Kile Smith

Warmth on Now Is the Time

Kile Smith — Mon, 20 May 2013 01:41:20 +0000

The cold snap is behind us and we’re feeling the warmth of spring on Now Is the Time, Sunday, May 19th at 10 pm. Ingrid Arauco’s Florescence buzzes and hums for the flute and harpsichord of Mélomanie, and Derek Bermel brings Thracian Sketches in all its Bulgarian-inspired rhythms to viola and percussion.

George Tsontakis takes us to the Mediterranean with orchestral Gymnopedies that are more Greek than French, but France infuses the sound of Avner Dorman’s Moments Musicaux for piano.

Things heat up with the computerized kicks of Thrum by John Gibson, and finally, with the two electric guitars that rock David Lang’s Warmth.

Night Cadenza on Now Is the Time

Kile Smith — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:25:52 +0000

It’s different ways to say good night on Now is the Time, Sunday, April 28th at 10 pm. Alex Freeman’s solo piano Night on the Prairies leads to a sextet in Jeremy Beck’s In Flight until Mysterious Night (and do we hear Steely Dan in there?). Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble then runs with the Night of the Flying Horses of Osvaldo Golijov.

Then, two quartets. Night Blossoms of Mary Jane Leach is a haiku for four singers, and the four string instruments of Kronos play Terry Riley’s long-breathed Cadenza on the Night Plain, out into that good night.

Kile Smith Recommends: Francis Pott, In the Heart of Things

Kile Smith — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:34:51 +0000

Whether communication is too easy, or articulation is too difficult, our time is not a time of counterpoint. Instead of corresponding, we post or tweet; instead of reasoning, we shout and repeat, louder and louder. Music is often an event or a stepping-up of rungs of events: hooks and ladders, clanging past, looking for a fire.

In the Heart of Things: Choral Music of Francis Pott
Commotio. Matthew Berry, conductor
Naxos 8.572739

The choral music of Francis Pott, however, flows by, refreshingly contrapuntal. That joy in the working of voices is particularly evident in his 2012 CD, In the Heart of Things. If counterpoint seems anti-modern, he admits it, and points to Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and other past masters of the polyphonic Mass as models. That’s appropriate, because In the Heart of Things is a collection of his choral music revolving around the most substantial work on the recording, his Mass for Eight Parts.

From the Kyrie through the Agnus Dei, this Mass is a triumph of intricate beauty. Upper, middle, and lower streams of voices glide by and mingle, their complexity unnoticed because they shimmer. Sometimes they sneak in, as the “Hosanna” does at first in the Sanctus, or roll in waves, gathering strength as at the end of that movement.

Sometimes the power is overwhelming, as at the end of the Gloria, the final “Amen” surging, unexpected, rank upon rank. Pott composed the Agnus Dei in memory of someone he didn’t know, a past singer of the choir that commissioned this. His gentle, pointed lyricism melts the voices into a sea of comfort.

Francis Pott was raised in the English chorister tradition, and knows this repertoire from the inside. His setting of a familiar text, such as Balulalow (known by many from Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols), or the new Mary’s Carol (Pott wrote this in memory of his father-in-law), always balances freshness of expression with aptness to the language.

His Lament honors a soldier killed in Afghanistan. Using the poem of Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, “But we, how shall we turn to little things / And listen to the birds… nor feel the heart-break in the heart of things,” we know the composer feels deeply what we also feel. This fellow-feeling is at the heart of artistry.

Francis Pott weaves a living counterpoint of music and emotion because he himself has sung it. His music breathes the life of tradition, but it is ever fresh, ever modern.

An Interview With MAD MEN Composer David Carbonara

Kile Smith — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:20:09 +0000

The popular AMC series Mad Men is now in its 6th season. Listen back to a revealing and humorous interview with David Carbonara from March, 2012, as he shares the inside story on how he writes music for Mad Men, how creator Matthew Weiner chooses the '60s songs, and how it's all mixed together to make a hit TV series.

David, a former trombonist, spices the show with jazz-tinged music that lends flavor as much as the crisp dialogue and mod decor.

Over the Green Earth on Now is the Time

Kile Smith — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 00:01:47 +0000

We’re trying to kick-start spring on Now is the Time, Sunday, March 24th at 10 pm. Leaps and Bulls is all funky frogs and swamps, from the group Blob. Yes, Blob. Gary Schocker tempts us out of the house with Out of Doors Duets for two flutes, and Ned Rorem’s long-limbed Day Music and Night Music is for violin and piano.

The Symphony No. 5 of Charles Fussell is an expansive memorial to Virgil Thomson, and Ronn McFarlane honors all things spring with modern music for the lute, in Over the Green Earth.

How Delius Fell in Love with Music in Florida

Kile Smith — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 11:38:59 +0000

On Discoveries from the Fleisher Collection, March 9th at 5 pm...The young Englishman watched the cigar smoke dance slowly as it dissipated into the hot, thick air. He was sitting on the porch of a cottage in an orange grove called Solano on a sleepy bank of a river named the St. Johns, a long, lazy waterway born in the southern marshes and in no hurry to creep up eastern Florida to lap, finally, into the Atlantic. St. Augustine was close by to the east, but 1884 St. Augustine was not yet a city, nowhere near a city, hardly a town. In this lonely grove by the river, in the wilderness of the Florida interior, St. Augustine could have been in Yorkshire, the young Englishman’s home, for all that.

He lit another cigar. As the smoke melted, barely lifted by the St. Johns breeze, 22-year-old Fritz Delius was happy to be far from St. Augustine, far from Yorkshire, and as far from his father as he could be.

Incredible Purple on Now is the Time

Kile Smith — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 03:12:18 +0000

We’re in the blue to purple section of the color wheel on Now is the Time, Sunday, February 24th at 10 pm. The blues are brought to us by Frank Ticheli’s wind orchestra, John King’s string quartet for Ethel, and Libby Larsen’s flute and guitar homage to Dizzy Gillespie and Ray Charles.

A Christopher Campbell interval spans wavelengths so that we may meet Efraín Amaya’s Venezuelan-spiced flute concerto. Joshua Stamper’s Incredible Purple sings the boundary between blues and something ineffable. Well, there’s a trombone.

Episodes for Cello on Now is the Time

Kile Smith — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 16:48:32 +0000

The cello sings on Now is the Time, Sunday, February 17th at 10 pm. The seven-movement Sonata No. 2 for Unaccompanied Cello of Michael Hersch is a journey of lament, passion, and poignancy. There is darkness and depth in all of Hersch's music, but it is always leavened with an inescapable, sincere lyricism. This is thoroughly involving.

Allen Shawn has written operas on librettos by his brother, actor and playwright Wallace Shawn, music for the film My Dinner with Andre, and lots of piano and chamber music. He calls his own music eclectic, and there's always a wry element just around the corner. But don't allow that to cause you to miss his crafting of satisfying, skillful works, including these six Episodes for Cello and Piano.

Percy Grainger: Beyond Country Gardens

Kile Smith — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 16:29:38 +0000

If you know Percy Grainger at all, you know Country Gardens, that simple frolic every beginning pianist, every wind band, every school orchestra has assayed at one time or another. Percy Grainger knew that you would know that, and that’s why Percy Grainger grew to detest Country Gardens.

Coyoteway on Now is the Time

Kile Smith — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 23:13:22 +0000

We embrace ceremonies of healing on Now is the Time, Sunday, January 13th at 10 pm. Coyoteway is from a cycle of string quartets Curt Cacioppo has written on the Navajo creation story. Wreathed in smoke, and amid singing and dancing, the person seeks forgiveness through apology for past wrongs, and is healed.

David Maslanka composed Concerto for Trombone and Wind Ensemble as a tribute to a friend, flutist Christine Nield Capote, who was also a colleague to the soloist in this work, trombonist Tim Conner, and the conductor Gary Green. Its three movements are Requiem; Beloved; Be Content, Be Calm.