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Home , Arditti Quartet, William Bolcom

William Bolcom Embracing All Terrain BY RONNI REICH

o celebrate William Bolcom’s seemingly endless sonic T curiosity, there could hardly be a more fittingly named vehicle than the All Terrain String Festival: Bolcom 4 x 4. In this series of four programs featuring music for , each concert will highlight one distinctive work by the , a modern master with a virtually unparalleled ability to encompass a vast variety of musical traditions with unflagging expertise and originality. Photo: Wu-Jun Ji

Fitting itself to Bolcom’s ability to veer off the road of classical tradition while Bolcom’s music is part of what will be Yet relatively early in his career, upholding his elastic yet exacting new to most audiences; the festival Bolcom began to stray from the stark, technique, the festival will feature coincides with the recent publication non-tonal traditions of the day. In 1970, ensembles that follow suit: the of six of his early string quartets by he published the first of a collection of Harlem Quartet, the Chiara String Edward B. Marks Music Company -style pieces. “It was a way to Quartet, the Arditti Quartet, and the and includes the world premiere of his liberate myself from the kind of Shanghai Quartet. twelfth. While his string quartets are chromatic style we were expected to not his best-known works, they form a write if we were writing up-to-the­ “The quartet world is a lot more musical autobiography, spanning minute music,” he says. diverse than people really understand,” Bolcom’s career from age 11 to 78. says Peak Performances founder and At the festival, the Harlem Quartet executive producer Jedediah Wheeler. “I tend to want to ask performers to will play a selection of Bolcom’s rags, do what I know I can’t do,” Bolcom arranged for string quartet, alongside “Each group has a specialty it can says. “If I had my druthers, I would be Latin and jazz standards and a offer,” says Nicholas Tzavaras, cellist a string quartet. I’d be an 8-armed, Mozart work. The quartet is devoted of the Shanghai Quartet, which 4-playered entity.” to such diverse programs in order to has been in residence with Peak engage new audiences, and its 2013 Performances and Montclair State Bolcom traces his love of quartets collaboration with Chick Corea won University for 10 years. “ It makes back to the Juilliard Quartet’s visit to a Grammy Award. this a really unique festival of string his hometown of in 1949 when quartets for our audiences,” he adds. he was 11 years old, “probably the first The liberating effect ragtime had for “Everything is done with the audience time [Alban] Berg’s was Bolcom may be similar for the Harlem in mind, to open up their musical played west of the Mississippi.” Bartók Quartet musicians—and for listeners. palettes to things they are not familiar and Hindemith were early influences, Of its non-classical programming, with, whether it’s playing by memory or and he went on to study with 20th­ Ilmar Gavilán of the Harlem Quartet improvised jazz tunes or cutting-edge century luminaries including Darius says, “It’s very therapeutic, because contemporary music.” Milhaud and . we let loose, and often we apply the

42 www.peakperfs.org same mentality to the classical “There is a touch of the Mendelssohn Quartet for its premiere, seems to repertoire, respecting the score but being Octet that is referenced ... but very be rooted in a similar communicative spontaneous and free on the stage.” dysfunctional,” Bolcom says of his impulse, drawing on a variety of Octet: Double Quartet. resources and textures in order to Showcasing another side of Bolcom’s convey a series of moods and body of work—which includes the Also on the Chiara’s program will experiences. “I’m figuring this is Pulitzer Prize–winning 12 New be a driving, rock-tinged work by my last quartet,” Bolcom says. “I Etudes for (1988) that recall the Jefferson Friedman and Leyendas, like the idea of a cycle of 12.” composer’s training with Messiaen— a work by Bolcom student Gabriela will be the Arditti Quartet. Known as a Lena Frank that draws on folk tunes Written in short movements like standard-bearer of contemporary she discovered in an Andean brief episodes of dreams and repertoire, the Arditti will play Bolcom’s Mountain village. wakefulness, the work includes String Quartet no. 8 on a program that a“Fantasia Notturna”—“my nocturnal also includes works by Bolcom recognizes the stylistic version of Beethoven’s op. 131”; a and . freedom of today, including slow movement, “Rude Awakening,” those under his tutelage at the University which marks getting up in the middle The Shanghai Quartet will appear on of Michigan, and he sees a contrast to of the night; a fast, skittering all festival programs, serving as guest the technical strictures expected when “Hallucination” that builds to a artists with the three other quartets. he began his own career. brutal climax; “Timor Mortis,” fear of death; “A m o r V i n c i t ,” a more placid interlude “very frankly in D major”; Each quartet has its own vision that I and “as if from far away,” which “ want to honor and celebrate,”Wheeler the composer describes as “very says. “It’s about all the different places simple” and “almost like old music.” they can go, how broad music can be. “It’s dangerous to say, but Bill ” Bolcom really wants people to listen to what he’s written. It’s a listenable, The Shanghai will play Bolcom’s “They were able to do whatever they communicable musical style,” says Octet: Double Quartet (2007), a work wanted,” he says of composers like Wheeler. “I think of him as someone originally written for the prestigious Frank and Friedman. “It was something with open arms, bringing as many Guarneri and Johannes String for us [in the previous generation] to people as he can possibly gather. Quartets, alongside the Chiara String pull from underneath this sort of By bringing in the diversity of styles Quartet. The Chiara, recently in dictatorship. I’m glad we were able to of American music, he creates his residence at the Metropolitan Museum move that obstacle for people younger own vernacular.” of Art, made its mark mastering the than we are.” challenging feat of playing music by With the variety of styles and tones, heart and championing live composers. Bolcom’s great achievement in the exploration of the historical and musical catholicity remains his the contemporary, and the recognition “We live in a vacuum,” Shanghai’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience, of living master artists with a high level Tzavaras admits. “String quartets are in which ’s poetry inspires of craftsmanship and distinctive voices, always playing with the four members of an empathetic, expressive, and the festival honors both Bolcom’s work the group. It’s nice to have some outside ear-opening collision: orderly classicism, and Peak Performances’ mission. input; you get an injection of new ideas.” jarring dissonances, country rock, Hyeyung Julie Yoon of the Chiara adds, bombastic British theater style, and “Each quartet has its own vision “A really animated conversation is a moments that evoke hymn, tribal that I want to honor and celebrate,” good way to describe an octet chanting, and old-time fiddling. A Wheeler says. “It’s about all the performance—you feed each other sprawling, 25-years-in-the-making different places they can go, how as you respond to a melody.” work for orchestra, choir, and five to broad music can be.” ten soloists, the piece won four 2006 While duo quartet collaborations Grammy Awards for a recording made are relatively unusual, one of the at the . Ronni Reich’s writing has appeared in the touchstones of the string repertoire is Washington Post, Back Stage, and I Care If You Mendelssohn’s String Octet, op. 20, Bolcom’s latest work, his String Quartet Listen. She was a staff writer and classical music which was an inspiration for Bolcom. no. 12, which falls to the Shanghai critic for the Star-Ledger from 2009 to 2015.

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