care for people with dementia). That personal connection is unnecessary, however, to be moved by this work. Fossen’s expert handling of the turbulent but restrained range of emotions, aided no doubt by a script that is dark, funny and poetic, makes it compelling theater regardless.

Steve Yockey’s Blackberry Winter, directed by Sandra Shotwell and featuring April Fossen, is at Salt Lake Acting Company through October 25.

Art Projects: Salt Lake City
Channelling Howl
Alex Caldiero performs the classic poem on its 60th anniversary
by Ann Poore

I saw the best minds of my generation” [Janis, Jimi, Jim, Kurt, Amy, the kid who lived around the corner] “destroyed by madness,
      starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking
     for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
     connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up
smoking
      in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating
      across the tops of cities contemplating jazz ...

It all started with the 40th anniversary premiere of the Six Gallery reading in San Francisco, which coincided (no coincidence about it, Caldiero says) with his own reading at the West Bank Gallery in Salt Lake City. He had been listening to a recording of “Howl” and studying the liner notes in which Ginsberg states: “Ideally each line of ‘Howl’ is a single breath unit.” Caldiero made several unsuccessful attempts. “Some of the lines were just impossible,” he says. “I knew I was not going to make it to the end . . . My breathing kept getting shallower and shallower and I was grasping for words and air . . . when, from some other part of my body, an unexpected breath came forth and I was breathing in a new way. I finished the poem and it turned out to be not a reading, but rather a ‘channeling.’ That is, not a supposed spiritual communication through a medium, but literally a directing of original energy from the body of the poet to the body of the text to the body of the performer/audience: a seamless trajectory of breath-sound-language-act. Or what I have nicknamed ‘Sonosophy.”’

Caldiero recalls that he was a nervous wreck before his first performance of “Howl” so he called Ginsberg “to ask for his blessing. He chuckled. That was the only time we were ever to meet: voice-to-voice, sound-to-sound. In retrospect, this seems appropriate for a sonosopher.”

Caldiero always sets up a makeshift altar at the foot of the stage, with a picture of Ginsberg and an offering of flowers. He explains that “this is an old Mediterranean custom to remember and pay homage to our beloved dead.” The world lost Allen Ginsberg in 1997.

Bookman Ken Sanders remembers: “Alex and I collaborated on the 50th anniversary of “Howl” and it was a feature presentation of the old Great Salt Lake Book Festival and drew more than 1,000 folks to the library. Alex and I have teamed up with the Utah Humanities Council for the 55th and now the 60th performance of ‘Howl.’”

Caldiero will read the poem with jazz musicians and with guest poets reciting their own work on Friday, Oct. 9 from 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. at the Salt Lake City Public Library Auditorium, 210 E. 400 South. Admission is free. Poster artwork is by Trent Call and a signed limited edition screen print will be for sale at the event for $35. Free “Howl @ 60” buttons will be given away while they last.

Says Sanders: “Ginsberg is the “20th century Walt Whitman and ‘Howl’ is the modern ‘Leaves of Grass.’ Sonosopher Alex Caldiero is our spirit guide through the complexities of ‘Howl.”’

Rumor is that this is the final time Caldiero will perform (or channel) “Howl,” though we were unable to confirm this.

Catch it if you can.