Here we go! This afternoon the Criers convened at the Forest Hills T Station to start the five-hour caravan up to Blue Hill, Maine. Kneisel Hall, a wonderful summer chamber music festival (of which six Criers are alums) has generously lent us their facilities for the week. Thanks, Ellen + Kneisel Hall! So now, after five hours on the road (suffering through the radio broadcast of a painful Red Sox loss), the surprise appearance at Kneisel of an old friend, dinner at the the local restaurant, and a first group meeting, it is time to relax, party, and go to bed! Rehearsals start at 9:30 tomorrow morning!
Summer Lessons
Summer can be a strange time for musicians. The situations we find ourselves in are usually the most relaxed (summer pops) or the most intense (chamber music festival) without very much of the usual in-between. Festivals of all kinds dominate the summer, and most of them invite musicians year to year with no future guarantees. We therefore scramble to network and impress our way to tangible "real life" advantage. Summer is not "real life" for a musician. That was doubly true for me and my early-summer festival (sadly concluded). The feeling of "alternative reality" was complete, for I was not only in a different country, thousands of miles from home, and thousands of feet higher in elevation: I was playing entirely different genres of music (most entirely new to me), I was composing and arranging pieces for public performance (also entirely new), and I was being musically stretched and challenged nearly to the breaking point!
The Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music was three tumultuous weeks of improvising. The first improvisation was simply figuring out what I was doing there. The Workshop is Banff's most selective program, and is truly international, with emerging and established professionals aged 18-40 attending in order to study with, jam with, and be inspired by a jaw-dropping revolving faculty. Some of the participants and faculty are straight-ahead jazzers, through and through. Some are drawn to the more experimental and avant-garde side of jazz. Some are drawn to the more experimental and avant-garde side of classical music. Some are so far outside of my previous experience that I don't even want to try to classify them, and some (workshop leader Dave Douglas, for example) are drawn to anything and everything. The one common thread was improvisation, but as I came to understand, that is a bit like saying the one common thread between a group of writers is "language," or the one common thread between a group of sculptors is "space:" true but at such a basic level as to be almost meaningless.
I am, at a basic level, a classical chamber musician. I interpret notes on a page with my mind and realize those interpretations with my body. What was I doing at a "jazz and creative music" workshop? I had applied to the Workshop on a whim after hearing Dave perform at NEC, using in my application stories and recordings of various ethnomusical collaborations I had taken part in, a bit of a jazz standard I had recorded for an earlier project, and a sample of chamber music playing. When I arrived and found so many world-class improvisers, I suddenly felt very much the black sheep. Who was I kidding? The Workshop is not really about learning (although a lot of learning takes place)... with such a high level of participants, the Workshop is about doing, and I had to figure out what I could do to contribute to the incredible music around me!
Initially I worked extensively with the saxophonist Oliver Lake. Oliver is a ferocious improviser who just blows you away with the feeling and authenticity behind his playing. Even though we played some of the most "jazzy" tunes of the summer, with Oliver no wrong note could disappoint him like a halfhearted phrase. Notes are inconsequential. Feelings and emotions are everything. This was also conveyed (in a completely different way) in conversations with the classical and klezmer clarinet guru David Krakauer and the club-touring classical cellist Matt Haimovitz. Having started down that path, and realizing some of the ways a rigorous classical training was helping me to contribute, the arrival of Mark Feldman showed me just how much is possible when improvising on the violin. My hypothesis, that the violin is, at some basic level, just not quite natural in improvisation, was blown out the window. Mark helped the small contingent of string players in the peculiar art of sounding good on strings. Nothing in the world, however, could have prepared me for the arrival of the Instant Composers Pool in the third week of the Workshop. I'm at a loss to describe the ICP orchestra, besides "ten crazy Dutch people." The music wasn't freely improvised; it was instantly composed. They might start playing one piece, spontaneously modulate to a different piece, and end up with the drummer throwing a cymbal on the floor. It was during a spontaneous Workshop-wide improvisation with the ICP that I lost my last inhibition, interjecting with a wild fiddle-inflected solo, and simultaneously connecting everything I had experienced at Banff back to "real life."
It's ALL improvisation. From Corelli to Tonasphernia 12. In the entire wide range of determinism, from the performer inventing everything all the way to the most painstakingly notated Boulez, when we actually perform, what we are doing is improvising - or should I say "instant composing?" I will have a good time this coming year trying to infect A Far Cry with some of this freedom-inspiring outlook!
A Far Cry prepares for retreat in Maine
We are gathering steam for a one week retreat in Maine where we will come together and offer ideas for programs, collaborations, and venues; schedule upcoming seasons; audition different repertoire; refine our rehearsal technique; break into committees to tackle issues such as non-profit incorporation, management offers, museum/art gallery parterships, fundraising, and financial management; and solidify the mission and goals of A Far Cry as we launch our very first full season! We are so excited for this year and the years to come!
Redesigning the Website
Jason and Jesse are in Seattle, working on upgrading and redesigning afarcry.org! If things look strange for a few days, please don't worry! The site should be finished by this weekend.
Welcome Times Argus readers!
This is the homepage of A Far Cry, which is a conductorless chamber orchestra made up of energetic young musicians from Boston! Please take a look around and make yourselves at home. The web site is in transition at the moment - we're adding sound clips, pictures from our concerts, and reorganizing, but if you poke around you can find the musicians' individual biographies, join our email mailing list, and even find Jason's killer (formerly secret) recipe for bacon-wrapped dates.
Letter to the Editor
Andrea Stander of Montpelier saw our Vermont concert and was moved to write a wonderful letter to the editor of The Times Argus, the big Central Vermont newspaper. Read Andrea's letter
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Concert Comments
Did you hear us in Cambridge, Brookline, and/or Montpelier? We'd love to hear what you thought, good or bad! Just click on the Comments button below to tell us!
Farmers Market Concert
Yesterday morning I experienced one of the most enjoyable playing experiences I have ever had. When Jason asked us on Friday night, in the midst of partying after our second concert, to leave towards VT at 9 am the next morning, we were all not quite sure what in the world he was thinking... Demanding a good reason, together with making upset faces, the room quieted down as Jason said- 'Jesse will explain'...
***
The car I was in was the last one to arrive (not at all surprising, since I am well known for being chronically late... three alarm clocks were apparently not enough...). As we walked through Montpelier's Saturday morning farmer's market looking for our friends, taking in the fresh air and feeling a bit like foreigners on vacation, I suddenly saw a large crowd surrounding a bunch of happy string players. As quickly as I could I took my violin out and ran over to my section, to join a beautifully improvised "Canon" by Pachabel with my sunglasses on. What an exciting moment- improvising with my friends on the driveway in the sun, surrounded by music lovers of all ages, children and young couples, as well as their grandparents, all together smiling at the sight of such energy, vitality and inspiration coming from both sides. Leaving at 9 am was such a small price for such an unforgettable street concert!
We as musicians always try to find new ways to make classical music accessible for people of all ages and backgrounds, and I think we have found one of the many ways to do so. Not to mention, a way to find an audience in the morning for an evening concert!
-Sharon
Deep sigh
Well that's that! Our first concert series is behind us. What a time. I think we performed with joy, and I think the audiences responded in kind. After a crazy, wonderful time in Vermont, we're all back in the city, and I doubt I'm the only crier who feels both exhausted and eager for more. Performing with the Criers is an indescribable pleasure, and I for one wish our next concerts didn't have to wait until after the summer.
