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PERFORMING ARTS
Members of the Wolf Trap Opera Company perform music from "Carmen" in "Murder & Other Operatic Mayhem."
(By Scott Suchman)
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The two-stringed fiddle ( dan nyi ) told the "Harvest Story." Thu Giang's animated playing alternated between something like a fiery bluegrass hoedown and sweet lyricism.
A full ensemble backed up the soloists, playing hanging marimbas, drums, lutes, a hammered zither and the odd k'longput, which is never touched. Instead of striking the bamboo tubes, hands are clapped over the holes to produce a coke-bottle sound.
Dances alternated with the instrumental numbers. Sadly, they were accompanied only by over-orchestrated music from a boombox. As is common in Asian dance, the performers' expression came through detailed movements in the arms and hands.
-- Tom Huizenga
Attacca Percussion Group
An eight-minute piece of music played only on claves could be downright painful or, at the very least, strikingly dull. But Friday at the Arts Club of Washington, the Attacca Percussion Group embraced Mary Ellen Childs's 1990 work "Click" more as performance art than chamber music. Attacca's Marc Dinitz, Adam Green and Scott Pollard moved like jugglers as they performed the tightly synchronized choreography specified in the score. Standing shoulder to shoulder, striking each other's claves -- pairs of cylindrical hardwood sticks -- first to the left, then to the right, even tossing the stubby instruments with a casual flip and hitting them high over their heads; the impressive effect was certainly more visual than musical.
While "Click" proved what the group could do with just one note, Green's arrangement of Alberto Ginastera's "Tres Piezas" (1940), originally for piano, proved what they could do at a single instrument. Standing before an enormous marimba, the three shared the space with balletic grace as their mallets danced over the wooden bars. The piece was rewarding to watch, especially as Dinitz briefly took over the playing space for a three-octave glissando. Since notes played on marimba die out quickly, tremolos and trills approximated sustained chords, lending an ethereal quality to the performance.
Also on marimba, the group tackled Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. With soft mallets and smooth technique, the piece, arranged by Pollard, was convincing. The three had excellent command of dynamic range, although the execution didn't quite fully capture the stirring emotional value of the piece.
-- Gail Wein
