Synergy: New Face of Modern Music

Synergy, the London-based a cappella group acclaimed for its contemporary music performances, joins forces with the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble and the Oberlin Wind Ensemble under the direction of Timothy Weiss tonight at 8 p.m.in Finney Chapel. The program will include the "very virtuosic Tehillum" by Steve Reich and "the hard grooving De Stijl" by Louis Andriessen.

Synergy made its debut in 1996 singing "Tehillum" with David Robertson and the London Symphony Orchestra. The ensemble's performance was glowingly received, and the group was immediately flooded with proposals for additional "Tehillum" performances around the globe. Synergy was soon to establish itself as a leading advocate of contemporary vocal music, and now performs regularly with such acclaimed ensembles as the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the London Sinfonetta, the Ensemble Intercontemporain and the Ensemble Modern.

"'De Stijl,' the first work on the program, takes its title from the art movement that was based around the work and philosophy of Piet Mondrian," said Weiss to Oberlin Online earlier this week. "The rhythmic structure of 'De Stijl' was created by looking at a painting of Mondrian's and deciphering exact relationships between lines in the painting, and creating rhythmic durations out of those relationships. The text is all about readings from an art theorist, quoting things like 'The line of a perfect order is not a circle,' and other such scholarly stuff."

The audience should be delighted when the academic atmosphere takes a surprising turn and first-yearMike Gallope walks to an upright piano and breaks into a boogie-woogie tune, while a vocalist walks from the back of the hall holding her arms out in the shape of a T. If Oberlin had the resources, mirrors would be set up on stage, reflecting her T around the hall, a stage direction which is meant to represent the ultimate perfect line.

Weiss decided to include three composition students in the ensemble for the performance of "De Stijl" - junior Walter Scharold, senior Robert Reich and junior Du Yun junior - to provide for them an experience of performing new music that appeals to their generation of composers.

Hard grooving acapella: The London based group Synergy recently will present works tonight (file photo)

"'De Stijl' is amazing," said Scharold, who, along with Reich, plays electric guitar on the piece. "I love the pop influence in Andriessen's writing for obvious reasons. Part of my own compositional aesthetic is to include what I consider the inevitable influence of popular culture in my creative work. Andriessen has done this very successfully by borrowing melodic and rhythmic ideas from pop music and combining them with the complex harmony and thematic development found in 20th century classical music and jazz. It's also really fun to play."

"It has been the trend for composition students to be involved in free improvisation and performance art," pianist Du Yun said. "I think it is important for us to be involved in performing written music, as well."

"I'm really glad to be performing this piece," said Robert Reich. "Not only is it a relatively new piece, but it sounds very different from the music normally played in the Conservatory. This is new music that most people my age can relate to because it rocks, it grooves and it's really loud."

"This is a huge work," Weiss said. "It employs a lot of straight-style jazz, jazz that's European in style, in sort of the 'don't touch my monkey' manner. It should be a blast."

Steve Reich's "Tehillum," which literally means "psalms" in Hebrew, was written in 1985-86 and uses straight-tone voices that carry the work virtually non-stop through its 35-minute duration. Steve Reich has said, "It is vital that the singers use a style which is closer to the non-vibrato style of early music than to opera, are artistically committed to the work and the importance of the ensemble."

Local audiences also had the opportunity to hear members of Synergy give a master class and lead a discussion about their experience in the work force of new music on Wednesday in Warner Concert Hall.