ARTS

Weekend events celebrate New Complexity composer

Ferneyhaugh's challenging compositions to be performed, discussed

Lauren Viera

Student composers will have the rare opportunity to experience and participate in a weekend symposium celebrating one of the most renowned contemporary musicians of this era. The music of British composer Brian Ferneyhaugh - although not Ferneyhaugh himself - will come to Oberlin this weekend.

Ferneyhaugh's music will be performed over two programs tonight and Saturday, in addition to student workshops focusing on his composing style.

Forty three-year-old Ferneyhaugh leads a school of modern compositional style known as The New Complexity, considered to stem from the older complex music styles of veterans John Cage and Stockhausen. The New Complexity is one of the most radical movements in music today, notable for its mind-boggling excessiveness in its scores and extremely difficult virtuostic passages. Ferneyhaugh is an expert in the field, and is infamous for writing some of the most difficult works for performance, specifically dubbed "black scores" by experts in the field.

Because of the difficulty of his compositions, Ferneyhaugh's works are rarely performed at all. This weekend, however, Oberlin's own Contemporary Music Ensemble, led by Tim Weiss, is granted the opportunity. Visiting artists Sounding, a New Music group from San Diego, Calif., will also perform a program of Ferneyhaugh's works, and will also lead the aforementioned open readings for composition students this afternoon and Saturday.

Tonight's concert, performed by Sounding, will include a percussion piece entitled "Bone Alphabet" (1991) featuring Debra Moore (OC '94). Benedict Weisser, visiting instructor of composition, noted that Moore is only the second performer to ever play the piece. "Like many of Ferneyhaugh's pieces," he said, "it pushes the performer's physical capabilities to the point of physical absurdity."

Other pieces on tonight's program include "Lemma-Icon-Epigram" (1981) performed by pianist Stephen Gosling, the American premier of a solo bass clarinet work entitled "Time and Motion Study I" (1971-77) performed by Anthony Burr, and a solo flute piece called "Cassandra's Dream Song," (1981) performed by Lisa Cella. All four Sounding members will also perform "Mort Subite" (1990), which features four different click tracks - the musicians will work with rhythms fed back from a pre-recorded tape.

Saturday's concert is performed by the Contemporary Music Ensemble, and will included Ferneyhaugh's "Funer�illes I & II" (1969-1980) for harp and seven strings, featuring conservatory senior Rachel Schermer on harp. The program will also include "Time and Motion Study II" (1973-76), arguably the most difficult cello piece ever written. Conservatory senior Alexander Waterman will play cello, with three electronic assistants.

"When I receieved the score, it was a pretty frightening experience, but I decided to do it anyway." Waterman said. "It's an incredibly dense score; there's a lot of layers to get through."

Waterman will sing while he plays; his voice is then electronically processed live into two tape loops which will feed back on stage surrounding him, creating a very theatrical component with the music.

"The vocal sound is remodulated by the cello sound so the cello sound becomes an envelope into which the vocal sound is folded in to," Waterman explained. The two tape loops take directly what the cello plays and feeds it back at nine and 14 second delays, layering the sound into a very dense texture. Waterman's performance will mark the piece's American premiere.

"Ferneyhaugh is one of the last apostles of modernism in contemporary music," said Weisser. The professor did his doctorate dissertation on the composer and has since been very involved in teaching concepts of Ferneyhaugh's music at Oberlin.

"I taught a class last semester called The New Complexity, a composition seminar on notion in which we spent a lot of tie on [Ferneyhaugh's] music. This past year Oberlin has been very intimately involved with his music," said Weisser.

Weisser, along with Associate Professor of Electronic and Computer Music Richard Povall, Professor of Composition and Music Theory Randy Coleman and members of the New Music Committee, worked to put together this weekend's program of events and concerts, and invited Ferneyhaugh to Oberlin. Unfortunately, due to a sudden emergency overseas, the celebrated composer will not be able to attend this weekend's events.

This afternoon, Sounding will be giving readings of composition students' works this afternoon from 2:30 to 6 p.m. in Conservatory Rm. 21 and Saturday from 2 to 5:30 p.m. in Conservatory Rm. 24. There will also be a symposium on Ferneyhaugh's works from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. in Kulas Recital Hall. Sounding will perform works by Brian Ferneyhaugh tonight at Warner Concert Hall at 8 p.m. The Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble performs Ferneyhaugh's works Saturday at 9 p.m. in Warner Concert Hall. A reception will follow.

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Copyright © 1998, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 126, Number 20, April 10, 1998

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