A Night at the New Music Festival

A recital hall on a Thursday night crammed to a point of absurdity. Kirby, Shawn, and I were forced to hug the wall to make our way down the stairs to the section with the few remaining seats in Kemp Recital Hall for the fourth installment of the Red Note New Music Festival on March 22nd. Kirby was here to visit and listen to a concert that was a bit out of his comfort zone. A professor comes up to introduce the festival and it’s goal to incorporate words and music. This was the theme. Shawn and I were here to hear our theory professor’s piece. Promptly, this is how the concert greeted us. Professor Magnuson’s piece brought a string quartet and two poets onto the stage. The words were the poets, the instrumentation was Magnuson’s, but the piece was everyone else’s enjoyment. It was the best example of text and music flowing into each other and in turn, extracting perfect explication. Shawn and I were very pleased by the piece. Even with our already high expectations it had set the standard for the night. The stage shifted from piece to piece. Tuyen Tonnu’s piano brought chill to Eric Roe’s “Frozen Rain, Summer Dreams,” Daniel Schuetz’s countertenor voice provoked protective thoughts from Timo Andres’ “Family Plays” and then we were faced with a more literal staging change. The lights went dark and two stage hands brought out a podium, and an American flag, but had seemingly forgot to bring out an explanation. This, without fail, caused confusion in the audience. We awaited what would happen sitting in the hall’s self inflicted darkness. Suddenly a man came out from the backstage to the whimpering pool of light that had appeared to surround the podium he was approaching. He began. As if a ritual was occurring the seemingly angered performer started to deliver a speech against music and a vile array of sound wafted over the audience from the speakers on either side. It was stressful, but attractive in the sense that it brought attention to an otherwise useless ignorance. Afterwards the man bowed and the lights went up. I quickly looked into the program notes to discover the text was from a Senator’s actual speech delivered in 1949. The words were harsh and threatened the music that I enjoyed so much. This idea carried with me for the last half of the concert. We sat and viewed Martha Horst’s “Shades of Silence” and almost in response, the women’s choir brought out the shades of Elizabeth Alexander’s “A Palette to Paint Us As We Are.” For the final performance Shawn and I sat with our eyes closed and let Timothy Kramer’s “Lux Aeterna” drape over us. It was never said aloud, but in that moment, Shawn and I knew how happy and fortunate we were to be where we were.