soundSCAPE’s finale was pretty exciting, two concerts of all student works (featuring two additional works by guest faculty). Both concerts exhibited an incredibly diverse array of musical styles and philosophies. The first concert (on Saturday evening) was actually the second concert of the day – earlier that afternoon, performance fellows performed in their own showcase. Luckily, it was hard to be concert-ed out – the variation in sounds, performance practices, and aesthetics kept things interesting.

There were many highlights to the composition concerts. Ben Murphy’s awesome piano and percussion piece – a two-part meditation on timbral fusion (crotales+piano worked incredibly well) and repetition. Amanda Feery’s work delicately treated piano and oboe, constructing an elegant and sensuous songlike texture. This concert concluded with a marvelously crafted and rhythmically driving work by Kyle Rowan.

The next day featured a work that I had been rehearsing with two guitarists for the entirety of the festival (usually at 9AM rehearsals…) Guitarists Declan Zapala and Andy Booth were very easy to work with, tolerating my tendency to be equally annoyingly inscrutable and intensely specific. The work made both guitarists perform complex rhythmic operations simultaneously, forcefully strumming all eighth-tone retuned strings of their guitars.

The premiere went incredibly well – both performers were both professional and total rock stars. Unfortunately, an elderly woman’s cellphone went off during the work (the only time it happened during the festival), but the comical intensity of the work kept its momentum going.

There were also many highlights of the second concert. Andres Carizzo’s work for guitar and percussion was a virtuosic masterpiece and Kevin Baldwin’s (similarly technically demanding) piece for saxophone and percussion (Kevin himself playing saxophone) built to an intense, squawking fury. Lansing McLoskey’s piece for the faculty ensemble concluded the concert and the performance was extraordinary. Vocalist Amanda DeBoer Bartlett shone particularly brightly – her performance was among the best in the festival (and one of the best vocal performances I’ve heard in a long, long time).

The festival concluded on a light note – the celebration started at the concert hall and drifted slowly back to the Casa Emmaus. I found myself playing cards with friends Danny, Zach, and festival director Nathaniel May while guest composer Peter Moran led a wild and enduring singalong, strumming a borrowed guitar and using any possible noisemaking implement to mark the beat.

The next morning I left for Milan (bright and early) to meet a friend of mine. I found myself the next night at Apertivo hour with Nathaniel May, piano faculty Tom Rosenkranz, clarinetist Gleb Kanasevich, and composer Cole Freeman. We had quite a nice time, rolling late into the night. Cole and I met up the next day, and, along with my friend, the three of us had an incredibly complex lunch (think raw horse and beef head) on a side street. An olfactory/digestive treat to cap off many days of aural stimulation!

Made available to us at the museum was a list of potential instrumentations that we could choose to work for. Our only restrictions: keep to the ensmeble and to a duration under 2 minutes. Ensembles were smallish, ranging from guitar quartet to solo voice to flute + snare drum. I chose to write an oboe duet. I felt immediately grabbed by a sculpture near the entrance: a simple set of wooden planks, the construction bifurcated by an iron rod. I wrote a work featuring a series of fast fingerings, reed position adjustment, and a long 25-second silence.

I worked with oboist Dana and woodwind multi-instrumentalist Joseph. Both were very easy to work with – having only three days to write a piece is a time restriction I’m a little uncomfortable with and I certainly appreciated the help. The piece was strangely organized; I wanted one oboe to only play for about 3-4 seconds. Dana took on the more challenging task of performing the majority of the material. She was able to come up with a delightfully challenging array of microtones, multiphonics, squeaks, and bursts of air.

This afternoon was pretty lovely in terms of temperature. I say that a little warily, I really can’t do warmer weather, but most here loved it and frolicked about in the lake – I for one was happy to be in the slightly cooler museum. Highlights of today’s concert included Amanda Feery’s roaring but charming vocal duet, Andres Carrizo’s alluring guitar quartet, and Curtis Rumrill’s ironically millitaristic flute+snare drum duet. My piece went well – I was nervous that someone would clap during the extended silence, but thankfully was spared. It was very nice to see many members of the community there as well.

That evening’s concert emphacized this connection with a series of guitar+video pieces. Some of the pieces were quite effective, Curtis Rumrill’s guitar solo was one of the most compelling student pieces I’ve heard here and Marcela Pavia’s contribution was stirring and beautiful. The visual component was a little distracting – though the video playing during Pavia’s piece was stunningly gorgeous, I had to close my eyes from time to time to readjust my focus back to the music. Phenomenologically speaking, the visual is essentially priveleged over the aural – it’s difficult to balance the two successfully. The less stimulating video during Rumrill’s piece made the balance a litlle easier and altogether the concert was beautiful and (in the dark, cool hall) incredibly relaxing.

I wake up every morning around 8 or 9 and return usually only when cooking meals or late at night after festival events have concluded to celebrate with friends.

Every day from 3:30-4:30 is a composition colloquium. This has taken a masterclass-like form, the three composition faculty actively engage the student as they present their work. Today’s colloquium seemed to focus on the concept of accessibility. Though it’s almost impossible to delimit the term’s potential meaning, a coherent discourse about the “for whom” and how the “fow whom” is executed in composition.

Lessons are available to each composer here with all of the composition faculty. I have met with each of them in turn – their teaching styles are radically different. Marcela Pavia’s marvelously accurate musical intuition is extremely helpful, as is Brian Hulse’s professional advice and Lansing McLoskey’s practical counseling. Their personalities come out during the colloquia. Brian Hulse is an arbiter of sorts, steering the conversations from the abstract in the direction of a sort of daily topic. McLoskey penetrates deeper, searching for zones in this daily topic that might provoke the best or most intense conversation. Pavia is quieter, but always incredibly on point – she has a knack for senetences that force all present to consider the implications of the conversation for their own music. I am very excited to hear her music tomorrow at a multimedia event called “The Visual Guitar.”

This evening’s first (that’s right FIRST) concert featured newer works for guitar by a host of American and Italian composers. Concert highlights included Jonathan Heath’s delicate execution of Simone Fontanelli’s “…um sorgenfrei zu leben” and Declan Zapala’s raucous performance of Eric Roche’s “The Perc-U-Lator.” Later in the evening is a faculty recital consisting of works by Marcela Pavia, soundSCAPE commission winner Ju Ri Seo, and (Oberlin composition professor) Peter Swendsen. More tomorrow!

Tomorrow our schedule returns – rehearsals in the morning, colloquium and lectures in the afternoon, and concerts in the evening.

I didn’t get to write about Friday evening’s concert in my last post – a serious omission on my part. Last Friday’s concert was outstanding – an admittedly somewhat self-serving accolade, since I had a piece of mine on it – filled with electric performances by pianist Danny and clarinetist Gleb. The two began as a duet, boiling through some Berg. Danny then played some solo Schoenberg with incredible sensitivity – I have never heard twelve-tone music performed so engagingly. Gleb’s solo clarinet piece, which he composed, was the other highlight of the concert – rollicking, bombastic, and mind-blowingly virtuosic. I turned to a friend sitting next to me after the concert had finished and said – “finally, I think I like music again.”

My name is Mark – I’m here at the festival as a composer. I’m new at blogging, so forgive me for any stumblings. I’m an undergraduate, one of the younger participants at the festival.

Since arriving (with a flourish, rescued after locking myself in a bathroom) I’ve spent most of my time sitting over cups of coffee with other musicians. Though constantly engaged by innumerable activities (lecture-concerts, rhythm workshops, career-building presentations), the pace of life in Maccagno is deliciously slow. Above all, this festival promotes conversation – not necessarily in a structured setting, but over local pizza or while cooking together.

On my first night, I met fellow composers Curtis and Andres for dessert and drinks – the discussion continued until the restaurant ended, following us back to our breezy, comfortable domicile. After introducing ourselves, the conversation immediately turned to aesthetics and artworld politics – interrupted only by aggressive mouthfulls of the best nougat and tiramisu I’ve ever had.

Recent days have been similarly stimulating, and I’ll continue recounting last week over the next few entries.