I’m just about brain-dead, after covering successive opening nights for this year’s two big operas. But before I collapse, I’ve just gotta tell you about the kinds of music that Amistad composer Anthony Davis writes when he’s not working on an opera (he’s got five of ‘em under his belt).
I’ve heard (and thoroughly enjoyed) his music in festivals past – mostly in Piccolo Spoleto events – and I’ve met and spoken with him several times. So – my appetite whetted by Thursday’s Amistad outing – I was there with bells on for Saturday’s opening Music in Time concert at the Simons Center Recital Hall. The entire program was devoted to Davis’s remarkable music. And it turned out to be something of a family affair.
The packed hall rang first to Lost Moon Sisters, setting the poetry of Diana di Prima. Joining a small ensemble of various instruments (mostly strings, woodwinds and percussion) from the formidable Spoleto Festival Orchestra was the composer’s wife, soprano Cynthia Aaronson-Davis, to deliver the vocal component. The composer himself did the honors at the piano.
It turned out to be quite a ride, covering an impressive range of moods and sentiments. The same Afro-American influences that beguiled me in Amistad were to be savored here, too. Intense, progressive jazz was his home base – but it rose to a more classical level of complex intensity. It kept me on my mental toes, with sharp harmonic flashes and cunning meter shifts.
Ms. Davis owns an attractive voice, and she applied it well to her demanding part. You could tell she knew the music intimately. I only wish I’d had the poetry text in front of me, as it’s often hard to understand sung words – especially from a soprano. Also, the fab instrumentalists, with series host John Kennedy conducting, sounded great – but they tended to drown out the soloist here and there.
Then came a piano solo: the Goddess Variations, with Davis again at the keyboard. As he explained to us, it was born of his doodling at the piano while composing Amistad –namely the part devoted to the Goddess of the Waters, an African nature-deity who figures prominently in the opera. The piece was a sort of loosely structured fantasia, with room left for improvised passages. Davis mesmerized us with it, evoking the same sense of pantheistic mystery that I picked up on in the Goddess’s ravishing aria last Thursday.
The next item was ‘Mama help Me,’ a fairly brief “aria” of sorts from Davis’s 1986 opera X – the Life and Times of Malcolm X. The role is that of the boy Malcolm, as he tries to get through to his deranged mother. It was delivered – straightforwardly but nicely – by the composer’s young son, Jonah – who looked like he really didn’t want to be there. Mayhaps he’d never sung to a packed house before. Hey, how else does a kid learn to be a performer? He got the best possible backup from his dad, plus a few instrumentalists.
You Have the Right to Remain Silent — the big, brazen final number – packed most of the previous musicians back onstage, plus a few new ones – the most interesting of whom was clarinetist J.D. Parran. He packed not only a regular clarinet, but a rare beast I’d never seen (or heard) before: the contra-alto model: apparently a step betwixt the standard bass and contrabass clarinets.
Davis quipped that this was probably the only music ever inspired by the Miranda act – and, in the busy, jazzy course of its three movements, you could sense a city’s kinetic pace and metropolitan menace (even touches of the ghetto). This could be TV soundtrack music for some big-city metro crime series – except it’s too good for the likes of network TV. An interesting touch was the musicians chanting the title words here and there during the music.
Parran got everything from wimpy whispers to great, warbling wails out of his various clarinets. Another standout was percussionist Gerry Hemingway (he’s worked with Davis for decades), adding deft improvisatory touches. Kennedy led a cool and catchy account.
It was pure pleasure to hear a full hour of Davis’s remarkable music – and to gain valuable introductory insights from its creator.
More from Amistad Composer Anthony Davis
I’m just about brain-dead, after covering successive opening nights for this year’s two big operas. But before I collapse, I’ve just gotta tell you about the kinds of music that Amistad composer Anthony Davis writes when he’s not working on an opera (he’s got five of ‘em under his belt).
I’ve heard (and thoroughly enjoyed) his music in festivals past – mostly in Piccolo Spoleto events – and I’ve met and spoken with him several times. So – my appetite whetted by Thursday’s Amistad outing – I was there with bells on for Saturday’s opening Music in Time concert at the Simons Center Recital Hall. The entire program was devoted to Davis’s remarkable music. And it turned out to be something of a family affair.
The packed hall rang first to Lost Moon Sisters, setting the poetry of Diana di Prima. Joining a small ensemble of various instruments (mostly strings, woodwinds and percussion) from the formidable Spoleto Festival Orchestra was the composer’s wife, soprano Cynthia Aaronson-Davis, to deliver the vocal component. The composer himself did the honors at the piano.
It turned out to be quite a ride, covering an impressive range of moods and sentiments. The same Afro-American influences that beguiled me in Amistad were to be savored here, too. Intense, progressive jazz was his home base – but it rose to a more classical level of complex intensity. It kept me on my mental toes, with sharp harmonic flashes and cunning meter shifts.
Ms. Davis owns an attractive voice, and she applied it well to her demanding part. You could tell she knew the music intimately. I only wish I’d had the poetry text in front of me, as it’s often hard to understand sung words – especially from a soprano. Also, the fab instrumentalists, with series host John Kennedy conducting, sounded great – but they tended to drown out the soloist here and there.
Then came a piano solo: the Goddess Variations, with Davis again at the keyboard. As he explained to us, it was born of his doodling at the piano while composing Amistad –namely the part devoted to the Goddess of the Waters, an African nature-deity who figures prominently in the opera. The piece was a sort of loosely structured fantasia, with room left for improvised passages. Davis mesmerized us with it, evoking the same sense of pantheistic mystery that I picked up on in the Goddess’s ravishing aria last Thursday.
The next item was ‘Mama help Me,’ a fairly brief “aria” of sorts from Davis’s 1986 opera X – the Life and Times of Malcolm X. The role is that of the boy Malcolm, as he tries to get through to his deranged mother. It was delivered – straightforwardly but nicely – by the composer’s young son, Jonah – who looked like he really didn’t want to be there. Mayhaps he’d never sung to a packed house before. Hey, how else does a kid learn to be a performer? He got the best possible backup from his dad, plus a few instrumentalists.
You Have the Right to Remain Silent — the big, brazen final number – packed most of the previous musicians back onstage, plus a few new ones – the most interesting of whom was clarinetist J.D. Parran. He packed not only a regular clarinet, but a rare beast I’d never seen (or heard) before: the contra-alto model: apparently a step betwixt the standard bass and contrabass clarinets.
Davis quipped that this was probably the only music ever inspired by the Miranda act – and, in the busy, jazzy course of its three movements, you could sense a city’s kinetic pace and metropolitan menace (even touches of the ghetto). This could be TV soundtrack music for some big-city metro crime series – except it’s too good for the likes of network TV. An interesting touch was the musicians chanting the title words here and there during the music.
Parran got everything from wimpy whispers to great, warbling wails out of his various clarinets. Another standout was percussionist Gerry Hemingway (he’s worked with Davis for decades), adding deft improvisatory touches. Kennedy led a cool and catchy account.
It was pure pleasure to hear a full hour of Davis’s remarkable music – and to gain valuable introductory insights from its creator.