“Performance is dead,” he said. And I crumple. Performance is something I believe in. To perform music—on the piano, accordion, toy piano, or with voice—is to advocate for being alive. To perform is to take the stance that “liveness” matters, more so than recordings, film, or videos; paintings, sculptures, or edited text. Simply put, performing—or rather, playing piano—is me at my best. I would not consider myself a great pianist, nor can I claim any achievements derived from playing. But, I was my best as a pianist, a performing pianist. Playing piano, as I did for ballet classes or church services or, once, in a chic gallery in New York City, requires complete presence. Admittedly, there are moments in between—when
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Any classically trained singer worth their salt will have a copy of Twenty-Four Italian Songs and Arias on their bookshelf. The collection of songs by 17th- and 18th-century composers is a primer of bel canto style, with each song presenting a new technical challenge for the singer to master. The pieces rise above mere vocal technique; they’re also love songs. Each one requires the singer to deliver an emotional punch, and those punches are inevitably about love—first love, lost love, spiritual love, star-crossed love. The songs teach a singer to marry technique and emotion. They teach a singer to perform. Pamela Z’s new work for voice, electronics, and chamber ensemble is similar in that it uses a single topic to
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The Redcat stage looked like a jungle: gongs hung from stands, electronic cables snaked between the legs of snare drums, and groups of instruments claimed distinct territories amidst the mess. Eight tablas waited on a makeshift altar at center stage, perhaps soon to be sacrificed. Percussionist William Winant entered the fray fearlessly, while David Rosenboom, composer and electronics virtuoso, presided over the performance from his computer downstage right. Zones of Influence is one of David Rosenboom’s most complex compositions, written for percussion instruments and electronics in 1984 and 1985. He had Winant in mind for the percussion part from the beginning. Rosenboom’s concept for the interactive nature of the electronics was so far ahead of its time that it took
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