“Christopher Cerrone’s melodic material was memorable without being trite… I was very much captivated by this powerful drama and its excellent performance.”
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Sequenza 21
Sequenza 21 featured Metropolis composer Elliot Cole’s new album release on April 21, 2011.
“Some of you might know Elliot Cole as a composer of concert music, Contributing Editor here at Sequenza 21, or as a doctoral student at Princeton. But do you know Cole as a… rapper? De Rerum, Elliot’s debut EP as a fast-talking MC, under the project moniker Oracle Hysterical, tackles lofty subject matter. According to Cole, "It’s a verse history of the world as I understand it (to c.2000BCE, after which, I discovered, history is mostly redundant), and also a general synthesis of, well, most every (nonfiction) book I’ve read in the last decade. The EP is available for free download via his website. If you enjoy this taste of Oracle Hysterical, you can check out their performance of a retelling of the Rake’s Progress alongside the Metropolis Ensemble at the MATA festival in NYC on May 12.”
Just got a note from Andrew Cyr inviting Sequenza 21 readers (and maybe some other less distinguished people) to a free party at Le Possion Rouge tomorrow night to celebrate the Metropolis Ensemble’s Grammy nomination for its Naxos recording of Avner Dorman’s Mandolin Concerto (Avi Avital (soloist) and Andrew Cyr (conductor) with Metropolis Ensemble). Avi, Andrew and the Metropolis crew will perform a few sets during the evening, including the Mandolin Concerto and, maybe, Andrew says, even “a Balkan music jam.” Not only is admission free but the first two drinks are on the house. The party start @7 and lasts until everyone goes home. What’s not to like?
The Red Possum (as I like to call it) is located at 158 Bleecker Street (a sacred place for those of us old to have caught Thelonious Monk on stage there in a different lifetime.)
On the second Naxos CD devoted to the music of Avner Dorman, concerti take center stage. At first blush, the composer seems to display a palpable streak of traditionalism. Triadic language abounds in his works and he makes many tips of the hat to Baroque music and neoclassicism. But there’s much more beneath this attractive, if familiar, surface. Dorman is also interested in uncovering some of the undiscovered potential of the concerto, exploring its capacity for different narrative arcs and recasting the genre with some unusual protagonists.
Indeed, it was for a work with an unlikely soloist, the Mandolin Concerto, written in 2006 for Avi Avital, that the disc has received the most attention. Avital’s incisive and nuanced performance has garnered a Grammy nomination. The Mandolin Concerto itself is one of the most adventurous works Dorman has yet composed. Its explorations of many timbres, orchestral effects, and myriad shifts of tempo & demeanor make it a dazzlingly mercurial and potent essay.
There’s more on the CD to recommend as well. The Metropolis Ensemble, with a passel of soloists in concertino tow, sparkle in the Concerto Grosso (2003).The work features virtuosic string writing and cinematic sweep. Indeed, here Dorman displays a fluency of orchestration that in places reminds one of John Corigliano, his teacher during doctoral studies at Juilliard.
One would be forgiven if they assumed going in that a Piccolo Concerto would be a piercing prospect and too limited a palette to work satisfactorily. I’m still not convinced that this is a genre that requires a plethora of options, but soloist Mindy Kaufman’s rendering of the Dorman concerto for the instrument reveals striking versatility. The piece itself combines jazzy rhythms, neo-Baroque signatures, and resonances of the pipes and whistles found in a variety of folk music traditions.
Written when he was just 20 years of age, Dorman’s Piano Concerto in A Major is a splashy technicolor work that embraces virtuosic showmanship, combining a prevailingly Neo-romantic aesthetic with occasional post-minimal ostinati. Pianist Eliran Avni captures the concerto’s spirit, performing its often dizzyingly paced passagework and cadenzas with pizzazz. While no one will mistake it for the mature voice found in the Mandolin Concerto, the youthful exuberance of the Piano Concerto is frequently charming.
Ilona Oltuski of Sequenza 21 interviewed Metropolis composer Avner Dorman ahead of the Israeli Philharmonic’s premiere of his new work.
“On an unusually warm day in September, I am sitting down with Israel-born composer, Avner Dorman, at New York’s Bryant Park Pain Quotidien café. Before long, I am privy to a sneak preview of his freshly finished score for his latest composition, Azerbaijani Dance. Based on a piano piece of the same name, Dorman’s latest composition will have its world premiere this October, with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta in Tel Aviv. This event will also ignite a season celebrating the legendary Maestro’s upcoming 50th Anniversary of his conducting debut.”