Midori Takes A Risk With Adventurous Music, And Wins
By Matthew Erikson
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It's a dilemma facing many arts presenters. If classical music seems to be suffering in ticket sales and general attendance, do you cater to the public with known pieces and composers and let adventurous repertoire slide? Is atonal music - or for that matter, much of 20th-century repertoire - instantly off limits?
In a recital Friday evening at Wesleyan University's Crowell Concert Hall, the violinist Midori and her longtime partner, pianist Robert McDonald, insisted on answering "no" to both questions. With her star power backing her, the 34-year-old violinist attracted a sold-out audience for a concert of music written no earlier than 1979. ... Was the music demanding? Yes. Hard to hear? Sometimes. Was it worth every second of a listener's attention? Definitely.
http://www.ctnow.com/music/reviews/hce-midorirev.artapr24,0,3986549.story?co
• Midori takes a risk with adventurous music, and wins by Matthew Erikson (Hartford Courant, 24/4/2006)
• Unassuming master cuts right to the chase in critiquing a student's performance by Leah Carl (San Francisco Chronicle, 24/4/2006)
• Contemporary music on menu, and Midori shows her mastery by Joshua Kosman (San Francisco Chronicle, 29/4/2006)
• New-music composers get well-deserved exposure by David Patrick Stearns (Philadelphia Inquirer, 25/4/2006)
• The Gospel of New Music, According to the Violinist Midori by Meline Toumani (The New York Times, 23/4/2006)
• Midori's Idea by Jeff Dunn (San Francisco Classical Voice, 18/4/2006)
San
Francisco Chronicle, 24 April, 2006
Unassuming master cuts right to the chase in critiquing a student's performance
By Leah Carl, Special to The Chronicle
Unassuming master cuts right to the chase in critiquing a student's performance
By Leah Carl, Special to The Chronicle
[Leah Carl, 25, is completing her master's in chamber music at San Francisco State University and expects to graduate in May. She was one of three students selected to participate in a master class with Midori on April 15 at Kanbar Hall in San Francisco. Here is her account of the experience.]
As we play a few notes onstage to warm up, my pianist and I are quickly made aware that this is no ordinary performance setting. With the flurry of photographers checking their flashes, the technical crew adjusting multiple microphones and the buzz of newspaper reporters interviewing audience members as they mingle in the aisles, I feel the pressure already. This will not be one of those situations in which the audience just tolerates the new and unfamiliar music and waits for the well-loved classic. This day is about the uncomfortable music, otherwise known as contemporary music, and the audience has come to be slightly more at ease with a few representative pieces of this musical language, guided by one of the world's most accomplished violinists and dedicated educators, Midori.
Part of the appeal contemporary music has always held for me is its freedom from the standardized and sometimes stifling interpretive box in which much of the established repertoire is kept. With modern music, there is an exciting landscape of largely uncharted territory within which I feel, as a performer, I have the freedom to experiment and create my own compelling interpretation. I usually jump at the opportunity to learn a new piece and to experience the excitement of discovering an organic and convincing conception of a work for the first time.
However, when asked to play in the master class for Midori's Contemporary Music Symposium, presented by San Francisco Performances, I was almost more nervous than excited. Playing a work in this setting would not have the same reassurances that playing the same piece for a recital would have: In a recital, no one would really know if I made a mistake. Instead, playing for Midori meant the notes must be a nonissue and the interpretation cohesive, with every note and minute detail of the score accounted for. Though the audience might still be learning the piece, there would be at least one individual present who knew the piece like the back of her hand, and she would be correcting me and discussing it with me as soon as I finished.
Despite these small misgivings, I agreed to play -- how could anyone pass up a chance like this? Once committed, I began preparing Witold Lutoslawski's Partita for violin and piano, written in 1984. Midori considers it "a masterwork of the violin-piano literature of the late 20th century" and included it in her tour this season.
One of the first issues Midori addressed with me was the necessity of reaching the audience, and everything she said was simply a different way of driving home this crucial point. It is not enough to play roughly what is on the page -- every piece of music, every composer, has something to say. Through all the technical and musical comments she made, Midori tried to make it clear that the audience must experience everything: the rhythmic tension when pitches change on an unexpected beat; the lilting dance that tumbles forward, then suddenly becomes more static; and the plaintive cries and dramatic passion in the piece.
After my pianist and I had finished playing at the beginning of the class, I was unsure what to expect. I had not played as well as I had wanted and wondered if Midori would start addressing the technical issues of my playing, the unique musical demands inherent in this modern work, or something I could not anticipate. The answer ended up being all three.
Although her demeanor was unassuming, when she spoke it was with a gentle power that commanded the attention of everyone in the hall. She sat in the back of the audience or stood to the side of the stage when I was playing through large sections of the piece. Her enthusiasm for this music was visible, palpable and contagious to everyone in the room. As she worked through various aspects of the Partita with me, she would run up to the edge of the stage to point out important notes and phrases in her score, then quickly retreat backward so she could evaluate the overall effect.
At one point, she took out her violin to demonstrate a certain kind of attack on a note; when she did that, I not only understood the attack, but the sound she produces when she plays. Even one simple pitch is able to communicate so much emotionally, aesthetically and technically that I began to understand the passion that must drive the entire section where that one note in question began.
I had little time to reflect on how everything Midori was teaching me would eventually fit together to create a more unified presentation of the music. But after we finished, I was amazed at how her brief comments and slight adjustments made the Partita much easier to play and more cohesive to hear. Her incredible ability to identify and isolate the one or two basic concepts from which a section of music stems, and then to help others put the pieces back together to create a more musical and convincing whole in such a short time is, for me, the most important part of being an educator.
At the end of the day I had the opportunity to talk with Midori, and I was deeply impressed by the incredible passion and dedication with which she pursues everything she does. Earlier, an audience member had asked if she thought there existed such a thing as "musical talent." Midori suggested "musical awareness" as a more appropriate term, but indicated that, at the end of the day, it is really what the individual's priorities and goals in life are that determine where and how far he or she will go. Although I only worked with Midori briefly, through her words and example, she provided the tools and encouraged the passion necessary for me to further increase my own awareness of both contemporary and classical music.
(reprinted with permission)
San
Francisco Chronicle, 29 April, 2006
Contemporary music on menu, and Midori shows her mastery
By Joshua Kosman
Contemporary music on menu, and Midori shows her mastery
By Joshua Kosman
Midori has already established herself as one of the most important violinists of our time, a fierce and sensitive interpreter of the standard repertoire. But with her superb recital in Herbst Theatre on Thursday night -- a demanding and exhilarating program of music from the past quarter-century -- she raised her stature even higher.
This was more than simply an evening packed full of exciting music brilliantly played -- though it was certainly that. It was also a demonstration of how an artist of the first rank goes about expanding her musical worldview.
There was nothing either grudging or pro forma about Midori's reincarnation as a new-music performer. Her program ... offered a consistent stylistic thread, and she performed it all with the same intelligence and rhythmic gusto that she brings to more familiar fare.
The effect was to make a case for the continuity of music history, and to demonstrate that the same skills that a great performer brings to Brahms can be applied equally well to the music of Witold Lutoslawski or Isang Yun. ...
Through it all, Midori and [Robert] McDonald contrived to bring out both the spirit of adventure in the music and its rhetorical clarity, so that a listener was always aware of hearing something new but comprehensible -- which, in the end, is what it's all about.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/29/
DDGVAIGU0N1.DTL&hw=Midori&sn=001&sc=1000
Philadelphia
Inquirer, 25 April, 2006
New-music composers get well-deserved exposure
By David Patrick Stearns
New-music composers get well-deserved exposure
By David Patrick Stearns
Midori, the star violinist whom Philadelphia Orchestra subscribers know mostly for works like the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto ...[has] made a concerted commitment to new music of late, culminating with this program of works written between 1979 and 2000 ... They form an unusually satisfying whole, to which Midori brings the charisma she gives to Tchaikovsky. That, and her superb pianist, Robert McDonald, made the concert more successful than you could hope for.
The miniature pieces on the program posed the greatest challenges (they're so contrary to the blocks of music of any Beethoven sonata) ... Having commissioned and played Michael Hersch's 2004 sonata The Wreckage of Flowers, consisting of 21 micromovements, Midori was in good stead for Judith Weir's Music for 247 Strings, which is similarly conceived, with 10 movements in 10 minutes. Unlike Hersch, Weir isn't above planting wisecracks among her musical haiku. The piece isn't deep, but Midori made it delightful. Why isn't Weir better known?
The greater challenge lay in Gyorgy Kurtag's Three Pieces for Violin and Piano, which asks the performer to find worlds of expression in short movements built on very few notes. Clearly, Midori had given the piece much consideration, thoughtfully creating sounds that shift between foreground and background. There was no barrier between this supposedly difficult but marvelously pared-down music and any alert listener.
Similarly, the 1991 Violin Sonata of the late Korean composer Isang Yun gave the violin lots of long, soaring notes, which would seem to let Midori off easy compared to the modernist density of the piano part. But the peaks and valleys were in her hands, and she molded them with ... drama and passion.
The Gospel of New Music, According to the Violinist Midori
By Meline Toumani
People who don't listen to classical music tend to share that fact as an apology, as if they were confessing that they didn't floss regularly or didn't send Christmas cards last year. but among classical music enthusiasts, there is an equally predictable yet more defiant tendency: a distaste for contemporary music and a sense of irritation, not remorse, that anyone should feel pressure to like it.
So it was surprising to see 150 people gathered in a hall [in San Francisco] last weekend at 10 a.m. on a Saturday, to spend an entire day exploring two questions: "How did it happen?" and "Why did it happen?"
The "it" was the 20-th century trend toward music that was atonal, rhythmically unpredictable, melodically hard to remember and altogether strange sounding: music that was not 'classical' in a Mozartean or Beethovenian sense yet was still, broadly speaking, part of the classical music world.
The event was a symposium on contemporary music, initiated and directed by the violinist Midori and presented by San Francisco Performances...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/arts/music/23toum.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
San
Francisco Classical Voice, April 18, 2006
Midori's Idea
By Jeff Dunn
Midori's Idea
By Jeff Dunn
For a majority of classical music fans, the prospect of hearing "contemporary" music is greeted with the same enthusiasm as an IRS audit notice. Taxing music, painful music, music by which to leave a concert before it happens. Hence the standard ploy of placing such music first, like a dose of cod-liver oil before dinner, to "do you good" but prevent mass exodus.
The idea
The famous violinist Midori, long a student of psychology, has been hoping to change such reactions through a pioneering program of cognitive immersion in selected works written since she became "musically aware" in 1979 (she was born in 1971). In collaboration with Ruth Felt of San Francisco Performances, and with the help of a grant from the Bernard Osher Foundation, Midori has brought her Contemporary Music Recital Program, begun 18 months ago in Japan, to San Francisco. The program consists of a full day of lectures, master classes, a panel discussion, audience Q&A, and reception (all constituting the workshop), followed by the actual recital. The program is split here: She conducted the workshop on traditional Tax Day at the Jewish Community Center; the recital will occur at Herbst Theatre on April 27.
As Midori explains on her extraordinarily detailed Web site, a model of its kind: "I wanted to explore ways to reach out to the audience, not only from the stage but in other ways as well ... It is very important that we experience the music of our time, music that expresses the thoughts and emotions of today's composers and of composers of the recent past. Most contemporary music relates to the great musical traditions of the past, even if this is not immediately apparent."
Midori then goes on to distinguish different kinds of listeners. There are those who seek understanding only through hummable and familiar music; those who want to come to concerts as blank slates, without any preconceived ideas (e.g., those who disdain preconcert lectures); and, finally, her target audience: those who "can become more engaged in the music after having learned a bit about the composers and the context in which their lives unfolded."
For these souls, who aren't afraid of removing one of the chief (false) roadblocks cited by the general public as a reason not to attend concerts - "I don't know enough about classical music" - Midori and Felt put together a sequence of activities.
The regimen
- 10:15 - 12:00: Lecture by Bob Greenberg, "A Context for Contemporary Music," with musical examples performed by Midori and accompanist Jiayi Shi.
- 12:00 - 2:10: Master class conducted by Midori, covering works on the upcoming recital, performed by San Francisco Conservatory graduate students Frederica Steffens (György Kurtág's Three Pieces) and Leah Carl (Witold Lutosławski's Partita) and high school student Somyi Kwon (Alexander Goehr's Suite).
- 2:15 - 3:15: Lunch (at last!)
- 3:15 - 4:22: Lecture on Korean composer Isang Yun, read by San Francisco Performances composer-in-residence Jeeyoung Kim, with Midori present.
- 4:22 - 5:12: Panel discussion, with one question each by Felt for Midori, Greenberg, Carl, Kim, and Fred Lifsitz of the Alexander String Quartet, followed by five questions by audience members.
- 5:12 - 6:15: Wine and cheese reception for all participants.
The results
How did it go? For the hundred or so attendees who gave up a dreary Saturday to attend, quite well. Very few left; most joined the reception. Among those I interviewed afterward, many were impressed by how much they learned from observing the master class and hearing parts of the music repeated many times after the initial run-through. As one gentleman put it, "The master class was a wonderful way to get to know new music." Another told me she still didn't understand the music, but she now wanted to hear more of it.
For this attendee, the highlights were many, the problems few.
Highlights
First was Greenberg's lecture, especially the marvelously condensed yet effective portrayal of the history of Western music from 1750. As he put it, "musical merde hit the fan" with Wagner's Tristan and composers' increasing emphasis on the need for "expressive relevance" within self-determined systems and/or evolving styles. (Disclosure: Greenberg is a member of the artistic board of Composers Inc., where I currently serve as president.)
Midori's teaching skill was eye-opening. She used her gorgeous voice far more often than her violin to illustrate her points.
The music itself was a highlight, even when it was not played by Midori. Steffens and Carl were technically excellent, and responded quickly to Midori's suggestions for expressive improvement. The first movement of the Kurtág in particular was a revelation: so much accomplished with so little, yet with deep passion.
Problems
On the debit side, the press photographers are the first item to mention. The New York Times and the San Jose Mercury News sent folks to cover the event, which will be repeated in New York later this month. They clambered up and down the stage like Kongs on the Empire State Building, clicking their SLR shutters for more than an hour during the master class, ruining the exquisitely quiet passages in the Kurtág. At one point Midori had to ward them off with her sheet music, causing laughter to erupt from the hitherto annoyed audience.
A minor item is the fact that, when the workshop was conducted in Japan, the music was projected on a screen. Not so here. Greenberg partially compensated for this by reproducing a few pages of the scores in his useful handouts (they also are on Midori's Web site). Another was that Kim was not an experienced speaker. She should have practiced her presentation more so that she wouldn't have had to bury her head in the notes. Projected images of the composer and of the Korean instruments mentioned would also have been helpful.
All in all, however, Midori's idea is a wonderful quest to heighten appreciation in willing listeners for what Charles Rosen calls "difficult" music. Midori also deserves gratitude for selecting great "difficult" music that repays the investment of the audience's attention - and for reducing her normal fees to make events like this workshop and recital possible.
Still, a hundred listeners are not enough. The recital, which would have sold out by now had the program been all-Beethoven, still has far too many unsold seats. Making "difficult" music easier is only part of the solution. Not all great music was rejected at first hearing. There is plenty of great music written today that takes less effort to appreciate. These pieces, in addition to the "difficult" ones, should replace the warhorses from time to time to help the general public realize that not every piece of new music is a visit from the IRS.
But that an individual of Midori's stature strives so passionately to raise our understanding: This calls for our profound respect and support.
(Jeff Dunn is a freelance critic with a B.A. in music and a Ph.D. in geologic education. A composer of piano and vocal music, he is a member of NACUSA and president of Composers Inc.)
© 2006 Jeff Dunn, posted with permission
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