Dudley House Jazz Bands - December Concert!

Picture for poster after Jazz by Geoff Coe.

Friday, December 5th at 8:45 p.m.

Dudley House's Main Dining Room (Harvard Yard).

Refreshments will be served.

If you live in the Boston area, get ready for a hot Jazz night in Dudley House, even if it's cold outside!

Combo

Our Combo will play swinging arrangements in different styles, from jazz waltz to rhythm'n blues. Alan Lenarcic has lead the rehearsals with brio, and the tunes will be:

• James P. Johnson's 1921 Carolina Shout, arranged by Karim Al-Zand.
• PeeWee Ellis & Jaco Pastorius's The Chicken
• Wayne Shorter's Infant Eyes
• Chick Corea's Times Lie
• Donald Fagen & Walter Becker's My Old School

Creation

As during each concert since last Fall, new music will be created: this time, the big-band's lead trombonist Ethan Fenn composed a new piece for a cool ensemble of winds, bass and drums. Looking forward to this world première!

Big Band Repertoire: from 1937 to 1991

Our full big band will explore a repertoire including major American composers, from the eternal Duke Ellington to 2004 and 2008 Grammy Award winner Maria Schneider.

• 1937: Robert Johnson's Sweet Home Chicago
• 1942: Dizzy Gillespie's A Night in Tunisia
• 1945: Duke Ellington's I'm Just a Lucky So and So
• 1946: Billy Eckstine's Cool Breeze
• 1960: Edvard Grieg, Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn's Anitra's Dance
• 1965: Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage
• 1970: Thad Jones and Mel Lewis Us
• 1987: Maria Schneider's Green Piece
• 1991: Bob Mintzer's Bright Lights
• 1991: Maria Schneider's Dance You Monster, To My Soft Song

Rêver - Music in Movement

Rêver is a composition for dancing clarinetist and singing dancer. It is the result of a great collaboration with choreographer and dancer Alice Gervais-Ragu. Enjoy the video (2004, Spirales tour of the Ensemble New Flore):

Karlheinz Stockhausen and Johann Sebastian Bach

Rêver is the green piece from the Arc-en-ciel cycle.

This pas de deux is of course influenced by the work of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Indeed, performing In Freundschaft was my first contact with a composition for moving musician. As a composer, Stockhausen is unique by the different ways in which he incorporated movement in his work. He asked several dancers to work with him (notably Michèle Noiret and Alain Louafi), and notated movement in his musical scores.

But I really composed Rêver as an homage to Johann Sebastian Bach. The piece is both a "Canon Contrarium Stricte Reversum" and a "Canon Cancrizans". It is a retrograde (or "crab") canon in contrary motion, that references Bach's famous canons like the ones in the Musical Offering.

Form scheme for Rêver.

On this form scheme, you can read the mirrored structure, used rather strictly for the music, and on a more structural level for the dance.

Finally, here is the basis for the lyrics: a set of words for each section of the piece. Each part corresponds to one of seven colors. There are no lyrics for Indigo, a silent passage.

Red	Orange	Yellow	Green	Blue	Violet
Rêver Inventer Créer Enflammer Rougir Concevoir Accoucher Réaliser	Rouler Impulser Cadencer Enlacer Ralentir Caresser Arrondir Rythmer	Rire Insuffler Chanter Échanger Réjouir Converser Accorder Raconter	Rencontrer Inviter Charmer Émouvoir Roucouler Chérir Aimer Ravir	Reposer Irriguer Comprendre Écouter Respirer Croire Accepter Risquer	Revivre Inspirer Contempler Être Réunir Communier Accueillir Rêver

Can you read the reference to Bach?

Bleu 3 - George Arthur Knight Prize

I took the picture on the left during the dress rehearsal for the premiere of Bleu 3. The mug is used to play glissandi in the piano part, as you can see on this excerpt:

Bleu 3 is a quartet for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, linked in several ways to Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time. In June 2008, it was awarded the George Arthur Knight Prize by the Harvard Music Department.

Students who recently received the prize include:

• Ashley Fure: Susurrus, 2007
• Lei Liang: Serashi Fragments, 2006
• José-Luis Hurtado: De relieve doble, 2005
• Dominique Schafer: Fluchtpunkte, 2004
• José Luis Hurtado: Of Green and Gray, 2003
• Christopher Honett: Three Deaths in a Cambridge Museum, 2002
• Christopher Trapani: History by Moonlight, 2002
• Erik Spangler: Gut Matrix, 2001
• Helen Lee: Strands, 2000
• Lansing McLoskey: Tinted, 1999
• Christoph Neidhofer: Nach Innen, 1998

Purchase the score of Bleu 3 on amazon.com.
Listen to Bleu 3 on last.fm.