Last night I got to participate in a truly remarkable gathering of arts patrons in Portland. It was a Salon soiree at the loft home of Thomas Lauderdale, and the guest of honor was the renowned music writer/critic for The New Yorker Alex Ross. After a period of meet and greet, the Third Angle String Quartet played two selections from Friday evening’s concert Hearing Voices.
The first selection was the opening work on the program, Henry Cowell’s Quartet Euphometric.
It’s a pioneering effort on the part of Cowell. He was interested in acoustics, and he devised a rhythmic scheme that was based upon the natural divisions in sound waves. I don’t much understand exactly what he was getting at, but I’m sure that I’ll understand it much better after I hear Alex Ross’ introduction to the work on Friday night.
The second work we played was from the last work on Friday’s program, John Luther Adams’ The Wind in High Places. We played the second movement, entitled Maclaren Summit. This remarkable work is played using only natural harmonics of the strings on our instruments, and represents three places in Alaska that were dear to a close friend of Adams. Here’s a brief excerpt from our rehearsal before the soiree last night:
It is going to be a spectacular and stimulating concert, which will also feature seminal works by other Left Coast composers such as Terry Riley, Harry Partch, Steve Reich, Lou Harrison, and John Cage. I hope that you are able to join us! (You’ll also get to see me and cellist Nancy Ives make our turntable debuts!)
The concert is at the Alberta Rose Theatre (3000 NE Alberta St) at 7:30pm, on Friday May 1, 2015. Visit the Third Angle website for tickets and information.