Jeremy Berkman

An explanatory account (by that of a non critic and rank amateur) of Turning Point Ensemble’s HyperEnsemble concert presented with SFU Woodward’s on May 2 and to be repeated Tomorrow, Sunday, May 4 at 8pm.

My friend Marc Destrubé a noted musician and violinist is the head of the Smithsonian-based Axelrod String Quartet. For many years he was the artistic director of Vancouver’s Pacific Baroque Orchestra. You would think that a man who could play Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043 single handed (Destrubé is not the only violinist who can do this. There is a story of Isaac Stern being asked at airport security why it was that he had two violins with him. He is quoted as saying, “Because I am playing Bach’s Double Violin Concerto.”) would be in his West Vancouver home, enjoying a needed rest from his busy performing schedule.

What would make this man (who also heads the local Microcosmos String Quartet )and many others who happen to play for the VSO, make themselves available to perform last night in the sub-basement (euphemistically called the Fei & Milton Wong Experimental Theatre – Simon Fraser University) at the former Woodward’s building? This cold and almost bleak place would be the safest place in Vancouver during a nuclear conflagration and proof of it is that your iPhone will not work while there! Why would these musicians be on this? My guess is that it must be the challenge of the untested, brand new.

 We know that Bach liked coffee and that one of his pastimes when he was not composing or engendering offspring was to participate in the computer games of his age which was to write canons on bits of paper at the local coffee shop. Other composers did the same. They would then sight read the papers and laugh at the combinations of compositions that combined stuff that was up-side down, right to left, etc. These canons, some say, were never written to be performed, even though they are now frequently part of the repertoire.

The standard cliché is the statement, “Bach today would have embraced, this and that, including the famous Chaconne for violin played solo on a kazoo.”

In the 80s I read an interesting short story in Penthouse Magazine (they had fine articles!) about a group of Los Angeles music impresarios who decide to bring Domenico Scarlatti from the 18^th century in a time machine. They figure the man would throw a bomb into the local musical scene. Their attempt goes awry when Scarlatti becomes enamoured with the Moog synthesizer and drops out from the conventional music business and joins a rock band.

I was thinking of all the above when I listened to the first composition (Full Circle, 2014 by Keith Hamel) a piece described as being for trombone, interactive electronics and gesture tracking which featured the solo trombone of Jeremy Berkman, the Co-Artistic Director of the Turning Point Ensemble.

You can enjoy that piece and the ones that follow but you best listen to the pre concert talk at 7:15 with Owen Underhill (Co-Artistic Director) plus with the three composers, Keith Hamel, David Eagle and Arne Eigenfeldt). In lieu of that the composers do some fine explaining before each composition.

Because I was present at the pre-concert talk I knew that there were eight speakers spread in the room, above and on the sides. I knew that Berkman’s trombone had a microphone attached to it and that a couple of cameras tracked his motions from above. The motion was detected, the ups and downs of the trombone’s slide and of Berkman’s movements. Before the concert Berkman was a tad antsy. He explained that the music he was going to play involved him not only reading music from a monitor but also reading instructions on how to move is body in different directions.

The result of all that (besides seeing up close the use of two trombone mutes, one which when attached to a wooden pole is used by would-be home plumbers) is that the sound of the trombone swished around the room in response to Berkman’s movements. The sounds were sampled and repeated with modifications. In short it was a tour de force that took me back to the Vancouver Playhouse some years ago when jazz trombonist, J.J. Johnson said to us, “This room has wonderful acoustics.” He moved forward to the edge of the stage and played one of his compositions Why Indianapolis, Why Not Indianapolis? solo. 

I cannot speak for Bach but I am sure that Johnson, if he were alive would be fascinated with Hamel’s method of displaying the wonders of the solo trombone.

The concert featured another solo instrument piece. This was David Eagle’s Fluctuare (2009) for flute, computer in eight channels. Brenda Fedoruk played this. The work did not have a motion detector but it had a microphone to her left which recorded every little variation and nuance of her instrument. I did notice she had (most unusual in a concert of what is now called electroacoustic music) sheet music. But what she was playing was being sampled and modified by David Eagle, who was sitting in the back with his bank of laptops. 

I found it strange that the microphone was on Fedoruk’s left. I called up Marc Destrubé who succinctly explained that just like sound from whistling in a bottle comes from exactly where mouth meets up with bottle the same applies to a flute. This intimacy of watching Fedoruk interact with her instrument and to instantly listen to modifications swirl around the room made me go into a realm which in plain, but politically correct, language I would only state that flute players must be the best kissers. From my front row centre vantage this intimacy was enhanced.

Two of the composers, Keith Hamel and David Eagle, looked like friendly middle aged men. They had quick smiles and an aw-shucks demeanor. They could have explained their music inside a barn. Thanks to their explanations I noted warm moments and humour in their compositions, particularly in Hamel’s Les Cloches (2011/14) for chamber orchestra and interactive electronics. This piece could easily have been explained as variations on the sound of a bell. 

 The third composer, had he been wearing those round eyeglasses like Bruno Freschi and others of his profession, I would have guessed was an architect. He seemed more serious but he was the one who made statements in which he pointed out that the perfection (he did not use that word but I will) of the sound of computers when mated with actual human musicians brought the subtlety of expression and emotion and that he was thrilled to be working (they rehearsed for a full week) with members of the Turning Point Ensemble.

It was Eigenfeldt’s An Unnatural Selection (2014, World Premiere and commissioned by the TPE) which was the true cutting edge composition of the evening.

The 8 members of the TPE including percussionist Daniel Tones who with his excellent “engominado” hair look could easily channel Rudolph Valentino, and the interesting-shoed Rebecca Wenham on cello, played music displayed on iPads. While they had an idea of what the music would be like, it was still being composed by a program (used by all three composers) called Max/MSP so they had to sight read.  Besides the 8 live musicians there were three more “robotic” ones, a Yamaha Disklavier and two KarmetiK NotomotoN. These last two were percussion instruments (they were never intrusive or loud) equipped with many robotic arms.

I would have thought that not being sure exactly what you were going to play and when would have made these musicians feel challenged. But that did not seem the case. The surprise for me was to be sitting in back of Owen Underhill who directed while simultaneously watch a score pop up on a large monitor and listening to a click track on earphones. Next to him sitting at a desk (with his back to me) was composer Eigenfeldt who had three monitors in front of him. One of them intrigued me. It had rectangular slots that seemed to match the 8 human performers and the three robots. These squares would all light up or in sections. The first movement 1 imagination is a way – was red, 2 much beauty is before you – was blue and 3 this truth universally was green. When these lights turned on the colours would match the lights beneath the seats of the musicians (and or near the robotic instruments). The composer explained that this delightful feature (delightful to me) was mostly for our enjoyment but it also gave advance warning to the individual musicians when they would be on.

Anybody listening to the 5 compositions of the evening could have enjoyed them with eye-blinds (just for the sound) or visually watching all the goings on. I don’t think I have ever been to a concert with so many wires under the musicians’ feet. And anybody with an imagination would have wondered that the idea of an audience sitting facing an orchestra and having the sound come to them was the case because there were no other options until now. In the past I have been to concerts of the TPE at the Telus Theatre at the Chan that featured individual musicians spread around the performance area, and up and around the different levels of the theatre itself. But with this new method I can imagine Bach’s Double Violin Concerto swirling around the Orpheum. Would Bach approve?

It is interesting to note that two of the composers,  Arne Eigenfeldt and Keith Hamel reside in our fair city while David Eagle is not far, ensconced at the University of Calgary.

TPE HyperEnsemble will be repeated tomorrow Sunday at 8pm. 

An explanation for the above photographs is as follows:

Generally one is not allowed to take pictures during a performance or at any time before or after. TPE is a bit lax on this but I respect the fact that I should not point my camera at any musician while they are playing. I limit my picture taking to getting a bit of the mood of the location by snapping the instruments. I had not way of taking a picture of a musician sitting on a lit chair (even though I wanted to very much). Because of my use of a Fuji X-E1 set at 800 ISO I am able to get these pictures. I thank my wife for insisting (forcing me in fact) on my buying a digital camera.

 

My 1986 Titanium Timex

I have written about my 1986 Timex here and how it has this random quirk of sometimes stopping and then going backwards (in time).

Alas, last September my Timex would stop at exactly 11:24 and remain there until I moved the minute hand forward a bit. It did this, obviously, in the morning and the evening. No watchmaker in Vancouver would touch my time wonder. In September I was to go to Buenos Aires so my Rosemary insisted I purchase a new watch. I was able to get a titanium Seiko for $135 at the Bay (on sale).

 A month ago I decided to write to Timex.  This was the reply:

Please contact Fred Bitzer at:

A Timex, a fake Rolex & Vivica Lindfors

 

Ximena Uribe, Manila 1901

My grandmother was an excellent coloratura soprano. She prided in her ability to sing Lucia in Gaetano Donizeti’s  Lucia di Lammermoor.  She never sang the part on an opera stage.She was to have made her debut in mid 1899.

Unfortunately a few months before the famous Sarah Bernhart had scandalized Manila with her travesty performance as the Florentine minstrel in François Coppé's Le Passant. My grandmother’s parents, José (a rich Baker according to stories my grandmother told me) and Ventura Reyes were present at the Ateneo de Manila and were profoundly shocked. They soon found out that Bernhart had been a courtesan in the 1860s. 

Sarah Bernhardt

When my grandmother Lolita informed her parents of her debut as a promising young opera singer with talent, Pepe Reyes put his foot down telling her that opera singers and actresses were all prostitutes. His daughter was not going to be one of those. And that was the end of my grandmother’s promising career as an opera singer. Through the years she was often asked to sing the Ave María the one composed by Francisco Guerrero at church weddings. I can attest that my grandmother had a terrific voice and volume to fill a cathedral.

In our family album there is this picture under which my mother wrote the name Ximena Uribe in white ink. One day I asked her who the woman with the smile was. I was told, and my mother, too, smiled that Ximena had been a rival to Lolita and in spite of being an almost as good coloratura soprano; Lolita and Ximena had been good friends. When Lolita had to decline her part in the Donizeti opera, Ximena stepped into her shoes and by all accounts she was a success. In later years she had eventful appearances in the fine opera house of Mondragón in the Basque Provinces in Spain.

As for Sarah Bernhart, her name persisted in our family for years. My mother was a drama queen and a hypochondriac. From her early childhood she was often told that she was just like “La Bernhart.”

I wrote my blog for Tuesday on Monday night and went to bed. These last few months sleep does not come easy and it occurred to me why I had especially noticed that Magnolia soulangeana yesterday. Down I went to write this.

On Saturdays we get Lauren, 11, mid afternoon and her mother Hilary comes at 6 when we all have dinner which I cook for them. There is a fire in the den and we watch a movie. This Saturday, Lauren requested we see Alec Guinness in The Man in the White Suit (1951 Alexander Mackendrick). I had seen it recently but any excuse to listen to Joan Greenwood’s voice is enough for me. Rebecca, 16 works until late on Saturdays so we have not had her for Saturday dinners for a long while now. Lauren noticed that it is Greenwood's voice that narrates my Through the Looking Glass tape.

Note the snap (Mamiya RB-67 Pro SD, 140mm lens, Ilford FP-4 Plus) of Lauren which I took a couple of weeks ago. She has this discomforting deadpan stare. As a little girl she used to scream, “Don’t see me.” Now that she sits across the table from me I jokingly (but not too) tell her,” Don’t see me.” And she stares at me just like in this photograph. I feel guilty without having done anything! If she grows to be a poker player many will lose their shirts.

But it was late in the afternoon on Saturday, as I was walking in the garden, that I noticed floating on our pond petals from Magnolia soulangeana. They had little pebbles on them, little ships on a big pond. I smiled because I knew who had put them there. 

Meanwhile I must enjoy every instant of  Lauren while she is still a little girl. Once she becomes a teenager, who knows?

 

Magnolia × soulangeana (saucer magnolia) is a hybrid plant in the genus Magnolia and family Magnoliaceae. It is a deciduous tree with large, early-blooming flowers in various shades of white, pink, and purple. It is one of the most commonly used magnolias in horticulture, being widely planted in the British Isles, especially in the south of England; and in the United States, especially the east and west coasts.

Magnolia × soulangeana was initially bred by French plantsman Étienne Soulange-Bodin (1774–1846), a retired cavalry officer in Napoleon's army, at his château de Fromont near Paris. He crossed Magnolia denudata with M. liliiflora in 1820, and was impressed with the resulting progeny's first precocious flowering in 1826.

From France, the hybrid quickly entered cultivation in England and other parts of Europe, and also North America. Since then, plant breeders in many countries have continued to develop this magnolia, and over a hundred named horticultural varieties (cultivars) are now known.

Wikipedia 

Since we arrived at out present home in 1986 we have lived and enjoyed our Magnolia x soulangeana which grows under an ornamental cherry tree. I have hacked the magnolia many times to allow light to enter the garden from the west. This pruning does not seem to affect the tree in the least. As a human I perhaps represent a minor irritant to a tree that was food to many of the plant eating dinosaurs of the Cretaceous Epoch (145.5 to 65.5 million years ago).

This magnolia has a slight scent but like its sweeter relative Magnolia grandiflora, it is a scent of complexity. Could have this been the scent that attracted those ancient dinosaurs to the table?

Today as I worked hard in the garden with Rosemary I had to give myself a rest because of my arthritis. I spotted one of the many flowers of the magnolia and I wondered what I could do with it. Herewith are the results.

Forlorn hope is an expression that has changed in the many centuries that it has been in use. At one time it was about a group of handpicked soldiers sent on a difficult mission in which the chances of a return were limited.  From there the expression became attached to the idea of doing something in complete futility. The opportunity of a forlorn hope return became nonexistent and suicide mission was the new definition of forlorn hope.

But the word all by its own, forlorn is all about being alone and or abandoned.

In the late 80s Rosemary was keen in planting spring bulbs in our garden. As soon as her interest in perennials became paramount the spring frenzy for bulbs faded away.

But every year in a couple of spots in our garden there are two clumps (two flowers each) featuring red tulips with a throat of yellow. They look odd, a splash of extreme colour in a garden with as yet none. I felt almost saddened when I cut one of these forlorn tulips, sheer survivors of an era of our garden. If anything I felt admiration for their persistence for coming back.

I was instantly rewarded by the first scan. There is a touching delicacy in the image. I then proceeded to scan it in other angles as it began to collapse. I am unsure if I should do this backwards or forwards. Whichever way I may do it, I understand that this magazine photographer enjoying his moment of obsolescence and redundancy shares something with the forlorn red tulip. If anything we both have a dogged desire for survival. 

Whichever way you look at this we use erotic (with its male provenance) to denote a feeling we have which may manifest itself in a reaction from our bodies (in my case I am too old for that) or simply in our imagination (that applies to me at my age of 71).

I believe that the erotic that is pure imagination somehow is distilled and much more powerful. I find it visceral, a paradox as this feeling is not in my guts but upstairs where my mind while in a stage of decline has more life than my viscera.

For many years I was a frank admirer of the erotic photographs of Helmut Newton. There is one in particular that his remained with me for years. It is a photograph of his wife (known as Alice Springs) taken at the dinner table with her breasts casually exposed.

I believe that Newton’s talent lay in doing stuff that was odd in a small but discomforting way. His famous photograph of a woman riding on a woman (wearing a saddle) in what could be a hotel room is such an image. It is beautifully lit and composed but the idea is odd, even off the wall.

Of late I have been pursuing this task of representing Eros my way. It is fun particularly when I work with my latest muse a woman who is over 50.