American Masterpieces Chamber Music America Singing by Marcia Young ow in its second season, the NEA’s America were hymn collections—starting American Masterpieces: Chamber with William Billings’s influentialThe England NMusic initiative has already proved Psalm Singer, of 1770. Billings was a tanner, a boon to U.S. composers, performers, an itinerant singing teacher, and a self-taught school groups, and concertgoers. A glance musician of rare originality: a seminal figure What’s red and white at the CMA website (and at the 17-month whose influence spread southward along the performance calendar starting on page 132 Appalachian chain and eventually westward and blue all over? of this issue) will attest to the variety of across America. Billings and his fellow ensembles and presenters that have been New Englander Jeremiah Ingles are Among other things, awarded grants, as well as the wide range of represented on this program in their hymn uses to which the funds have been applied, tunes “Euroclydon” and “Honor to the as multifarious as the program’s namesake Hills” (Ingles’s adaptation of a ballad tune, this year’s concert programs nation. “Captain Kid”). The hymn “Bound for the The Western Wind, a group with an Promised Land” is believed to be the first by Cantus and The Western active commissioning program going back piece ever published in North America by a 40 years, had the perfect program already woman, one “Miss M. Durham.” Wind vocal ensembles. in place and were eager to disseminate it. The strong and simple outlines of this The grant enabled a radio broadcast and a opening set serve to frame the rest of the variety of live performances of “O Beautiful! program, which surveys 20th- and 21st- American Music”—a program anchored century chamber vocal works from a wide by a set of folk hymns from the Colonial variety of traditions—including popular and period and embracing new 21st-century jazz works by Gershwin, Ellington, Bernstein, pieces written specifically for this ensemble. Brian Wilson, Billy Joel—and an array of The earliest music publications in commissions and arrangements from “art 62 october 2009 “Once you get past the music” composers with whom The Western details,” said Zukof, in-captivity,” originally set e.e. cummings’s Wind has forged alliances over the years. sonnet “i thank You God for most this “O Beautiful!” proved adaptable for “‘O Beautiful!’ covers a amazing day” for a workshop at the Mark school groups and workshops, as well as for Twain Junior High School on Coney Island. concert audiences. A Western Wind Work- fascinating repertoire that Viewing the poem as a sort of “modern shop performance at Bennington College psalm,” Levine created an appealing on Columbus Day weekend provided the arrangement with lively rhythms supporting ideal opportunity to introduce the full- is not grounded in any one the poem’s joyous, celebratory message. (The length, splendidly manifold program. “This much-performed arrangement has become was part of a residency,” said William school of composition.” a particular hit with choirs in Asia.) Zukof, a founding member of The Western Tenor Richard Slade’s Gershwin arr- Wind. “In addition to the workshop itself angement (“There’s a Boat That’s Leavin’ we went into local high schools, did a Ronald Gold made a gift to The Western Soon for New York”) and a clever pastiche, America couple of concerts, and gave a lecture- Wind of a three-piece set titled Bop Prophets, “America/Route 66,” by former member demonstration on the New England Singing based on texts by the 1950s “Beat” poets Gayla Morgan, are program highlights. Billy School movement.” On another occasion, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, and Joel’s “And So It Goes,” a natural crowd- at the New-York Historical Society, The Allen Ginsberg. “These poems cry out with pleaser, caused a bit of cross-genre confusion Western Wind swung emphasis away from love and contempt for these United States at the New York Times. (Zukof received an the 18th century and turned in a solidly at mid-century,” wrote Gold. His setting of e-mail from the Culture Desk declaring its contemporary version of the program—for Kerouac’s “Mexico Fellaheen,” underlain intention to list the performance, but a packed house. by a Latin beat, expresses Kerouac’s empathy requesting that Billy Joel’s name be removed One of The Western Wind’s longtime with the “pure land,” as well as his heady because the listings editor would not know composer allies is William Bolcom. “Bill I sense of border-crossing escape from uptight what to do with the item.) met at a party at [composer] Eric Saltzman’s 1950s America. “Once you get past the details,” said house back in 1967 or so,” said Zukof. The impetus behind Matthew Harris’s Zukof, “‘O Beautiful!’ covers a fascinating “He was playing brilliant piano rags. lyrical barcarolle “Sweet and Low” was the repertoire that is not grounded in any one When he found out that we were doing the name of the ensemble itself. Harris searched school of composition. “If anything, it 1594 madrigal comedy Amfiparnasso, he the Internet for texts referring to, well, the crosses boundaries. Like Tania [León]’s piece came to the performance and brought his Western wind (“…Wind of the western [Batéy], which so wonderfully integrates producer from Nonesuch. Amfiparnasso sea…”). His setting combines intricately Afro-Cuban music with what we do.” A had been one of his favorite pieces since he interlacing vocal lines with a touching sim- Latin dance beat is vigorously present in was 12…. He used to hang out in the Seattle plicity of utterance that honors Tennyson’s this winning excerpt, whose title, says León, Public Library, looking at scores.” Satires for verse. This piece, too, was presented as a refers to the central gathering place of the madrigal group, a set of five songs, resulted gift to The Western Wind. “Africanos” on a plantation. from this encounter, and two are included The Ur-minimalist Philip Glass is here “O Beautiful! American Music” was in this program. “We didn’t even pay,” said too, in an excerpt from the 1981 film score originally aired as a July 4 American music Zukof. “Nobody knew who he was. This Koyaanisqatsi (from the Hopi, “life out of special in 2008 and will continue to be was decades before his Pulitzer prize.” balance”). Meredith Monk (accurately broadcast via PRX (Public Radio Exchange). The madrigal comedy, a regrettably short- described as “a magician of the voice”) is A CD of the program is currently in post- lived 16th-century tradition, has found new represented in her “Basket Rondo” from production and will be available for down- life in another, very recent Western Wind 2008. Visual elements are strong in Monk’s loading on The Western Wind website. commission performed on the ensemble’s aesthetic. Here, her vision of a pre-industrial Cantus, the Twin Cities-based men’s American Masterpieces series: Eric Salzman’s work ethic—people working in co- vocal ensemble, applied its American Jukebox in the Tavern of Love. “There’s lots operation—finds expression in the textless Masterpieces grant to an ambitious in-school of hocket,” said Zukof, “very difficult.” True interweaving of vocal lines. program. Tenor and artistic co-director Aaron to the genre’s antic, narrative character, The Western Wind has always numbered Humble explained, “We worked with three Salzman’s piece is set in a New York bar talented arrangers and composers among its schools—one rural, one urban, one suburban. during a blackout. The singers represent a own members. Founding member Elliot Z. We visited each one, and then sent a trio of clutch of characters—from a rabbi to a Levine, described as the group’s “composer- guys to do classroom work on vocal tech- Broadway hoofer to a Con Ed worker. continued on pg 173 63 continued from pg 63 nique—encouraging a sound that is more kids were saying,” explains Humble. “She orite color,” says Humble. “The hallways released, more grounded, into the body. did some exercises with the kids to get were a big sea of green.” As students spoke We did sound work with some of their them to produce text for her. When it of their loss, their emotion became a part repertoire, plus we did pieces we would be came time to put the piece together, you of Bosch’s piece. “Other times, the comments working on with them.” could hear kids in the different choirs expressed more mundane feelings and Cantus visited each school six times over saying, ‘This part is from our school.’” desires: ‘I can’t wait to break up with that the course of a year. At year’s end, all the Like speech in everyday life, the texts in creep,’ ‘I can’t wait to get my car back,’ ‘I schools came together for a final session the piece ran the gamut from the trivial to want to hang out with my friends.’ For and performance. “We allowed each the profound; and Bosch and her subjects these kids, singing their own text, it was a chorus to do a couple of pieces on its created beauty, meaning and immediacy new experience in individual, personal own,” said Humble, “and we performed a from could be termed “found poetry.” expression—like singing a text by, say, couple of pieces ourselves. Then everyone “Maura likes to use text that is not Walt Whitman.” How very American. collaborated on a number of pieces.” But necessarily verse,” says Humble. “Her music what really set the process apart from is pretty innovative, for vocal music.