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MATA Festival 2009, Concert II: Sawako, Ne(x)tworks, (Le) Poisson Rouge, New York City, 1.4.2009 (BH)

Sawako: then, opening again
Sawako: faucet and water drop – for laptop, faucet and glass
Sawako: sign and sigh – for two violins and sine tone
Kate Moore: "Sensitive Spot" from Music Out of The City (2007)
Christopher McIntyre: Raster for quintet (2008-2009)
Shelly Burgon: Josephine's Tiger (2008)
Cornelius Dufallo: mindscape 2 (2009) 
Sawako, music and projections

Ne(x)tworks:
Joan La Barbara (voice), Kenji Bunch (viola), Shelley Burgon (harp), Yves Dharamraj (cello), Cornelius Dufallo (violin), Miguel Frasconi (glass), Stephen Gosling (piano), Ariana Kim (violin), Chris McIntyre (trombone)


The second of the four MATA Festival concerts held at (Le) Poisson Rouge (the closest thing in New York to a classical night club) had me pondering the act of performance, and what it means to actually watch people working onstage.  For the first half of the program, audio and video artist Sawako, her face glowing from her laptop, manipulated sounds as images flooded a small screen behind her.  The pieces are filled with electronic clouds of sound that gently morph from haze to haze, with much internal coloration audible.  Violinists Cornelius Dufallo and Ariana Kim joined in on one work, along with Miguel Frasconi playing his signature glass instruments.

But despite moments of interest in all three (titled then, opening again; faucet and water drop; and sign and sigh) my mind grew restless watching the composer sit virtually motionless in front of her computer.  Many of her aural effects were quite beautiful, but I couldn't help but wonder if her work might be more effective on recording than in live performance.

After intermission, when Ne(x)tworks took the stage, a skeptical neighbor whispered, "Ah, people playing actual instruments — how retro."  The performance did raise questions about what one actually looks at while listening to music, and the accompanying video images, while not without interest, didn't quite satisfy.  Perhaps a camera could be positioned above the keyboard, enabling the audience to visually eavesdrop on what she is doing, specifically her real-time compositional decisions. Other than that, I don't have any concrete solutions to this recurring dilemma.  My skepticism is probably the minority view, given the fervent audience response.

To open the second half, Stephen Gosling unleashed Kate Moore's Sensitive Spot, in which the pianist plays along with a recording of himself, creating a wall of sound surging and retreating.  However, the title gives no clue of the gigantic chords to come, hammered out at breakneck speed virtually nonstop in a work that could conceivably give its interpreter carpal tunnel syndrome.  The chord sequences are delivered so fast that when coupled with the recorded ones, they register as sounds hovering in space, resonating far beyond the actual instrument.  For a test of sheer hand speed, this would be hard to top.  Gosling, Dufallo and Kim returned, along with Kenji Bunch (viola) and Yves Dharamraj (cello) for the surprisingly glowing Raster for quintet, written by Christopher McIntyre, MATA's artistic director.  McIntyre's past output didn't quite prepare me for some of his flat-out beautiful sonorities.

Joan La Barbara's shimmering vocals floated through Josephine's Tiger by Shelley Burgon, the group's harpist, and made even more glistening with the return of Frasconi's glass instrumentarium.  Written for the full Ne(x)tworks ensemble throwing out droplets of sound, as for the soundtrack of the title animal, dreaming in some updated Saki short story.  To close, Dufallo was centerstage in his own mindscape 2, almost like a mini-violin concerto with tremolo-filled passages and a formidable cadenza-like sequence.  The rest of the group coalesced around him in buzzing empathy.

Bruce Hodges


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