Tag Archives: Philadelphia Inquirer

The Nobility of Women, Philadelphia Inquirer

Posted on
2

The “kind of musical layering that makes his choral works so entrancing” spoke to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s David Patrick Stearns in his review of The Nobility of Women, my premiere with Mélomanie this past weekend. It’s a dance suite for Baroque flute, oboe, violin, cello, and viola da gamba and harpsichord, and is about 20 minutes long in eight dances.

He said that the piece hit its stride when “a big, interesting harpsichord flourish invaded the third movement,” and continued to say that the “Sarabande had an oboe solo full of eloquent, Italianate longing, while the final-movement Ciaccona was packed with individual star turns.” He relates Nobility to the line of “works as diverse as Stravinsky’s Agon and Respighi’s popular Ancient Arts and Dances.“

There were small and not-so-small solos throughout the piece. Daughter Priscilla (the oboist) played beautifully in that Sarabande solo, as did everyone, who weaved the lovely sounds of these instruments into the ensemble. Stearns rightly singled out “the poised soulfulness of Boismortier’s Suite in D minor, played with particular depth by the wonderful viola da gamba player Donna Fournier.”

I liked the Telemann more than he did, but I realize that I may be in the minority. Telemann just doesn’t miss with me, the Dvorak of the Baroque. But lots of people, I’ve found, think of Telemann’s output as they do of much of Hindemith’s. And I can’t say I’ve ever been bored by Hindemith, either. Even the notey stuff I love.

Mark Hagerty’s clever and delightful Variations on a Theme by Steely Dan rounded out the concert, along with Couperin dances for Priscilla.

I had a blast writing for this wonderful group. Their commitment to the piece revealed little explosions of surprise that captivated me.

Vespers, Philadelphia Inquirer review

Posted on
Reply

In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daniel Webster reviews Vespers in the first of its three 2012 reprise concerts. He calls it “a tangy, new-old gloss on a historic form” becoming, in German and Latin, “like musical conversation among friends.”

He writes that “Smith’s harmonic vocabulary ranges widely, demands keen ears, and gives vitality to texts that can invite routine. A single voice, moving in consonance, is joined by another on an edgily different route, then by others until the vision emerges of a crowd jostling, before a resolution unpredictably appears. No assumptions can be rewarded in this writing, for surprise is everywhere.”

He points to the weaving of lines, voices, textures, and dynamics that “craftily prepare for the work’s climax, in the Magnificat, to reach a doubly dramatic forte. That section, beginning with single high soprano voices, grew to a tumult, and included historical musical references and gestures to summarize the entire work’s premise.”

He rightly praises Piffaro and The Crossing for their work in creating the “sonic novelty” of transparency and ever-changing mixtures. “Piffaro’s seven musicians play so many instruments that it is, by turns, a discrete group of plucked strings, a sweet wind ensemble, or even a rowdy band of sackbuts stomping through the fields. To hear a finely tuned interval in the voices supported by a small harp, guitar, and theorbo is to stand near the center of music itself.”

And again, “Piffaro’s players are magicians in stirring fresh sounds for the work…. Listeners could hear every line and interval within that transparent singing.”

Webster continues, “the color and densities of the setting of Herr Christ, der einig Sohn, and Psalm 27 anchored the structure of the whole. Smith’s music seems to rejoice in meeting old forms and greeting them like new friends.”

Month of Moderns

Posted on
Reply

Donald Nally is interviewed here in the Philadelphia Inquirer (“Taking chorus in unheard-of directions”) about The Crossing’s Month of Moderns. It starts this Sunday, June 5th, continues on Saturday June 18th, where my piece The Waking Sun will premiere, and ends on Sunday June 26th. Concert information is here.

The composers featured are Maija Einfelde, Ēriks Ešenvalds, Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, Kamran Ince, Gabriel Jackson (three works), David Lang (Pulitzer Prize-winner), Ingram Marshall, Tarik O’Regan, and Mark Winges. 

The Waking Sun in a Spring season preview

Posted on
Reply

In the Sunday 30 Jan 2011 Philadelphia Inquirer, David Patrick Stearns and Peter Dobrin highlight Philadelphia-area performances coming up in the next half-year. Mentioned is the Seneca Sounds project in The Crossing’s Month of Moderns, in particular the 18 June concert with my new piece for them and Tempesta di Mare, The Waking Sun.

My work, and the other commissioned music from Ēriks Ešenvalds, Kamran Ince, and Gabriel Jackson, will set texts by Seneca the Younger (3 B.C. – 65 A.D.). Seneca is just a part of it; knowing the work of The Crossing, and Donald Nally’s ear for finding new pieces, I know it will be an amazing three concerts.

The Waking Sun is scored for choir, positiv organ, theorbo, and Baroque string quintet. I’m composing it now, so all the text isn’t set in concrete, but I can let you in on the beginning. The six sections of the half-hour work are all from choruses from Seneca’s dramas. The first is from his Oedipus:

The gates have sounded, and he himself, with none to guide and sightless, gropes his way.

I then impose a line from Troades:

In whose kingdom shall you die?

And so it goes from there. I can’t wait to hear The Crossing and Tempesta in this. Can’t wait to finish writing it!

Where flames a word, July 2010

Posted on
Reply

For the last Month of Moderns concert, Donald Nally included Where flames a word with works by Paul Fowler, Lansing McLoskey, Frank Havrøy, and David Shapiro. I loved the premiere performances of Where flames last year; this year was even better. Donald seemed to move the piece along in places without speeding up the tempo—an Einstein thought-experiment, that. At least that’s how it sounded to me. But it became so much more conversational, while losing none of the intensity and quality of sound The Crossing is known for.

One thing surprised me that I hadn’t noticed before. In the concert and at the recording sessions the following week this occurred to me: these 22 singers can get loud. Not wild, wobbly, shouty loud, but serious wheelhouse power, controlled. When Donald calls for it, and just when you think they can’t possibly give any more, they slip into a fifth gear and leave you shaking your head and smiling. This happened a few times, in my piece and others. It may seem like a silly observation—that they can sing really loud—but when you hear it live, silly it’s not.

Yes, yes, they can sing soft, too!

In the July 19 Philadelphia Inquirer, David Patrick Stearns wrote:

Frank Havroy’s Psalm, David Shapiro’s The Years From You to Me, and Kile Smith’s Where Flames a Word (all Celan-based pieces heard Saturday) were mercurial in manner and form, and they shared a harmonic sense in which innovation was born of intense expressive necessity. At times, the fusion of words and music was staggering.

Shapiro’s fine piece (which was a premiere) was full of dreamy motivic echoes. Smith’s peaked emotionally with a soprano-section outburst on the words, “I understand, I do…” suggesting a profound union of souls. Performances were particularly savvy with a clarity of diction that revealed the singular progression of each piece, thanks to conductor Donald Nally.

The recording sessions went very well. The CD, of all Paul Celan-based works, mostly from last year’s Month of Moderns, will be released on Navona. The Crossing will turn heads with this.

Diabelli Variation reviewed

Posted on
Reply

The Diabelli Variation made its debut last Sunday night, along with 24 other take-offs on the famous theme immortalized by Beethoven, all to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Network for New Music. The night was fun from beginning to end and was more fun, I confess, than I thought it would be. It was a hoot. A hoot and a half. Why don’t more groups do things like this? I liked everything, loved some things, and wanted to steal a few bits: it was everything a composer could want from a concert. Peter Dobrin from the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote it up on the Tuesday following, and said this about my hog-wild 90 seconds:

Smith’s Diabelli Variation was an extravagant gesture for piano alone, with something of Britten in it, played with appropriate drama by Charles Abramovic.

The rest of his review is here. I didn’t envy him the job of assessing such a gallimaufry of styles from all these Philadelphia composers, younger, older, and everywhere in between. But he appropriately took into account the spirit of the evening. Britten, what do I know, who doesn’t like Britten? Well, there is something of Peter Grimes going through my head right now, trying to insinuate itself into a new piece I’m writing. Maybe there’s something to it.

Jan Krzywicki was the lion of the night, for programming the order, conducting some, and composing the finale which hilariously aped all the preceding variations. Over all was Linda Reichert, Network’s Music Director and founder. The ovation that met her when she first walked onto the stage to introduce the concert was stunning in its fervor. And absolutely right.

We all wish Network another 25.

The Best in Classical Music, 2009

Posted on
Reply

It’s thrilling to be included in the year’s Top Ten list—two years running—of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s David Patrick Stearns. His survey of things musical in the area lists events I wished at the time I could have gotten to, now even more so, as I read about them again. But I was fortunate to be a part of the Paul Celan project in The Crossing’s Month of Moderns, and to hear exciting music by David Shapiro and Kirsten Broberg. My offering was Where flames a word, a setting of two poems and one largeish bit of prose by Celan. You can read the text and my notes about the piece here.

What Stearns wrote:

Where do you start with the Crossing’s Month of Moderns Festival? Founder/director Donald Nally culled and commissioned lots of pieces based on the troubled poetry of Paul Celan during May and June at Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill. Besides yielding great pieces by Dane Bo Holten and Philadelphian Kile Smith, new forms of musical expression surfaced, such as the hallucinatory spirituality of Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles.

After the premiere, they reprised my piece at the opening concert of Chorus America’s annual conference, which happened to be in Philadelphia this year. More about the piece, and excerpts from the premiere:

Where flames a word (Paul Celan)

SATB div. 13′. Program notes. Reviews

1. Before your late face, page 5. View excerpt

2. Conversation in the Mountains, page 13. View excerpt

3. I know you, you are the deeply bowed, page 23. View excerpt