Eighth Blackbird Soars in Museum's Performance Series

By Christine Facciolo
Let’s get right to the point: eighth blackbird is the best contemporary classical chamber ensemble on earth. Maybe even in the universe.

Need proof? Since its formation by six Oberlin Conservatory students 20 years ago, it’s captured four Grammy Awards, issued seven acclaimed recordings and successfully commissioned and performed new works by composers such as David Lang, Steven Mackey, Missy Mazzoli and Steve Reich. The blackbirds also received the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions in 2016.

Eighth Blackbird contemporary classical chamber ensemble.
Photo from eighthblackbird.com.

The musicians are products of some of the country’s most prestigious music schools, including Oberlin Conservatory, the Juilliard School, the Curtis Institute, Northwestern University and the University of Cincinnati-College of Music. The current roster is made up of Nathalie Joachim,  flutes; Nick Photinos, cello; Michael Maccaferri, clarinets; Matthew Duvall, percussion; Yvonne Lam, violin and Lisa Kaplan, piano.

The blackbirds didn’t need to present any credentials to please the audience at the Delaware Art Museum on Saturday, though, where they offered a program of six pieces complementing the Museum’s collection and current exhibition Eye on Nature: Andrew Wyeth and John Ruskin.

Listening to these selections was a bit like walking through a museum: In fact, many of the pieces were composed by members of the Sleeping Giant musical collective, the works having been inspired by the art featured in the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation for Art. Eighth Blackbird applied the aural landscapes to the works of Wyeth and Ruskin.

Timo Andres’ Checkered Shade (2015) showed how tiny fragments of repeated material resolve into a larger pattern, in this case, an expressive chorale. Similarly, Jacob Cooper’s Cast (2015) built an aural analogue to an artistic process of absence with nostalgic gestures that trail off into a sonic encasement of Messianic-like piano chords, scratchy violin phrases and a repetitive vibraphone riff

John Luther Adams’ The Light Within (2007) offered an alluring sensory experience of the interplay of light and color through luxurious layers of sound and whimsical harmonies.

Furthering the nature connection, Duvall communicated with a tree in Matthew Burtner’s Song for Low Tree (2011). This was by far the most interesting piece on the program as evidenced by the number of concertgoers who gathered around Duvall to ask questions at intermission. Scored for a kit of wood blocks, log drum, low drum and bass drum, the piece uses interactive software to process the voice of the performer and the percussion sounds, merging these signals with tree exhalation ecoacoustics.

Robert Honstein explored the merger of the human body with the computational process in Pulse (2015) (from Conduit). Expansive lines in the flute and cello move through a cloud of asynchronous repeated notes, taking the listener right into the unseen world of the computer itself.

Duvall and Photinos gave a nod to acclaimed composer Steve Reich with a rendering of Clapping Music (1972) which sounded as fresh and unpredictable as it did when it was composed almost 50 years ago.

See www.delart.org.

See www.eighthblackbird.org.

The Wonder of "Wonderland" in Wilmington

Wonderland at Delaware Children's Theatre.
Photo by Mike Malaney.

By Guest Bloggers Traci Murphy and Mallory Murphy. Traci Murphy is editor & co-founder of Brandywine Buzz, a free weekly email and blog for parents in the Brandywine Valley. Her daughter Mallory, age 12, is a theatre enthusiast, actor and 6th Grader at Brandywine Springs School.

Fighting siblings. A dog that only listens sometimes. Questionable food and drink. Insane acquaintances. Picking your battles. A leader that has no patience left. If there was ever a theatre metaphor for parenthood, this mom thinks it’s Wonderland: Alice’s Rock & Roll Adventure, running at Delaware Children's Theatre February 24 through March 18.

Wonderland reminds us that "children and unicorns are fabulous monsters” — and together they have fabulous fun together onstage. Perfect for the "curiouser and curiouser” kids and tweens you’re corralling, Wonderland has fun music, plenty of dancing and audience participation to engage even the youngest theatre-goers (some parts are a smidge dark), and clever lines will amuse the adults that are tagging along. After all, we are all the Queen of Hearts sometimes — particularly when she tells Alice to “...best do what I say just because I said” — who can't relate to that? And while Alice and the Queen command your attention, your heart will be stolen by the little Dormouse who naps the scenes away.

Wonderland: Alice’s Rock & Roll Adventure raps and rhythms its way into stealing your heart while it rocks your socks off. 

The 'flowers' in the cast of Wonderland at Delaware Children's Theatre.
Photo by Sheena Brooker.

-Traci

I really enjoyed going to see Wonderland at the Delaware Children’s Theater! I was an actor in Madagascar at this theater this season, so it was very fun to get to see people that I work with performing in a new show. 

The show was really fun, and the actors were very talented. I think my favorite part of the show was the music — it made the play a lot different than the animated movie. The costumes were beautiful, especially the flowers. Good job, cast and crew! 

- Mallory

DSO's Third Chamber Concert Celebrates Black History Month

By Christine Facciolo

The Delaware Symphony Orchestra used the occasion of its third chamber series concert of the season to commemorate both Black History Month and the 50th anniversary of the passing of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The February 20 program, titled “Triumph over Adversity," featured an eclectic mix of solo piano pieces, chamber music, German Lieder and African-American spirituals performed by symphony members David Southorn (concertmaster), Philo Lee (principal cello), Lura Johnson (principal piano) and guest artist bass-baritone Kevin Deas.

Johnson opened the concert with a performance of Mendelssohn’s Rondo Capriccioso in E major. This is a work that contains the meaty technical challenges that showcase Johnson’s virtuosity, something DSO audiences rarely get to hear. She delivered the Andante section with suitable solemnity then launched into the Presto without hesitation.

Johnson was then joined by Southorn and Lee in a performance of the composer’s Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor. One could not help but be impressed by the unflagging passion and athleticism of the musicians. They gave it their considerable all. From the darkly etched and fiery opening movement, to the emotional slower passages and the skittering scherzo, they generated a palpable energy that culminated in a rousing and brilliant finale.

After intermission, bass-baritone Kevin Deas processed into the Gold Ballroom singing Wayfairing Stranger, an entrée to the segment of the program devoted to the spiritual. If Paul Robeson is considered to be the gold standard of this vocal fach, then Deas is not far behind. Deas’ voice was nothing short of breathtaking, as he applied it to some of the repertoire’s best-loved spirituals, including Wade in the Water and City Called Heaven.

Deas proved to be a most gracious artist as well, taking to the microphone to inform the audience about the function of the Negro spiritual as well as the unlikely collaboration between Czech composer Antonin Dvorak and the African-American classical composer Henry Burleigh, who made the arrangements of the spirituals heard this concert.

Deas also offered some personal insights into his selections, as in how his mother hated to hear him sing Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, until he explained that the song wasn’t a personal commentary on their relationship but rather an expression of despair and hopelessness.

Deas then offered several selections of Schubert Lieder that were in keeping with the concerts overall theme of life’s long journey, including Der Wegweiser (from “Die Winterreise”), Wohin (from “Die Schone Mullerin”), Im Abendrot and Dem Unendlichen. Johnson prefaced this section with an expressive yet unsentimental rendering of the composer’s lyrical Impromptu in G-flat major.

Deas also performed I Heard the Cry of Wild Geese, an expression of longing for home and loved ones, from Four Songs on Chinese Poetry by Pavel Haas, the Czech composer who perished in the Holocaust.

Johnson also performed Liszt’s transcription of Widmung (“Dedication”), a song that Robert Schumann had originally in 1856 for Clara Wieck, whom he married that year. Although her technical mastery would allow her to grandstand the more virtuosic passages, Johnson downplayed this aspect of the piece in favor of the fervor of Schumann’s music. She prefaced her performance with a reading of the German text and its accompanying English translation.

Deas concluded the concert with Deep River, a selection he called probably the best-known and best-loved spiritual.

See www.delawaresymphony.org.