Saturday, May 21, 2005
Post-Classical Ensemble
"Planos," by Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas, "sounds like 300 mariachi bands all playing at once," conductor Angel Gil-Ordoñez said at a concert Thursday by the Post-Classical Ensemble at the Mansion at Strathmore. "Planos" ("Layers") began and ended the evening in smashing performances -- with six more works in between.
The entire program was devoted to music by "Mexican revolutionaries," Gil-Ordoñez said, "who not only worked amid the turmoil of the last century's Mexican revolution, but also revolutionized Mexican music" with a new fusion of indigenous styles and the classical musical language of Paris and Vienna.
These words rang true not only for "Planos" but also for works by Manuel M. Ponce and Carlos Chavez. The ensemble's coursing solos and energetic teamwork nailed down the counterpoint of ideas in "Planos," a virtual battle among sustained dissonances, hammering rhythms and folkish motifs.
Four musicians joined in Revueltas's String Quartet No. 4, keeping the audience focused on their clashing bows and fierce attacks of massed polytonal chords. The foursome also played Chavez's String Quartet No. 1 in a stirring succession of gentle lyricism and suspenseful austerity.
Ponce's grandnephew, Omar Herrera-Arizmendi, played four of the composer's piano pieces, combining introspection with folkish Mexican melodiousness and the ferocious pianistic demands of a Chopin or Liszt.
-- Cecelia Porter
The Outlaws
Ahorde of forty-somethings brought their air guitars to the Birchmere on Thursday for a reunion show of the catchiest and jammingest of the Southern rock bands, the Outlaws.
Three first-generation Outlaws -- singer-guitarists Henry Paul and Hughie Thomasson and drummer Monte Yoho -- are among the seven-piece band on the tour, which was put together to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the band's first LP.
Time hasn't diminished the derivative nature of that record. Soon after he founded Arista in the mid-1970s, industry mogul Clive Davis made the Florida-based act the label's first rock band in hopes of catching the Southern rock wave that Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers were riding. The Outlaws lacked Skynyrd's attitude and the Allmans' aptitude, but they borrowed liberally from both acts.
Paul and Thomasson wrote fabulous pop songs for the Outlaws and showed they can still sing 'em during "Hurry Sundown" and "There Goes Another Love Song." The harmonies on a powerhouse version of the Louvin Brothers nugget "Knoxville Girl" reminded fans that the Outlaws could play country rock as well as anybody in the '70s. But standard pop and traditional country song structures didn't allow for the terminal guitar jams that Southern rock fans demanded.
Although the solo breaks packed more cliches than a Super Bowl news conference, Thomasson and Chris Anderson (a guitarist who joined the Outlaws in the 1980s) delivered every familiar note with such gusto that by the end of each run much of the crowd was on its feet and air-guitaring.
The Outlaws' greatest period piece was saved for last. Before kicking into the epic "Green Grass and High Tides," Thomasson promised "the long version," meaning the original rendition on the Outlaws' debut album, which clocked in at 9 minutes 47 seconds, just wasn't long enough. For Outlaws fans, it wasn't.
-- Dave McKenna
Sisters in Jazz Collegiate All-Stars
It seemed almost redundant when the Sisters in Jazz Collegiate All-Stars performed "Firm Roots" at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage on Thursday evening. After all, before the sextet got around to playing the Cedar Walton tune, it already had demonstrated its familiarity with the music of Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Freddie Hubbard. Winners of an annual international competition, the young women proved well versed in swing, blues and variations of bop throughout the hour-long performance. In addition to flutist Delandria Mills and bassist Maeve Royce, who have ties to the Baltimore area, the group boasts alto saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin, trumpeter Jacquelyn Coleman, pianist Carmen Staaf and drummer Hanne Pulli.
Under the guidance of veteran drummer Sylvia Cuenca, the musicians formed a surprisingly cohesive ensemble. The tunes allowed for a variety of moods, ranging from the loping blues of Hancock's "Drifting" to a vibrant take on Hubbard's "Red Clay," and though most of the pieces were vintage, they were revived with well-wrought solos and crisp ensemble work. At one point Cuenca sat in for Pulli, adding plenty of propulsive thrust to "Firm Roots," but even then the spotlight was on her gifted proteges. The front line was particularly impressive when introducing or restating the themes with colorful weaves. An original ballad, composed by Pulli and featuring pianist Staaf's lyrical touch, sustained a lovely interlude. Sponsored by the International Association for Jazz Education, the performance was presented in conjunction with the Kennedy Center's Mary Lou Williams in Jazz Festival, which concludes tonight.
-- Mike Joyce
Jarboe and Renee Nelson
The ordinarily dreary Nation was decorated like a high school gymnasium on Thursday night for the annual Alchemy-sponsored Goth Prom, with streamers stretched across the room and a carpet of balloons on the floor. Amid this cheesy decor -- and the inevitable popping of balloons -- former Swans vocalist Jarboe and keyboardist Renee Nelson flew through a brief but passionate 45-minute set.
Jarboe looked like a Goth version of Cher, with long black hair draping over a flowing sheer dress that provocatively swished around her vinyl panties. But her scanty attire wasn't the only thing that commanded attention: Her nearly operatic voice swelled through the room as she belted out Blind Faith's "Can't Find My Way Home" over a simple keyboard-and-strings arrangement. She projected passion without melodrama, capturing a range of emotions from melancholy to anger as she repeated the phrase "I try to remember everything that's lost" (from "Seizure").
Despite her headlining status, Jarboe attracted a paltry crowd in the concert room, as most of the promgoers chose to dance in the DJ room. Unfortunately, the thumping of dance beats could be heard in both rooms and overpowered an a cappella duet between Jarboe and Nelson on the traditional "Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes." Even with that setback, Jarboe delivered a powerful performance -- one that would have been better suited to a smaller, more intimate venue that wasn't simultaneously hosting a dance party a few feet away.
-- Catherine P. Lewis
Choral Arts Society of Washington
"Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" are the consolatory, telling words from the Lutheran Bible that open Johannes Brahms's beloved "A German Requiem." Rather than conjure up the ferocity and all-encompassing power of a final judgment of a departed soul, this seven-movement choral masterwork speaks more gently to those left behind.
On Thursday evening at the Kennedy Center, the Choral Arts Society of Washington moved gracefully and touchingly through this rich score.
"A German Requiem" gets a lot of concert time, so it was a relief to hear the society's music director, Norman Scribner, draw out such an impassioned and intelligent performance. The chorus continually imbued the texts with a glowing yet carefully delineated sound. Whether in the gentle textures of the opening or the more stressed chords of the second movement, each chorus section skillfully dropped in and out of the foreground with fine intonation, rhythmic exactitude and careful diction.
Baritone David Arnold brought a noble simplicity to the texts, deploying a well-rounded if somewhat small voice. Soprano Twyla Robinson's lovely singing was the equivalent of a musical balm, as she radiantly floated above the chorus with a motherly sweetness. This strong performance held together nicely throughout, as these ardent solos mingled with the blossoming chorus and energetic orchestra, which everywhere played with sensitivity and polish.
-- Daniel Ginsberg
Krisztina David and Marko Kathol
Vienna and Budapest sent two of their best operetta singers to Washington for concerts Thursday at the Hungarian Embassy and last night and tonight at the Austrian Embassy. On Thursday evening, under the auspices of the Embassy Series, soprano Krisztina David and tenor Marko Kathol were accompanied idiomatically by Washington pianist George Peachey, who also joined Washington violinist Peter Sirotin in a sizzling performance of four Brahms "Hungarian Dances."
David began her performing career as a dancer, and she moves with the kind of grace associated with that discipline, but her key qualities in this program were a silvery upper register and a subtle sense of humor. She used them with brilliant effect in Adele's laughing song from "Die Fledermaus" and the Vilja song from "The Merry Widow," among other selections.
Kathol showed considerable skill as an actor -- comic in his intoxicated treatment of the Maxim's song from "The Merry Widow" and dramatically intense in "Komm, Zigan" ("Play, Gypsy") from "Countess Mariza," which was the primary highlight of a program filled with them.
The two worked smoothly together in several duets, most memorably "Lippen schweigen," the "Merry Widow" waltz, where they danced as well as sang.
-- Joseph McLellan