Multimedia Concert, June 24, 1999

PROGRAM

Composers Seminar Multimedia Concert (Prof. Dinu Ghezzo), Film & Multimedia Class(Prof. Ron Sadoff):

Eric Foinquinos ........... Caprichos del Tiempo (Dance project)

Yun Jeong Cho ............. Totem (Film Project)

Juan Raffo ..................... El Momento Entre Los Trapecios (Dance)

Hyun Jung Shim ............. Beyond (Film project)

Jong Suh Lee .................. Lunarian Dance (Dance project)

Shawn Harper Tarrant...... Music for Three Short Films:

One Dark World/Oceanic Celebration/The Traveler

David Forni ..................... Film Project

Chan Ji Kim ...... Flying in NYC on a Summer Night (Dance)

Galo Recalde ................... Looking for Carlos

Wendy Luck ................... The Ancient Key (Multimedia)

* First Performance ** First NY or US Performance

On June 24th, students of the Composer's Seminar and the Film & Multimedia Class presented works combining original music with dance, film, or video. As most NYU student concerts go, it was an eclectic program, showcasing the diversity of styles and interests present in the classes. The four composers behind the dance projects were fortunate to have Sean Russo and Maya Elbaum as dancers, with Mr. Russo also choreographing.

The concert began with Eric Foinquinos' "Caprichos del Tiempo." Opening with a "serialized" rhythmic pattern, the piece -- written for the septet (flute, clarinet, trumpet, piano, percussion, violin, and cello) plus saxophone and Bass clarinet -- explored various treatments of a quarter note, although the whimsical, inventive and well-voiced melodic material made the presence of any serialized rhythmic pattern hardly noticeable. The dancer conveyed the playfulness and expressivity of the music, treating the rhythmic mutations imaginatively.

The following piece, Juan Raffo's "El Momento Entre Los Trapecios", was a take on the traditional tango, but the dancers reflected the composer's unique, 20th century approach to the form. Attempting to capture musically the moment in which a trapeze artist must let go of one swing to catch another, the music -- written for the septet -- was dynamic, kinetic, and richly colorful.

Following was Jong Suh Lee's "Lunarian Dance," written for clarinet, percussion, and cello. The dancer's lithe movements and gesticulations managed to complement the playful, limber instrumental lines quite well. The piece seemed very well-suited for dance; both the melodic and the rhythmic material imparted a sense of agility and undulation, which Ms. Elbaum most gracefully conveyed.

The next piece, Chan Ji Kim's "Flying in NYC on a Summer Night" -- written for flute, clarinet, percussion, and cello -- also featured dance, as well as very kinetically-oriented musical material. Intended to reflect the composer's wish to fly home to her native country, the piece employs rapid arpeggiated runs (most notably on the marimba) and sudden, dramatic articulations, dynamics, and registral changes in order to create a sense of urgency and forward motion. The dancer, reflecting the anxious feelings inherent in the music, personified its unique blend of frustration and exuberance quite well.

Galo Recalde's "Looking for Carlos" followed, providing a very enjoyable and humorous change of pace. Written and performed on MIDI, the piece also featured Galo performing -- shaking maracas, playing the woodblock, snapping, and even vocally imitating a muted trumpet -- along with the recorded material, which was an up-tempo, jazzy piece reflecting a strong sense of melody, rhythm, and instrumentation on the part of the composer. The piece revealed a witty creativity, too, as it digressed into an 80's prog-rock synthesizer stint (reflecting Carlos' wandering mind) before returning to the opening material.

Shawn Harper-Tarrant then presented three short films which he had scored: "One Dark World," "Oceanic Celebration," and "The Traveler." The films - all animated and more or less science-fictional in content - were silent shorts, dependent entirely upon the music for narration. The animation however, was quite stunning, as the imagery utilized a great deal of kaleidoscopic movement and three-dimensional camera zooms. Shawn did a great job of creating music that was narrative without being didactic, and which kept the film's momentum flowing without losing track of its own motivic cohesion.

The following presentation was Wendy Luck's "The Ancient Key," a multimedia piece featuring two instrumentalists -- Wendy playing several kinds of flutes, and a guest performer playing various ethnic percussion -- performing in front of a large screen onto which video images -- mostly of Egypt -- were projected. In the background, a recording of synthesized chords and native Egyptian flute music could be heard, often providing the melodic and/or scalar lines to which Wendy would musically respond. The presentation was quite engaging, both visually and aurally; in merging imagery with music, it managed to conjure the kind of unique mystical ambience the composer wished. Rounding out the evening was David Forni's video presentation, "Film Project," which was shown during the Seminar's Goodbye Party. Set to electronic music by performance artist Laurie Anderson, the video culled together news and documentary footage of the Kosovo tragedy - creating a video montage of images made only more lonely and disturbing by the monotonous pulse and minimalist movement of the music. This rather poignant presentation concluded what was a very enjoyable, successful, and as always, diverse evening of student multimedia performances. (Sarah Snider)

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June 24th, 1999 was the last summer composers seminar. It consisted of multimedia presentation from various composers. The composers had the flexiblitiy to use differet methods of presenting their piece of music using computer, video, MIDI triggers and gadgets. I was interested in Wendy Luck's "The Ancient Key." This piece not only brought together musical idealogy, but by utilizing the video aspect of her performances which gave it a fresh new twist to the composers forum. The mysitical journey into Egypt with the exotic percussion and flute duet was intriguing. I enjoyed the different timbre of persussions sound such as the chimes and bells. It enhanced the visual and audio experience. Also provided the piece with much greater taste of Egypt. The fine line of both mysticism and realism was presented here. All in all, this piece made me travel through a foreign place in a virtual tour without physically being there. The visual aid definitely was a unique feature and gave Wendy an edge in capturing the audience imagination and attention.

The piece that Chris Bassett wrote called "Sandwich Musings", was one of the challenging piece of music that was played on June 24th recital. One of the unique style to his piece was using his voice as one of the instrument to make a sound into the rhythmic and phonic patterns. The creative process of using his voice was hindered by other instruments which drowned out by what was being said. The individual instruments correlated into a creative aspects of his piece which brought out an astract feeling. The overall feeling with this piece was the voice leading out as one of the instrument mixed in with the composition to bring out different areas of sound. (Hyun Jung Shim)


Multimedia Concert, June 24th Music, Film, and Dance were nicely balanced on Thursday night MULTIMEDIA CONCERT at the Frederick Loewe Thater. That was our composer's Seminar final concert this summer. There were 4 Dance projects, 3 Film projects, and other Multimedia works. Sean Russo's dance expressed exeptionally well the concept of music. His small gestures for arms and hands, using the rolling tool, punctuated the cool flow of movement in each segment. A duet based on Eric Foinquinos' work for man and women emphasized great harmony of dance movements. The Film projects were also great. Shawn Harper Tarrant used sampling and analog-sound for his second work Oceanic Celebration. The continuos fast passages of drum-sounds were good balanced for fast images. The program concluded with Wendy Luck's multimedia work. Her music idea came from the exotic mysteries of the Egyptian desert, architecture, and history. Tost interest aspect of this work was playing live with many kind of Flutes and with the video footage. Each kind of Flute has different expression, bringing more reflection and clear overall concept. In a great way, the multimedia concert was one big pan-music and a creative new music adventure. I'm looking forward to success the seminar and concert next summer. (Chan Ji Kim)

What would the best audience have been for the program of contemporary music, film and dance presented on Thursday(June 24th) night at the Frederick Loewe Theater? Ideally that audience would be composers with vast computer experience who had once been film directors or choreographers. Members of that small population would likely have been most fascinated by the workings of the artistic mixtures of multimedia and music in each of the nine pieces, part of the Composers Seminar Multimedia Concert at New York University. What this concert did have were some excellent composers and dancers giving one great performance. Sean Russo and Maya Elbaum who are choreographer and dancer thrilled us with delightful performance. The universality of several aspects in music is not merely restricted to musical concepts such as the melodic or the rhythm varieties in time, but also to the movements in space. It is the material, shape and changing color that gives the each piece performed the source of energy to captivate. What did the program, one of nine events in the concert, have to offer someone with a simple interest in music, dance and the experience of live theater in general, aside from a lot of mystifying synchronism? The fascination of binary movements of dancers, was considerable. Best of all was the chance to enjoy how changing motion, position and degree of physical force changed the quality of the musical accompaniment in "Caprichos del Tiempo" by Eric Foinquinos. Yun Jeong Cho's "Totem," a computer music and animation piece, made use of very idiomatic theme in Korean myth. It shows unusual original creative talent, interesting effective blend of East and West. Miss Cho is authentically versant in both idioms. She has a good sense of style and is professionally accomplished. "Flying in NYC on a Summer Night" by Chan Ji Kim starts out with interesting series of notes in the marimba, to which the flute adds short, rapid-fire flourishes. As the piece progresses, the music gets more involved and animated, exploiting the extreme ranges of instruments, before it once again returns to the opening gestures. The ending, though, has the flute holding the tones while the cello adds the remarks. The wonderful dance accompanied were in bringing out the colorful nature of this music, which at times was carefree, playful, moody but always symbolized. Shawn Harper Tarrant's "music for three short films" shows excellent combination of MIDI instruments and the sound design of the film. The composer showed a very imaginative and tasteful choices in his music. Always well-chosen sound color, pitch and good variety of leaps of different tones assured us he is a good film composer. "El Momento entre Los Trapecios" by Juan Raffo is a dance piece based on the mood and rhythmic drive of the contemporary Tango. The title (The moment between the Trapezes) refers to the uncertain and risky moment in when the trapeze artist in the circus is between letting go of one trapeze and catching the other. Accompanied dance were lushly colorful, and the subjective imagery in "tango motion" was handsome. "Looking for Carlos" its an informal piece about a dreamer, looking for his lost music ideas. (..or is he looking for himself?). Originally written for accordion, flute, soprano sax, acoustic bass, keyboards, percussion and a narrator. In this occasion , it was presented as a Midi Recording with narration. Composer, Galo Recalde provided us very attractive and delightful presentation. "THE ANCIENT KEY" is a work consisting of aspects of composer's own experiences in Egypt. The music she created and recorded there was deeply influenced by the exotic mysteries of the Egyptian desert, architecture, and history. Playing live with the video footage, the visual images inspire and interweave with her musical ideas. By bringing together these various art forms, Wendy Luck finally created a more multidimensional experience. (Jong Suh Lee)

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