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The
21st Century Consort,
known for its programs
of cutting edge works,
is currently
celebrating its 50th
season. In its February
1, 2025, concert in
Ring Auditorium of the
Hirshhorn Museum in
Washington, DC, the
Consort, under the
direction of its
Artistic Director
Christopher Kendall,
reached both
forward and backward in
time with cutting edge
works as well as two
compositions that
played to a middle
ground that the Steiny
Road Poet might call
easy listening. Three
of the pieces evoked
Gertrude Stein's Paris.
In the order of performance were these four works:
—Ton yo han mek fashan (2020-21) by Mikhail Johnson
—A Woman of Her Time: Coco Chanel Sings (premiere) by Scott Wheeler
—D'un matin de printemps (1917) by Lili Boulanger
—The Rite of Spring (1912) by Igor Stravinsky in the piano four-hands version
The opening and closing works represented the cutting edge, but
from different eras. Jamaican composer Mikhail Johnson's Ton
yo han mek fashan takes inspiration from Jamaican Mento
music. Johnson refers to the rumba box (he uses a marimba) and
a clarinet that produces reedy, honky and perhaps squawky
sounds (Johnson uses the bass clarinet). Mento music has its
origins in the rhythmic sounds of West African traditions.
Johnson's piece emphasizes rhythm without a melodic line or a
discernable pattern of repetition. The title in Jamaican patois is a
proverb which translates as turn your hand, make fashion. One
meaning of the proverb is make what may be labeled useless,
fashionable. The most interesting part of this composition was
when percussionist Lee Hinkle swapped his standard marimba
mallets for a set of mallets that had rattles mounted on these
thicker sticks.
Closing the concert was a tour de force piano-four-hands
arrangement of The Rite of Spring. The expressive hands of
pianists Audrey Andrist and Lisa Emenheiser were captured on
camera in a real time projection such that the sold-out audience
could see their every stroke of the keys. In some cases, the hand
of one pianist was covered by the other's, such that the audience
could marvel at how this intense driving music could be played so
flawlessly under such maneuvers. Steiny must point out that
when Stravinsky premiered this over-the-top work in 1913, the
audience rioted, and Gertrude Stein was there at the premiere
taking it all in.
Scott Wheeler's A Woman of Her Time: Coco Chanel Sings is a
song cycle in the camp of accessible music theater. Without
question, it was an unusual program selection for the 21st Century
Consort. This work was commissioned for the Consort through
the financial support of two patrons—Linda Lovas Hoeschler and
Peter Blyberg. It breaks no new ground, but Steiny was happy to
stand up and vigorously applaud this lyrical work and the
outstanding performance by soprano Katherine Lerner Lee and a
seven-piece ensemble conducted by composer/lyricist Scott
Wheeler. Coco Chanel (August 19, 1883 to January 10, 1971) was a
20th century fashion icon who deeply influenced what women
could wear (e.g., comfortable clothing, including pants). Wheeler's
text for this work is straight forward and easily understood. That
was enhanced by projecting the text of the libretto projected on
the wall at one side of the stage. Katherine Lee's delivery made
the episodes of Coco Chanel's life, such as her affair with a Nazi
lover in "Traitor Song" crystal clear.
Lili Boulanger's D 'un matin de printemps is a tone poem
rendered by violin (Irina Muresanu) and piano (Lisa
Emenheiser). This was the original arrangement before the piece
was arranged with orchestral accompaniment. The performance
by Muresanu and Emenheiser provided a meditative oasis before
wading into The Rite of Spring which starts innocently slow and
lyrical before it becomes a driving flood of sound.
Bravo to Christopher Kendall who carefully plans the 21st
Century Consort concerts.
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