I had a few projects on my plate for my practice retreat week, but the most interesting by far turned out to be a musical transcription project. Over the course of the month of January, I participated in Fun-a-day where people in cities all over the US choose something creative (and fun) to do every day for the month. I chose to write a "fiddle-tune-a-day." Some days I had to do a little make-up work for days that I missed, but by January 31, I had a tune for every day.

The only problem was that they were recorded, but not transcribed. Through the process of transcribing them via a computer program this week, I've listened and played through these tunes a lot more and have gotten to know which ones I like and which I don't. I noticed some patterns I follow in my writing and improvising as well as some interesting experimental deviations from the patterns of the traditional fiddle tunes that I aim to emulate. I've had fun coming up with names for the tunes, too (such as "Crazy Burger").

In the end, I have a compilation of waltzes, jigs, reels, marches, hornpipes, and hambos that I never would have created otherwise. I'll be performing a few of these tunes at the "Fun-a-day Providence" opening which is on February 11 at the WBNA building. Tunes will be happening between 8:00 and 8:30 pm.  More details are here.

-Rachel Panitch, CMW staff

On Sunday, February 13, The RISD Museum and CMW will co-present a performance by the Providence String Quartet featuring Different Trains, a landmark and Grammy Award winning piece by American composer Steve Reich. Find all the event details here, and for tickets, call the Museum at (401) 709-8402.

Steve Reich: Different Trains

Another path for 20th century composers was developed in the artsy undergrounds of San Francisco and New York in the 1960s before being accepted, albeit with mixed reactions, into the world‟s concert halls. With its short kernels of music, repeated over and over with gradual transformation and development, the genre of Minimalism became popular with the public because of its immediacy of expression and Zen like clarity. One can just chill out, listen, and be drawn in by the trance-like repetition. One of the pioneers of the movement is Steve Reich, whose powerful Different Trains for string quartet and tape instantly became a modern masterpiece after its premiere by the Kronos Quartet in 1988.

Born in New York City in 1936, Steve Reich spent his childhood split between Los Angeles and New York as his parents divorced when he was one. He would travel back and forth by train accompanied by a governess. Years later, Reich had the realization that had he been born in Europe, as a Jew he would have been forced to ride on very different kinds of trains. This was the catalyst for Different Trains, and for source material Reich used interviews with his childhood governess, a train porter that worked the trans-American routes at the time of the War, and three Holocaust survivors. The survivors' reminiscences about the War also included recollections about their own journeys on trains to concentration camps.

Like the Bohemian composer Leoš Janáček had done almost a hundred years earlier in his works, Reich used the melodic inflection of his subject's voices as the principle themes of Different Trains. Throughout the work, men's voices are represented by themes in the cello, and women's voices by themes in the viola. The sounds of trains features prominently as well; not only in the pre-recorded tape with the click-clack of the locomotive, the piercing whistle and the clang of the bell, but in the string quartet itself, with repetitive sixteenth note motives that recreate the forward propulsion of the train.

The first movement of the historically programmatic quartet takes place before the War and Reich uses the recollections of the governess and train porter as the narrative. The music drives forward at a busy clip, recreating Reich's cross-country journeys. There is a palpable shift in emotion at the transition to the second movement. The somberly paced Holocaust train replaces the bustle and optimism of the American train, and the strident American train whistles are taken over by the sound of air-raid sirens. The source material for the second movement is the chilling recollections of the Holocaust survivors.

There is another startling shift from the second to the third movement as the noise of the trains, whistles and air-raid sirens finally stop, and there is a brief but incredibly loud silence. Out of this silence comes a concentrated sixteenth note cell that is developed fugally before we hear the derivation of the melodic kernel: the reminiscence of a Hungarian named Paul saying, “And the war was over.” In the work's final movement, we hear the governess and the porter, as well as the survivors trying to move on with their lives and make sense of the horrors that had transpired.

Download Jesse's complete program notes for the season-long series here.

For its series of weekly interviews with important and interesting personalities in the arts, the National Endowment for the Arts posted a conversation with Sebastian, CMW's founder, in December 2010. Find the interview as a podcast here, along with a link to a transcript.

Additional footage of October's Anthem in DC filmed by a PBS NewsHour film crew.

We're so grateful to our community for responding so generously to our request for financial support in December. We received approximately 200 donations totaling more than $45,000. And even better, this entire amount will be matched by the Carter Family Charitable Trust! Thank you for investing in CMW.

-Heath Marlow, CMW staff

 
musiConnects is the new home organization of the Boston Public Quartet! Our mission and work are still the same, but we wanted to add a new name that helps describe what we do – social change through chamber music, connecting kids, connecting families, connecting community!

-Betsy Hinkle, Founder

[Editor: CMW Fellowship Program alumni Adrienne Taylor and Jason Amos joined the Boston Public Quartet in September 2010.]

Photo: Netta Hadari

The central vehicle for achieving Music Haven’s goals is the Haven String Quartet, its resident ensemble. The group — Tina Hadari and Yaira Matyakubova on violins, Colin Benn on viola and Matthew Beckmann on cello — performs, alone or with students, at nearly all of the organization’s concerts.

On Monday, the group will perform two pieces on its own: the “Lyric Quartet,” a three-part suite in the Debussy mode written in 1960 by the African-American composer William Grant Still, and "Rosa Parks" part of “A Civil Rights Reader,” an ongoing project of the Haitian-American violinist and composer Daniel Bernard Roumain. Both performances will be firsts for the quartet.

The decision to focus on Mr. Roumain, 40, who seems as comfortable writing string quartets as he was appearing with Lady Gaga on “American Idol," is an apt one. Told of Music Haven’s decision to play “Parks,” he expressed appreciation, noting that the piece was his fifth for string quartet, and a sixth had been commissioned by Community MusicWorks in Providence, RI—the organization Ms. Hadari cited as a model for her group.

Read the entire article here.

The Abreu Fellows Program at New England Conservatory provides tuition-free instruction and a needs-based living stipend for ten outstanding postgraduate musicians and music educators, "passionate for their art and for social justice," who seek to guide the development of El Sistema programs in the U.S. 

Pending confirmation of funding, the third class of Abreu Fellows will begin their training at New England Conservatory in Boston on August 29, 2011. The first semester will include visits to El Sistema-inspired programs in the U.S. and a series of intensive workshops centered on the musical, educational and organizational components of launching an El Sistema-inspired program in the U.S. The second semester will include a two-month period of applied study in Venezuela, followed by a three-week guided internship at an El Sistema-inspired program in the U.S. The Application Deadline is February 14.

Find the Abreu Fellows Program application materials here.

Students record themselves improvising over their electronic compositions.

Alana and Brian show their mothers how to use software. In December, family members attended final classes of the semester for demos and a screening of student work.

More Media Lab photos by Jori are available in CMW's Flickr account.

More photos by Jori in CMW's Flickr account.