Here's the post on the Los Angeles visit I promised. I went out to California for a week to unwind, as well as to hear Amy Briggs Dissanayake's recital on the mostly contemporary Piano Spheres series. That set of recitals was the brainchild of Leonard Stein, and Amy was the second pianist brought into the series after he was unable to perform. (He passed away in 2004.)
After we arrived on Monday, we went out to the welcoming brick house of Catherine Uniack, the series executive director, and her husband, who have an equally welcoming studio apartment above her garage. Amy went off to practice for a few hours at the Kasimoff-Bluthner Piano Co. while I went off in search of coffee and a newspaper. In the evening, we amused ourselves driving up and down Santa Monica Blvd. looking for dinner. Dinner was eventually found in a pizza joint two blocks from the studio apartment.
I spent Tuesday reading the paper, again, before it was time to head over to Zipper Hall for Amy's recital. Prior to that, though, it was necessary to catch up with Alan Rich over dinner. Having filled me in on the boatload of Minimalism and Golijov that's coming through LA, I was able to catch him up on what had been going on out here.
The recital itself turned out to be a well-proportioned show of works by Suzanne Sorkin (an URL-less composer, apparently, but she teaches at St. Joseph's College in Philly), Stefano Gervasoni (whose mp3 downloads I recommend), and etudes by Augusta Read Thomas and David Rakowski. A brief salvo of Scarlatti sonatas opened the concert. I've heard the Thomas etudes a handful of times by now and thought there was a fair amount of note-spinning in them. But there was more rhythmic definition in them this time 'round, or maybe I'm just becoming more familiar with them. Both the second, an homage to Bartok, and the homage to Morton Feldman went over well with the audience, too. Alan Rich will have his say in a few weeks, I'm told.
We left fairly early the next morning to drive up the Pacific Coast Highway on our way to the Treebones Resort. Everyone we talked to said "Oh, it's so twisting. Be careful," and I, in my standard way, thought they were exaggerating. Having traversed those meandering roads that drop off into the Pacific Ocean with no guardrail to stop you and which can only be taken in the zone of 15 mph, I'll grant they were right. We stayed in a yurt, a circular Mongolian construction that manages to be fairly warm in the chilly California night. The place has some spectacular views of Big Sur.
We continued north and eventually west on Thursday, en route to visit the composer family Laurie San Martin and Sam Nichols (scroll down) and their beautiful 2-year old daughter Georgia. On the way, we pulled off the highway to go for a five-mile run. We ended up in the rolling California farm country and watched the cows look back at us. A friendly garlic shop outside Gilroy (the Garlic Capital of California) allowed for a place to change into civilian clothes and by some gifts for our hosts.
Much time was spent catching up with them. Amy had a residency at UC-Davis, where Laurie teaches, so the friendship goes way back.
Then Friday it was back to Los Angeles for a Philharmonic concert of Mahler's Fifth led by Ingo Metzmacher. This was on the Phil.'s Casual Fridays series, in which the concertgoers and the audience are in casual attire. There were enough sneaker and khakis combinations among the musicians to make me think I was back in Indiana. But then, Frank Gehry and family were sitting in front of us, which pitched me back to LA. He was friendly but distracted. He's been told by Chicagoans of our appreciation of the Pritzker Pavilion before, apparently.
Metzmacher's no Mahlerian. He walked leisurely through the score without bringing out any of the massive dynamic shifts that are in there; pianissimos were mezzo forte, and the climaxes were forte. For all his podium-hopping, there was no shape to the work, all was spent floating along. I've heard this orchestra tear the cover off of Daphnis and Chloe under Salonen, and Metzmacher gave them nothing to react to.
Then we flew home on Saturday and went back (see 3/15) to work.
