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School of
Music
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Weaving a Harmony
Of Teachers and Students
University of Iowa
Center for New Music
Merkin Concert Hall
An ensemble of faculty members
and graduate students from the University of Iowa performed strongly
on Tuesday night in a program of miscellaneous American pieces
from the last decade. They showed
their alertness at once in Mario Davidovsky's "Flashbacks," where
sudden unisons cracked across the stage from player to player.
David Gompper, director of the
university's Center for New Music,
was the conductor, responsible for
the concert's clarity and directness.
Of his creative talents, two pieces
by him on the program left a more
confusing impression. In "Finnegan's Wake" he pretty much let
Andrew Carlson get on with his Irish- style fiddle playing, adding the most
discreet drops of tone himself from
the piano. Mr. Carlson is a demon
fiddler, and his performance here
was serious and concentrated. The
other piece, "Don't Go There," was a
sequence of small thoughts for seven
unlikely companions.
The full ensemble of string quintet,
harp, piano, percussion and eight
winds came together for Noel
Zahler's "Agarttha," an impression
of a magic place in Umberto Eco's
"Foucault's Pendulum." Potential
problems of balance were eliminated
by having the wind group focused on
the bottom register, so the strings
could shine and dance above heavy
black sonorities and big gestures.
Appealing, and beautifully com posed, Bernard Rands's Concertino
for Oboe and Ensemble brought mellifluous playing from Mark Weiger in
the haunting solo part, fixated on one
note but fluidly circling away and
back, with delicate sounds from the
supporting mixed septet.
Paul Griffiths
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