Life is like a box of chocolates

Contemporary Music Ensemble offers a mixed assortment

Hearing an evening of contemporary music can be as overwhelming as eating an entire box of chocolates. Only a creative assortment and timely intermission can save the consumer. With a carefully balanced program, including composers Lutoslawski, Margaret Brouwer, Hans Abrahamsen and Michael Gandolfi, the audience left Finney Chapel last Friday devoid of the possible stomachache.

Members from the Contemporary Music Ensemble, under the direction of Assistant Professor of Wind Conducting Timothy Weiss, warmed up the stage with "Chain I" by Lutoslawski. A tricky piece in terms of coherence and counting, the players did well to portray a sense of time dilation and contraction without visibly going nuts.

As is true in every box of chocolates, there is that upsetting piece filled with fluff, nougat, or an offensive liqueur-depending on how swanky the package. Nougat or not, "Prelude and Vivace" by Margaret Brouwer was disappointing. While it provided a well-received platform for clarinet virtuoso Lawrence McDonald, the piece struggled to do much else. All art media has its smattering of "entertainment" productions-works that go about as far as any daytime television show could. In Brouwer's piece for clarinet and orchestra, the listener was sedated by the slow repetitive "Prelude," and thrown into "Vivace Ritmico," an experience not unlike a turbulent rerun of Scooby Doo.

The concert really took off in the second half, though, with Abrahamsens' "Winternacht." With presence and precision, CME-flautist Eric Lamb, cellist Kivie Cahn-Lipman and violinist Felix Petit, in particular-commanded the raw elements of this very illusory work. Percussionists David Schotzko and John Tarcza added a chilling backdrop, as well as having a generally busy, marginally athletic evening. Timothy Weiss lowered his baton with a grin that continued through both the applause and upbeat to the next work, "Points of Departure" by Micheal Gandolfi.

For the last piece on the program, Gandolfi required the most of the audience and the ensemble. All 38 members of CME participated in this work, and all sets of ears tracked the descriptive subtitles for each movement.

As Gandolfi articulated in the program notes: "Each movement begins with a literal repeat of a section from the previous movement. The last movement must create the departure-point from which the next movement will begin." Gandolfi achieves an amazing continuity with a simultaneous harmonic freedom. "Spirale" was composed as a series of musical spirals, "Strati" a network of coloristic layers, "Visione" a dreamlike movement and "Ritorno" the eventual return of the opening spiral. As a point of departure for the evening, listeners left stimulated and moved.