(Pictured: Tim Munro, composer Andy Akiho, and Michael Maccaferri, during rehearsals for last night’s performance)

Last night the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, hosted the final round of eighth blackbird’s first composition competition.

The performance was the culmination of a year-long process. An initial pool of 504 applicants was winnowed to three finalists, who were each given a cash prize and invited to write a work for eighth blackbird. These three new works were workshopped in an intense, two-day period earlier this week. Last night saw the public premiere of the three pieces, in front of a crowd that included representatives of the competition’s generous partners, MakeMusic and the American Composers Forum.

The following works were performed last night:

Andy Akiho ERASE for sextet (2011)
Eric Lindsay Town’s Gonna Talk for sextet (2011)
Kurt Rohde this bag is not a toy: a very short concerto for mixed ensemble without orchestra for sextet (2011)

Andy Akiho’s work, ERASE, was chosen as the overall winner. He receives an additional cash award and the promise of a future performance by eighth blackbird of the winning work. You can watch videos taken during rehearsals of Andy’s piece here and here.

The contest is a partnership between MakeMusic, the American Composers Forum and eighth blackbird, and we thank our partners in this process for their significant financial, administrative and moral support.

All eighth blackbird members took part in the process, and, surprisingly, there was a significant amount of group consensus throughout the process.

The three finalists are: Andy Akiho of New Haven, Conn., Eric Lindsay of Bloomington, Ind., and Kurt Rohde of San Francisco, Calif. Each finalist will receive a cash prize and will write a piece for eighth blackbird, which will be workshopped and performed in the ensemble’s Chicago studio. One composer will be chosen to receive the final prize, which includes an additional cash award and a future public performance by eighth blackbird.

We were floored by the quality of submissions, and thought it fair to recognize twelve additional composers, whose pieces made it to our last internal round of judging. They were of such a uniformly high standard, with such diverse and distinctive voices, that we had to give them some sort of recognition.

They are:

Alex Freeman (Northfield, Minn.)
Sean Friar (Princeton, N.J.)
J.M. Gerraughty (Nashua, N.H.)
Aaron Gervais (San Francisco, Calif.)
Yotam Haber (Brooklyn, N.Y.)
Derek Johnson (Carmel, Ind.)
Amy Kirsten (New Haven, Conn.)
Zibuokle Martinaityte (New York, N.Y.)
Douglas Pew (Erlanger, Ky.)
Jeremy Podgursky (Bloomington, Ind.)
Mike Solomon (Gainesville, Fla.)
Daniel Wohl (New Haven, Conn.)

For more information, you can visit the American Composers Forum website. We will provide more details (with dates and location) of the finalists’ workshop sometime in the near future. Thanks to all who entered, and rest assured that there were many marvelous, creative, bizarre, accomplished composers who didn’t make it into the final 15.

Thanks to all those who applied for 8bb’s first ever composition contest. Let’s get the really great news out of the way first. We were totally flooded with new musical love, in the form of 503 entries that ran the stylistic gamut, embracing all known and several unknown -isms, and drawing influences from anywhere and everywhere and nowhere.

Unfortunately, the downside to this totally unexpected, glorious tidal wave of scores and CDs (currently clogging our office/kitchen/rehearsal-room/new-music-lab) is that it has taken us longer to narrow the field down to three sterling applicants.

We don’t want to compromise the quality of our judging, so we have decided to postpone the announcement of the three finalists until February 1st. Our sincere apologies if this inconveniences any applicants, but we feel it with ensure the best possible outcome for both entrants and the ensemble.

eighth blackbird announced its new composition competition (creatively named “eighth blackbird composition competition”) in early February. The initial response was positive, with enthusiastic online notices and a few very early entries, but we did start to get hammered in some quarters for our comp comp’s rules and regulations. These negative reactions surprised us, but on reflection we feel that some of the criticism was deserved. In the strine-tinged words of Kevin Rudd, Australia’s illustrious current Prime Minister, “fair cop, mate.”

In response to the many constructive and informative comments we’ve received, we have decided to postpone the competition.

8bb remains committed to the original intent of the competition – to discover, recognize and perform/record an undiscovered compositional gem – and we will relaunch the whole shebang by June.  In the meantime, we’ll be on the hunt for the best way to create an event that is awesome for all involved. Any works that are currently being written will remain eligible for the relaunched competition, and any application money already submitted will of course be refunded.

In the meantime, feel free to let us know your thoughts about your perfect, utopian, idealized nirvana of a comp comp, either by commenting on this post, or by dropping us a line, at brian@eighthblackbird.com. Oh, and creative name suggestions would be most welcome!

The application deadline is fast approaching for the Music10 festival happening in Blonay, Switzerland, June 21-July 2.

Performers who are accepted to this program will work intensively and perform new compositions by America’s most talented young composers. Each ensemble will consist of a member of eighth blackbird along with a carefully selected group of young instrumentalists. Concurrently, the instrumentalists will prepare and perform works by the three principal composers, Martin Bresnick, Stephen Hartke and Joel Hoffmann. This repertoire will be performed in a series of concerts throughout the festival in Blonay and surrounding locations.

Blonay is a beautiful village, located between Lake Geneva (Lac Leman) and the Swiss Alps. Nearby cities are Montreux and Lausanne. The Hindemith Foundation is a fully-equipped music residence center, whose purpose is to present short-term international festivals and workshops on the highest level.

When we say Blonay is beautiful, what we mean is BEUWWWWWWWWWWWWDIFUL, as in un-bloody-believably-spectacularly-idyllic.

Come and join us for 10 days in our little musical utopia in Swiss paradise! Click here to apply.

Here’s the info:

Tim Munro (flutist with Grammy-winning ensemble eighth blackbird) and Jennifer Gunn (piccoloist with the Chicago Symphony) present Trembling Air at Roosevelt University’s Ganz Hall, February 3, 2010. Flutes sing, speak, growl, wheeze and chirp in this surprising, kaleidoscopic musical patchwork.

Ben Broening’s Trembling Air possesses an ethereal, other-worldly beauty that collides dramatically with Grawemeyer-winner Brett Dean’s virtuosic, hellish Demons. Munro is joined by Chicago Symphony star piccolo player Jennifer Gunn for the hypnotic repetitions of Philip Glass’s Music in Fifths and rolling dark waves of Helena Tulve’s Soaring.

The program also includes the world premiere of Tai-Kuang Chao’s Isolated Dance on a Bench, winner of Roosevelt University’s first flute composition competition, and Grey Light, Early Morning, a haunting piece from the pen of Gerard McBurney (Chicago Symphony’s “Beyond the Score” maestro).

What: Trembling Air

Where: Ganz Hall, Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan Ave., 7th Floor, Chicago (312-341-3780)

When: February 3rd at 7.30pm

Tickets: Free entry

Program: Ben Broening Trembling Air for solo flute (2009, World Premiere)

Ross Edwards Ecstatic Dances for two flutes (1990)

Tai-Kuang Chao Isolated Dance on a Bench for solo flute (2009, WP)

Gerard McBurney Grey Light, Early Morning for alto flute (1992)

Brett Dean Demons for solo flute (2004)

Helena Tulve Soaring for two flutes (2007)

Philip Glass Music in Fifths for two flutes (1969)

For more information: http://ccpa.roosevelt.edu/ccpa-calendar.php

It’s official – we’re doing a crazy/cool benefit with Mario Batali and Paul Kahan at The Publican on March 15th.

For those who attended eighth blackbird’s 2007 benefit with Paul Kahan and Mario Batali at Blackbird, we don’t need to tell you just how special the 2010 event will be. If you are one of our newer fans, or simply couldn’t participate previously, then don’t miss what is sure to be one of the year’s artistic and culinary highlights.

eighth blackbird begins the evening with a short concert at the Packer Schopf Gallery, featuring highlights of our 09-10 touring program and complemented by an exclusive arrangement by Wilco’s Glenn Kotche, performed by eighth blackbird with Chef Batali on guitar. Following this, Chefs Kahan and Batali will present a five-course meal, with wine and beer pairings, at Chef Kahan’s own gastro-pub, The Publican. These celebrated chefs accepted our challenge to base the menu on our musical selections, so both your ears and mouth will be treated with fresh Catch, a few of These Broken Wings, Meanwhile, a bite of Spam and a serving of Still Life with Avalanche.

To buy tickets, visit this website:
http://www.eighthblackbird.com/benefit/

For further information, please email benefit@eighthblackbird.com.

As part of this shebang, I was asked to write a blog entry that dealt with our relationship with Reich, forged during the commissioning of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet. A couple of months ago, I asked the composer for permission to publicly share some emails from our correspondence with him, in the hope that it might shed some light on his working methods. I was surprised that he said yes (and he emailed me back within the hour!), but decided to use them for WQXR’s request.

You can read the entry below, or on WQXR’s comprehensive all-Reich-all-the-time mini-website.

Steve Reich has graciously allowed me to share a few emails from his correspondence with eighth blackbird during the composition and preparation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning 2008 work Double Sextet. I hope these shed a little light on his creative process. You can also read an interview I did with Steve here.

It was with excited trepidation that I approached working with Steve. He was by far the most famous composer who’d written for eighth blackbird, and was a boyhood hero of mine. We’d been warned about his uncompromising vision, mostly via second- or third-hand rumors that were some variation of, “He’s really demanding, and will freak out if he isn’t happy with what you’re doing.”

As a successful composer, Steve is lucky in only needing to write one new piece each year, which allows for each work to have a generous, patient gestation period. Below is an email written almost 20 months before Double Sextet‘s world premiere, setting out some of the composer’s initial ideas for the work.

From: Steve Reich
Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006

Matt,

I did start work on your piece which I have tentatively called Double Sextet – for obvious reasons. I just got about 4 pages of it begun and need to revise those. It is quite angular and more percussive than my recent works and should be a bit of a wake up for the audience. It’s also immediately involved with short motives and their retrogrades. Haven’t done that before.

As for the doublings, i did assume they were what you say and am not sure which I will be using. For percussion, i am sure both the live sextet and the pre-recorded sextet will each have a vibe and “mini set” of snare and kick drum. Please tell Matt. I have started out with 2 flutes and 2 B♭ clarinets for the live and recorded sextets plus two pianos, two violins and two celli. Nice to hear there’s bass clarinet and viola waiting in the wings. – We’ll see.

Give my greetings to all the musicians.

And thank you once again for your e mail.

All best,

Steve

The differences between the composer’s original thoughts and the finished product are interesting. Early in the process, Steve thought it will be “angular and more percussive” than other works, something that’s clearly related to the “mini set of snare and kick drum” he originally envisaged for the score. These instruments don’t appear in the final version, and as a result, the work isn’t more percussive than any of Steve’s other recent pieces. (In fact, the variations movement that provides the beating heart of Double Sextet signals a move for the composer into uncharacteristically lyrical territory). He also says that it’s “involved with short motives and their retrogrades.” Double Sextet, like all of Steve’s compositions, is constructed almost entirely of short motives, but there is no evidence at all of “retrogrades” (in which the tune would be played backwards).

Steve’s interactions with eighth blackbird were different from what we were used to. Once we received a finished composition we typically have very limited contact with the work’s composer before a pre-premiere rehearsal, at which time they offer comments on our performance. This “alone time” for the ensemble enables us to put the piece together into a well-drilled, dramatic, convincing, fully-committed interpretation, without feeling an intimidating warm breath over our collective shoulder.

What set Steve apart was his desire to work with the ensemble throughout the rehearsal process. Although he wasn’t ever actually in the room with us until the day of the premiere, we sent him recordings of ourselves at every step in the process of preparation, from the day of our first rehearsal until the day of the premiere, on which he would offer his comments in detailed, often illuminating emails.

A short note about the piece: For most performances of Double Sextet, eighth blackbird plays live with a recording of ourselves. So in order to perform the work for the first time, we recorded one sextet part, then practice playing the other live sextet with our recording.

Below are two emails, written after he heard our initial pre-recorded sextet rehearsal recordings. This first email deals with the first movement, and all of the numbers are measure numbers in the score.

From: Steve Reich
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008

Lisa,

First off: BRAVO! You got it and its going to be great. This based on opening to 122. Now for the details:

At 122 first chord is too short and too loud on second chord. Don’t forget the dash on first chord here and two bars later. Try and even the two chords off. Very good after that until 203 when same sort of thing happens. Too much accent on second chord which is naturally heavier because of bass so give full length to (put in a dash on) first chord. Similarly to 208.

Vibes at 315 – 323 practice by himself and make sure upper voice-melody is heard. Maybe one mallet in right hand two in left or slightly harder mallet on top – whatever. Vibes again at 368. I can hear strings fine but vibes are lost. Its a bit hard playing the clusters, so work on by yourself and then get closer to mic or slightly harder mallets. Vibes at 381 that chord is F, B♭, A♭. (its a rough passage…)

Winds, strings and vibes from 409 – 432 are a bit “blocky.” Try to always have the music “leaning forward” vis a vis the beat and not right on top of it, hammering it. Light and always moving ahead (not rushing) wins the day.

And from there to the end is excellent. For a first rehearsal this is really wonderful!

Best – and BIG thanks,

Steve

Why does Steve get so involved in this process? For much of the composer’s early maturity, the Steve Reich Ensemble (including Steve himself as percussionist) was the only group performing his music. They evolved a distinctive-sounding “house style” with its own unique energy. Rather than worshipping at the altar of the score as an exact set of Google Map directions, pieces like Drumming and Music for 18 Musicians were taught, learned, and developed without much recourse to the printed page. In some ways Steve must feel that this intense, collaborative process, and also the energy of the Ensemble’s particular style of playing, have become inseparable from his music, and should be passed down to all ensembles that are encountering a new work for the first time. Interestingly, this can ensure a sort of “legacy” for performances of his music during Steve’s lifetime, but what about well into the future?

The email above contains a typical entreaty to trust the markings on the printed page, but early in the process this sort of comment was difficult to decipher, especially as we didn’t yet speak fluent Steve Reich. How does one accurately perform a “dash” in Steve’s music? Play longer? Give it a stress that isn’t quite an accent? It would take several dances around the Maypole until we found what that meant in practice.

In trying to develop our understanding of Steve’s “house style,” I found his comment about the “blocky”-ness of our playing – where he cajoles the ensemble to giving him more “lightness” and a sense of “leaning forward” – particularly useful.

From: Steve Reich
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008

Lisa,

Here we go on mvmnt two.

Opening in piano and vibes ok – a little more flowing maybe. When strings and winds come in at 537 its a bit too “espressivo” – just a bit cooler will do it. Held notes have no crescendo – just evenly held. Think baroque. Also really need more vibes here which will keep one foot in Africa (as well as baroque.) Either closer to mic, play a bit stronger or harder mallets.

At 597 strings & winds please keep that first eighth separate and similarly throughout – don’t run it into following longer note. Single eighths are the punctuation throughout movement and we need them.

664 vibes needs the notes. In general there is a tentative feeling in vibes when it should be an equal partner to piano in volume and feel.

You are all way ahead and should have no problem making dynamite performances.

I’ll send this and take a break before i go through 3rd mvmnt.

Many thanks to all!

Steve

This email created heated arguments among the “front row” of eighth blackbird (flute, clarinet, violin, cello). What did Steve mean by comments entreating us to play “a bit cooler” and to “[t]hink baroque”? We liked the aria-like quality of the tune, and really wanted to bring it into the 19th century a little, giving it a little Puccini-esque character. Should we do it with less vibrato? More sustained and straight-tone? Held notes with “no crescendo”? Also, the comment about separated eighth notes took us by surprise, and our first attempts at it sounded very strange to our ears. Shouldn’t those notes be part of the phrase rather than cast adrift?

And those rumors of Steve as an unreasonably hard task-master? Hugely exaggerated. After such an exhaustive, intense process of preparation we were all a little jittery about what the composer might say when he heard us play the piece live. So you can imagine our relief when, at the end of the first complete run of Double Sextet for the composer, his only reaction was, “Wow, fantastic. I really have nothing to say.”

Von Rhein writes:

Mark DeChiazza’s fluid staging, set on a mostly bare stage hung with light bulbs on ropes, added its own layer of surreal ambiguity. A dancer, Elyssa Dole, interacted with the reciter, soprano Lucy Shelton, and both women interacted with the musicians as they moved around the space, performing the intricate score from memory, as did Shelton. The definitive “Pierrot” reciter of our generation, Shelton nailed her mime gestures as superbly as she nailed the score’s jagged intervals.

Manning, under the complimentary but predictable headline “Eighth blackbird flies high,” writes:

Director Mark DeChiazza’s spare, onstage tableau of constant movement allowed musicians and dancer Elyssa Dole to slither around at will in this surrealistic nightmare akin to a flickering silent film. Ensemble percussionist Matthew Duvall mimed the role of Pierrot with perfect detachment, giving the old Frenchman a Mr. Bean-like demeanor. By designing sets to include only hanging light bulbs, chairs and a ladder, DeChiazza wisely let the drama emerge from Schoenberg’s smoky atonal score. Living up to its title, “Paradoxes and parallels,” this was one of eighth blackbird’s smartest programs yet.

A more mixed review comes from Gerald Fischer in the online blog, Chicago Classical Review:

The New York diva has the measure of this melodrama, and it was marvelous to hear her fierce attack on the German text. She clearly has a real feeling for the dark Expressionistic poetry and the sprechstimme style … All this excess fripperie was completely unnecessary because the performers were uniformly so superb and could have carried the show on the music alone.

Majel Connery on her blog, Consider the Lillies, writes:

I don’t expect someone to literally stage “He stuffs a little parcel / Of fine tobacco, with finesse, / Into Cassander’s shiny skull.” That’s not the point. But do stage something that suggests a logic of its own. Do create a stage language that’s coherent unto itself and do give the people on stage a deep understanding of how to communicate in that language … Unless you convince your actors of the value of what they’re doing, the risk is that they look like so many automata in a series of rotating positions.

Above is an audio interview (with fancy titles) that I did with Evan Kuchar in advance of our Harris Theater concert on Tuesday at 7.30pm. You can also hear this on Evan’s blog, the seeing ear.