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Transient Glory II Review - American Record Guide
American Record Guide
May/June 2008
Transient Glory II
WEIR: Little Tree; I Carry Your Heart With Me; Now Is a Ship; MACHOVER: I Dreamt a Dream; BURGEON: Shirtless Stephen & the Children's Crusade; VIGELAND: Miracles; SHENG: Boatmen's Song; LEES: The Nervous Family; PAPOULIS: Panta Rhei; JAMES: NYC Playground; NYMAN: Child's View of Color; ARGENTO: Orpheus; DEL TREDICI: Sabbath's Child; The Little Land; Alphabet; Highlands Farewell
Young People's Chorus of New York/Francisco Nunez - Vital 2017 - 78 minutes
(308 W 30th Street, Suite 2A, NY 10001)
The real story here is the choir itself. Founded 20 years ago by Maestro Nunez, who also leads several groups at New York University, the Young People's Chorus is the choir-in-residence at Manhattan's 92nd Street Y and at WNYC, New York Public Radio. The 250 young singers range in age from 8 to 18. (61 of them are in action here.) It also oversees the choral training of some 700 additional youngsters via its satellite programs. The YPC has won numerous awards, none more important than the citations it has garnered for dedicated service to at-risk kids. What a great story and what a meaningful contribution!
We all know how school music programs have been trashed and gutted by bumbling, musically illiterate educrats in recent years. The cultural carnage has become even more destructive in the wake of the dumbed-down, "teach to the test" sterility of No Child Left Behind. (When the history of this presidential administration is written, the war in Iraq may well go down as the second biggest mess they got us into.) What an immense pleasure, then, to see talented young musicians rising above the nonsense to create something precious, lasting, and so very needed. My hat is off. Bravos all around.
Over the past several years, the chorus has commissioned and premiered some 50 new pieces for children's choir. The words on this anthology were commissioned from 2002 to 2004. Nobody here pulled any punches, that's for sure. Tod Machover's 'I Dreamt a Dream' (one of the better pieces here) must have been an absolute bear to master, with its tricky rhythms and rapidly changing meters bouncing every which way. Jim Papoulis's 'Panta Rhei' offers musical commentary on ancient Greek culture with some interesting wordplay, while Judith Weir came up with three EE Cummings texts and set them evocatively for trebles and marimba. Also of interest is Kevin James's 'NYC Playground', which uses slam poetry to creat a sort of sprechstimme of the streets heard in the central portion of the work.
Several of the pieces I didn't much care for, especially the Del Tredici set. (The last one sounds barely singable.) Most of the time, though, the choir is nimble and heads-up even when the music is not. The sound is cold, dry, excessively close, and not nearly as flattering as it could be. The kids deserved better.
GREENFIELD
ClassicsToday.com reviews Transient Glory II
ClassicsToday.com
May 2, 2008
TRANSIENT GLORY II
Works by Judith Weir, Geoffrey Burgon, Tod Machover, Bright Sheng, Michael Nyman, Dominick Argento, David Del Tredici, others
Young People's Chorus of New York City
Francisco Nuñez
Vital Records- VR2017(CD)
No Reference RecordingArtistic Quality 9
Sound Quality 7In this follow-up to its 2003 Transient Glory CD (please type Q7284 in Search Reviews), Francisco Nuñez and his Young People's Chorus of New York City offer another impressive slate of new compositions presented in similarly savvy, stylish, technically proficient performances. The "children's choir" movement over the last 25 years or so has seen the rise of dozens of world-class ensembles that attract and commission works from major composers--as we hear on this new release, which features pieces "premiered by the chorus between 2002 and 2004."
Highlights--which for me are the works in which the composer seems to truly understand and capture the uniqueness of these voices, selects carefully and elucidates the chosen texts, and gives the choir some really "singable", attractive music to sing--are Judith Weir's Little Tree (texts by e.e. cummings, with a cleverly written marimba accompaniment), Tod Machover's I Dreamt a Dream (from William Blake, which effectively employs electronic sounds), Geoffrey Burgon's Shirtless Stephen (and the Children's Crusade), with its wonderful Britten-esque melody and text/rhythm treatment, and Benjamin Lees' delightful take on Edward Lear's humorous poem The Nervous Family. In each of these pieces, the choir really shines with vibrant energy and a confident, commanding vocal presence.
Some of the featured works make more of an impression for their difficulty than for their attractiveness or effectiveness as vocal music--indeed Michael Nyman's A Child's View of Color might as well be an instrumental work; the vocal writing renders most of the words unintelligible and creates a vocal timbre that just sounds strained. In addition--and this also was true on the earlier recording--the weird balances between choir and instruments (especially so in the Nyman work) only detract from what we should be hearing from the singers. Nils Vigeland's Miracles and Bright Sheng's The Boatmen's Song are both busy, challenging works, but they seem more consumed by their structural and thematic ideas than with giving the audience music to look forward to hearing again. Kevin James' NYC Playground just seems contrived and too long for its material--and again, the strange miking and odd balances undo the whole thing.
There's more here, including fine works by Jim Papoulis (an experienced composer for youth choirs) and Dominick Argento (his first work for young voices!)--and a mixed bag from David Del Tredici, a set of four pieces that includes the bizarre Sabbath's Child and a wonderful, nifty "fuga" based on the Alphabet text from the 1727 New England Primer. (Bizarre also is the word for Del Tredici's own descriptions of his music, which he says normally is "larger-than-life", but for this he had to "distill myself down.")
As with the first Transient Glory disc, this is a must for choir fans who wish to be close to the latest happenings in one of today's most exciting, endlessly inventive, and uniquely challenging (for both singers and audiences) areas of music creation and performance. Happily for those who want to take this further, all of this music has been published, and information about the composers and where to obtain the scores is provided in the detailed liner booklet. On to Volume 3!
David Vernier
Most composers lust after commissions from orchestras, opera companies and string quartets. Fewer have children’s choirs high on their wish lists. But Francisco J. Núñez hopes to change that with his remarkable Young People’s Chorus of New York City, above, and its Transient Glory series, which continues on Sunday at the Miller Theater.
Mr. Núñez founded the choir in 1988 with kids of diverse economic and ethnic backgrounds. In 2001 he inaugurated Transient Glory (named after the fleeting beauty of developing voices) to expand the serious repertory for children’s choirs and to encourage composers to write for the medium. Since then the ensemble has commissioned dozens of works by an eclectic range of notable composers, including Steve Reich, George Crumb, Judith Weir, Bright Sheng, Milton Babbitt and David Del Tredici.
The chorus is split into several divisions, including the Concert Chorus for boys and girls ages 12 to 18, which will perform a typically eclectic Transient Glory concert on Sunday. Mr. Núñez will lead the group in the premieres of five commissions, including Joan Tower’s first choral piece with text, as well as music by Douglas J. Cuomo, Ko Matsushita (which will be sung in Japanese) and Bora Yoon, whose work is billed as “a choral sound installation.”
The program also includes the premiere of a multimedia version of Michael Gordon’s “Every Stop on the F Train” (a collaboration with the filmmaker Bill Morrison), “The Song I Sing” by Stephen Flaherty and “In Paradisum” by Lynn Ahrens and Ernst Krenek.
These young singers are notable for the beauty of their youthfully pure voices and for their technical sophistication. “Transient Glory II,” the choir’s latest CD, highlights their talents in works ranging from Ms. Weir’s evocative “I Carry Your Heart With Me” to Tod Machover’s harmonically and rhythmically challenging “I Dreamt a Dream.” (Sunday at 2 p.m., Miller Theater, 116th Street and Broadway, Morningside Heights, 212-854-7799, ypc.org; $25.) VIVIEN SCHWEITZER
Kids from YMCA to Sing for Pope
Pope Benedict will be serenaded during his Mass at Yankee Stadium by some of the sweetest voices in New York.
The Young People's Chorus, which brings together teenage singers from every corner of the city, was picked to perform inspirational songs for the pontiff and a huge crowd at the Stadium.
"Singing has changed my life," said Althea John, 15, of Brooklyn. "To get to sing in front of the Pope means so much to me."
The award-winning choir based at the 92nd Street Y will sing three songs - Kayama, Creo En Dios (Believe in God) and Give Us Hope - for the leader of the world's Catholics on April 20.
The group's conductor called the papal assignment a perfect match for the choir, which recruits young singers from underserved communities for its lauded afterschool program.
"We chose songs that embodied our mission of diversity and hope," said Elizabeth Nunez, 29. "These kids love to sing."
In an oversized rehearsal room at the Y, 40 singers ranging in age from 12 to 18 did vocal drills Friday afternoon.
Then they worked on the songs, including the Spanish-language Creo En Dios, in which Kelly Feldman sings a solo.
"It hasn't even clicked yet," said Feldman, 18, a senior at Dominican Academy. "I mean, we're singing for the Pope at Yankee Stadium. What more could you ask for?"
Stephan Douglas-Allen said the performance is a fantastic reward for years of hard work.
"Ever since I was a baby, I've loved music," said Douglas-Allen, 12, of Manhattan, a student at the Amber Charter School. "To get to perform like this is a dream."
The choir is no stranger to high-profile performances. Since being founded in 1988, it has sung on three continents and is planning a 25-city tour of Japan next year.
Along with the performances, the choir has satellite programs in eight public schools and its mission is to give an artistic outlet children with limited resources.
The group was recommended for the papal Mass by the Rev. Leslie Ivers of St. Frances de Chantal Church in the Bronx, whose goddaughter sang in the Young People's Chorus for years.
Besides getting to sing, the group builds lasting bonds between kids whose paths would otherwise never have crossed.
"This is their community," Nunez said. "This is so important to them."
Girl Meets Boy, Then Kinetic Melodrama Ensues
Dance fans remember Stephen Petronio for the bare bottoms and men in tightly laced corsets, for the pounding rock scores and Baudelairean bad-boy theatricality, and for the cream-of-the-crop cutting-edge composers and fashion designers that he likes to involve in his work.
But Mr. Petronio, whose company opened a weeklong season at the Joyce Theater on Tuesday night, is a more important choreographer than that sometimes facile reputation implies. He is one of the few contemporary dance makers who have created an instantly recognizable style, and — more pertinent — he shows in the two new works in this program that he can use it in fresh and unpredictable ways.
The thrill of watching Mr. Petronio’s dances come from the kinetic drama of that style: limbs whiplashing in long straight lines through space; jumps engendered from static positions by pure energy, rather than momentum; abrupt changes of direction and dynamic that make each step look like a new thought. That could be numbing. But in these pieces he seems to parse his own relentless physicality and infuse it with emotional texture and wit.
In “Beauty and the Brut,” a commissioned score by Fischerspooner (the art-world-darlings music duo) offers a woman’s voice recounting, in English and French, a pickup on a beach. With its Laurie Anderson-like echoes and deadpan unfinished sentences (“My name is — whatever”) set over minimal electronic melodies, the score alone is a delight. So is Ken Tabachnick’s wonderful lighting, which magically evokes the haze of sea and sky on an empty beach. And as that light hits the gorgeously statuesque Shila Tirabassi, curving her body sculpturally through space, the work takes you immediately and confidently into its own sexy, glamorous world.
At first Mr. Petronio uses just one couple: Ms. Tirabassi, fluid and commanding, and Jonathan Jaffe, deliberately lumpen and brutish. But then other dancers, in fabulous beach gear (half cave man, half Erté) by Benjamin Cho, appear in multiple, never literal, incarnations of this never-ending human comedy.
One of the pleasures of this program is watching the way Mr. Petronio moves dancers seamlessly on and off stage, and how skillfully he paces the sections of his pieces. This is true of the 2006 “Bloom,” with its swirling movement and haunting score by Rufus Wainwright, beautifully sung on Tuesday by the Young People’s Chorus of New York City. It is also true of “This Is the Story of a Girl in a World,” a new piece that offers discreet meditations on gender in the way it sets identical choreography — sometimes aggressive and propulsive, sometimes silky and lyrical — on both the men and women, and leaves us to think about the effects.
Each of the work’s five sections (set to music by Antony, Lou Reed and Nico Muhly) is rewarding. But Davalois Fearon’s fiercely beautiful solo, Julian De Leon’s disconcerting femininity in “Candy Says,” and Michael Badger and Elena Demyanenko’s melodramatically gestural duo evoking iconic female performers (Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, Karen Finley and others) are particularly notable for their effect: jarring and just right.
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