SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL CONCERT REVIEW
 

“Keys to the Future,” Concerts I and III: Stephen Gosling, Karén Hakobyan, Eric Huebner, Marina Lomazov, Blair McMillen, Lisa Moore, Molly Morkoski, Joseph Rubenstein (pianists) (Le) Poisson Rouge, New York City, 25.5.2010 and 27.5.2010 (BH)

Although there is a ton of contemporary piano music out there, it has taken the vision and drive of Joseph Rubenstein to corral it all in an annual festival. This year Keys to the Future celebrated its fifth anniversary by moving to (Le) Poisson Rouge for three nights. (I had to miss the middle concert.) If to my ears the programming didn’t reflect the absolute zenith of diversity, it hardly mattered: many festivals reflect a certain aesthetic of their organizers, and at least this year, this one seemed to have jazz on its mind more than most.

Mr. Rubenstein kicked off the proceedings with two works, Valentin Silvestrov’s Hynme (2001), which reminded me somewhat of Charles Ives’s simpler moments. And in the grand pianistic tradition, Rubenstein offered his own Romance No. 4 (celestial) (2009), a sweet slice of repeated triplets and arpeggios. Molly Morkoski changed the pace considerably with three Ligeti etudes, staring with Fém, which here sounded almost like a rustic dance. Arc-en-ciel followed—a slow, steady walk to the finish at the far end of the keyboard—and she finished with a sparkling reading of Désordre.

Eric Huebner continued with two movements from Inner Banners, a 2002 set by Philippe Bodin. Plains inches very slowly through chords, contemplatively separated by silence, while Chains is much faster, its virtuosic filigree eventually trailing off into the piano’s upper reaches. Huebner concluded with Nikolai Kapustin’s devilish Two Concert Etudes—in two spirited parts from 1984. The first is a sunny rag and the second is more big-band jazzy, with a rat-a-tat-tat motif. This is difficult stuff, yet Huebner seemed to relish the challenges.

In 2008, composer Don Byron wrote 7 Etudes for Solo Piano for Lisa Moore, who played them here with zest, focus and maturity. The first one opens and closes with a repeated series of blips, a sort of Morse code motif; the second uses an ascending scale as its spine. Several of them incorporate vocalization, either from the pianist or from the audience. The final one sputters, gasping for breath. I’ve heard Moore do these, shortly after they were written, and as is often the case, her readings have only deepened over time, adding some quirky humor to Byron’s jazz-inflected studies.

More jazz influences closed the evening on a dazzling note with Marina Lomazov tackling Kapustin’s Variations, a monster of sharp edges tumbling over each other. Kapustin is not for the squeamish, but from Lomazov’s ultra-cool reading, she has nothing to be afraid of.

The final night, Rubenstein began with Bruce Stark’s Yours (2002), an introspective pool of quietude, followed by Romance No. 2 (aurora) (2009), a gentle reminder that not all pianists who compose adopt the “blizzards of notes” style.

Later Blair McMillen did a three-work set, starting with Philippe Hersant’s Six Éphémeres (1998), with evocative titles that reminded me of Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals. I especially liked the scurrying energy of “An Ant,” and the swirling power of the final “Hurricane.” Judd Greenstein’s First Ballade (2004) began quietly enough, but eventually grew in force. And to conclude, McMillen offered “Mardi Gras” (1992) by Richard Danielpour, whose ticklish exercise also included substantial nods to the jazz heritage of New Orleans.

An unexpected hit was the winner of the third annual Keys to the Future Young Artists Competition, Karén Hakobyan, who gave a commanding intensity to Vuk Kulenovic’s Virginal

(1982), a delicate score with some unexpected rough edges. Mr. Hakobyan has won numerous prizes already and seems destined for a stellar career. And Stephen Gosling closed down the evening with Kapustin’s Five Études in Different Intervals (1992), a fiendishly difficult set that takes the composer’s interest in jazz to dizzy, virtuosic heights. This is pianism at its most demanding, but it’s more than mere fireworks: there is real substance to these pieces. At least based on these two evenings, more Kapustin should be on the menus of pianists around town—those who are able to play him, that is.

Bruce Hodges