The Fresno Bee March 12, 2014 Updated 11 hours ago NOTHING is quite something By Donald Munro Jack Fortner knew he wanted to write an opera that had no meaning, at least in the verbal sense. Which isnt an easy task. Take, for example, the matter of language. Any language he used — whether English or some other — would have some meaning. So he invented three of his own. The result can be heard in Fortners NOTHING and more, which the composer prefers to call a sound sculpture rather than music. The piece, which will have its premiere Saturday in a concert sponsored by the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble at the Fresno State Concert Hall, is a piece that by its very nature defies easy description. Is this work in six tableaux for six musicians considered a quasi chamber opera? An English masque? A Greek drama? A fully staged theater piece? A multimedia sound sculpture? Fortner is comfortable with all those terms, and there are elements of all that are relevant. RELATED: Read an extended interview with Michael Kerstan, co-founder of El Cimarrón Ensemble Even an attempt to describe the genre of music featured in the 28-minute piece gets complicated. It is not experimental, because I do all my experimenting while I am composing, says Fortner, artistic director of Orpheus. It is a finished product. Is it avant-garde? I dont know. I am too close to the sounds and they sound normal to me. For sure, it doesnt sound like Mozart or even Mahler, but is of its time. The listener must decide these things. At least one aspect of NOTHING and more — which will be performed along with an overview of contemporary European chamber music — is concrete. It will be performed and directed by the prestigious El Cimarrón Ensemble of Salzburg, Austria. The group consists of vocalists Javier Hagen and Andrea Jarnach, flutist David Gruber, guitarist Christina Schorn, percussionist Ivan Mancinelli and stage director Michael Kerstan. El Cimarrón first crossed paths with Fortner in 2004 at the Festival Internaçional Cervantino in Guanajuato, Mexico. Fortner brought the ensemble to Fresno in 2008 for an Orpheus concert, and the members commissioned him to compose an opera for the ensembles instrumentation. The ensemble specializes in performing small-size music theater pieces with sophisticated minimalistic action and smart lighting, but without orgies of props and stage design, Kerstan says. The scope is to be able to travel with light luggage and to also provide smaller villages with contemporary music theater. Fortner devised three artificial languages for the piece — one each for the baritone and mezzo-soprano vocal parts and one for when they sing together. He finished NOTHING and more in 2009, but its taken this long for it to be performed. The production features costumes, masks, video projections and pre-recorded audio cues. The title might suggest otherwise, but there is a difference between a work of non-meaning and no meaning, Kerstan notes. The members of the ensemble of course needed to discuss possible meanings that came up in order to integrate all parts and make the piece flow, he says. Fortner says there are as many interpretations of his work as there are listeners, and he guards his own, because he wants those listeners to find their own meanings. My advice, he says, is to keep your mind free and give ones self over to the feeling of the work. Concert preview El Cimarrón Ensemble presented by Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, 8 p.m. Saturday, Fresno State Concert Hall. fresnostate.edu/artshum/music/concerts. $15, $5 students. Read more here: fresnobee/2014/03/12/3818838/nothing-is-quite-something.html#storylink=cpy
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 05:34:20 +0000