Turning Point - Hubcaps & Tailights
Vancouver has a musical gem that more people should be aware of. Off the bat I would gently suggest to Hon. Lana Popham – Minister of Tourism, Art, Culture and Sport (nice message from her in the Turning Point program) become more active (perhaps convince our CBC and CTV to feature more interviews and previews now that our newspapers are moribund.
The Turning Point Ensemble headed by the elegant, unassuming and friendly Artistic Director (composer, also we found out) Owen Underhill, to this amateur represents a musical entity that does not play the usual 19th century program. It exposes us to music of the 20th century and this one. It sometimes picks music that you would never hear anywhere such as my fave ever concert of theirs, the March 30 to April 1 2012 – Jump for Joy that featured the rarely played symphonic Duke Ellington.
Igor Stravinsky’s 1940 Tango for piano is supposed to be the most recorded piano piece of his. Here in Vancouver I did not know that until in a Turning Point concert, my fave pianist, Jane Hays played it. It was a gem that will remain with the Argie that I am.
Many of the musicians in the ensemble want to vary their
musical menu. They gravitate to the ensemble. Long standing bassist (he does
stand) David Brown played for years in the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. It is
delightful for me to spot him in ensemble concerts surrounded by amplifiers
connected to his traditional bass. And his wife Mary Sokol Brown was there, too.
And I must point out that this ensemble cultivates internationally
renowned musicians like violinist Marc Destrubé. The little musical knowledge I have came to me via my friendship with Destrubé who is an excellent teacher. Who would know besides him that the tail horse hair used for baroque violin bows comes from male horses as female horses wet their tales with ...?
Unknown to many Vancouverites, the ensemble’s usual venue SFU Woodward’s Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre (in the basement) is a place where you need not set your phone to vibrate. Phones do not work there! And best of all should there be a possible nuclear annihilation in our future this theatre would be the safest spot anywhere.
But this musical amateur will now opine on the music heard last night, May 18, 2024.
The first work Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector (1980 – Terry Riley) instantly connected me to a Commodore Ballroom concert featuring D.O.A. with its mercurial leader Joey Shithead. The music was as fresh and familiar as when I first heard it in 1978.
The Riley work was certainly not melodic (punk perhaps?). It
would have driven St. Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo, crazy (but not me) who
stated that in listening to music you hear a note in the past, the next one in
the present and then you can predict the next one in the future. For the bishop
music gave us a window in the future. Last night he would have been
uncomfortable. For me the music was pleasantly unexpected and unpredictable.
All the works I heard last night reminded me why I never ever want to hear Bach’s Double Violin Concerto. On the other hand marvelling at the trombone performance of Jeremy Berkman I would plead with Underhill that they play soon Ravel’s Bolero. There is that trombone part!
The second work RASA – Ritual and Sophisticated Areas of Sound (2000 and ongoing) by Sandeep Bhagwati (I was curious if one of the segments called Chaplin was played since Underhill pointed out that we were not to try to figure out what movements would be played).
Like the first work, this modern piece was not one where I could predict the notes to come. I was instantly amazed at the fact that the work featured in some way a solo by every musician (I believe that Jane Hayes mostly rested at the ivories). I was hit, suddenly, that here I was listening to modern version of Benjamin Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Opus 34. With the very good acoustics of the theatre I enjoyed every one of the solos and particularly Marc Destrubé’s and harpist's Janelle Nadeau. I did ask earlier in the evening why her harp and all harps are difficult to tune. Her answer was succinct. “No instrument has over 40 separate strings.” This work has lots of humour in that Underhill would sit down, not direct or walk around the musicians. I would guess that Underhill has never starched his collars.
I noticed that Hard Rubber Orchestra leader John Korsrud was sitting with his trumpet. Throughout the concert he amply proved how good he was. He was a good partner to Jeremy Berkman's trombone.
After the intermission the ensemble played an Owen Underhill composition The Widening Gyre (2002). I looked the term up. It is from the Second Coming by William Butler Yeats. Wikipedia informed me:
But regardless of the specificities of Yeats’s arcane theory, the image of a “widening gyre” symbolizes the inevitable cataclysm that comes when the contrary motions that govern historical development fall out of balance. As one of the gyres of history spins out of control, catastrophe looms.
Underhill did tell us that his work would be more positive with no doom implied. Of the work, for me, it defined the man who is delicate, elegant and unassuming.
The last work was simply a showcase for the musical ballistics of trombonist Jeremy Berkman and David Brown’s contrabass.
Earlier as I was about to sit I passed by a handsome and very young man. I told him, "You are too young to be here." He pointed at a youngish woman next to her and answered, "I am here because of her." It was only later that I found out that he was the son of composer Farangis Nurulla-Khoja!
I am not a music critic. What I have written here is only that of which I know and that is little. I am a better photographer and some might wonder about that at seeing so many unsharp photographs here. I enjoy shooting dance in the same way. I am not working for any magazine or newspaper so I can experiment with joy.
Experimenting with joy does define the Turning Point Ensemble. Does it not?
