29 Nov 2013

Compelling Mystery: The QC Symphony Performs Jennifer Higdon's Bewildering, Beautiful "Violin Concerto"

By Frederick Morden

Jennifer Higdon. Photo by J.D. Scott.Jennifer Higdon's Violin Concerto unfolds as a slow burn with flickering, firefly-like tones, then straps you into a sonic roller coaster, corkscrewing through ever-changing musical images. When you have experienced the sublime disorderliness of Higdon's concerto, it seems miraculous that it ultimately makes sense; you have experienced something that was perceivable if not completely comprehensible.

The winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music, Higdon's concerto could be bewildering for audiences at the Quad City Symphony's December 7 and 8 concerts, with its copious, fast-changing variations of instrumental combinations and dynamics: violin harmonics with small finger cymbals, tingling high woodwinds with low, growling cellos and basses, sudden changes in volume, and constantly contrasting textures of sound. The musical events might seem random at first, but somewhere in your brain, you should be able to recognize and reorganize them enough to get a sense of Higdon's complex yet stunningly accessible musical thinking.

22 Nov 2013

Too Few Detours: Minus Six, "Come Out from Where You Hide"; November 27 at RIBCO

By Jeff Ignatius

On Minus Six's new album Come Out from Where You Hide, "Grassfed" boldly announces itself with gorgeously intertwined fast runs on sax and piano - downhill, then up, and back down again, a deft flash of early jazz grafted onto verses of piano rock. The instrumental breaks elevate the whole, with pianist Kevin Carton and saxophonist Matt Sivertsen given the space to playfully develop and explore.

It's telling that these sections represent the whole of the song's progression, as the verses and chorus are (relatively speaking) inert - which is where the album falters as a whole. The dominant style and overly consistent mix don't sustain interest over the course of the record, and fertile detours don't come quite often enough.

06 Nov 2013

Soul in the Bits and Pieces: The Quad City Symphony, October 26 at the Adler

By Frederick Morden

With a diverse, rich sampling of chamber music in its second Masterworks concert of the season, the Quad City Symphony on October 26 provided sensitive musical insight into the personal lives of composers. No symphonies, concertos, or philosophical tone poems here; rather the program included instrumental music for the stage, and vocal music about relationships with family and friends. The performance was consistently strong throughout with a strange musical shuffle near the end that almost ruined the warm, cozy atmosphere the musicians worked so hard to create.

To "Concert Conversations" participants sitting in the Adler just before the program, Music Director and Conductor Mark Russell Smith explained that "in the old days, concerts were bookended by big works and filled in with bits and pieces of other works." Franz Schubert's Overture to Rosamunde and Richard Strauss' Suite from Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme might have been the "bookends" of the program, but the soul was found in the "bits and pieces" sung by guest soprano Sarah Shafer.

01 Nov 2013

Back to Ground Zero: Local H, November 8 at RIBCO

By Jeff Ignatius

Local H's Scott Lucas. Photo by Wade Hawk.

It would have been the perfect time for Scott Lucas to close the door on Local H.

In February, he was mugged in Russia, an attack that left him with damage to his vocal chords - and they still aren't fully healed. In August, Local H announced that drummer Brian St. Clair was amicably leaving the guitar/drum duo after 14 years.

On the plus side, the band was coming off Hallelujah! I'm a Bum, which one PopMatters.com author dubbed the "best rock album of 2012," and which TinyMixTapes.com called a "watershed album ... . Not only is it the most intricately arranged and carefully structured of the band's 20-plus-year history, but it is also their first to delve so deeply into the polluted waters of partisan politics. ... Musically, Hallelujah! is on par with the best entries in the H catalogue. Lucas has a knack for crafting heavy rock with strong, distinctive hooks." As epitaphs go, a band could do much worse.

But when I asked guitarist/vocalist Lucas last week about shelving his Chicago-area band given the events of 2013, he said he never seriously considered it. "This would be the second time in my life where I would sort of think that," he said. But "at this point it's kind of hard to separate myself from the band. When I'm dead, you won't have to wonder what I thought and what was going through my mind. All you have to do is put on these records, and you'd know. ... This has never been a job for me. I honestly don't know what else I would do. It is part of me, and it always has been."

31 Oct 2013

Hail to the Thieves: String Quintet Sybarite5 Tackles Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, and More; November 10 at Augustana College

By Jeff Ignatius

Sybarite5

It likely seems a minor thing, but most of the tracks on Sybarite5's 2012 album Everything in Its Right Place clock in within a few seconds of the corresponding Radiohead versions.

The string quintet - which will have three public performances as part of its Quad City Arts Visiting Artist residency from November 4 though 10 - is by no means the first classically trained ensemble to tackle the songs of Thom Yorke and company. But it's certainly the most faithful, and the song lengths are actually telling.

The eight arrangements by Paul Sanho Kim (on the 10-track album) are striking in matching each song nearly moment-for-moment and part-by-part. This includes lush, thick, slow pieces such as "Everything in Its Right Place" and "Pyramid Song" but also explosive rockers such as "Paranoid Android" and "2+2=5." Crucially, neither the arrangements nor the performances castrate the songs, retaining their dynamic range and energy without drums, electric guitars, or amplification.

30 Oct 2013

The Zydeco Smile: Terrance Simien Performs and Educates as Blues in the Schools' Artist-in-Residence

By Mike Schulz

Terrance SimienWould you like to see a photo of perhaps the happiest child in the world?

If so, I'll direct you to the Web site of Grammy-winning zydeco musician Terrance Simien, the latest artist-in-residence for the Mississippi Valley Blues Society's Blues in the Schools program. Land on the home page at TerranceSimien.com, click on the "Creole for Kidz" tab, and check out the picture of the little boy - he looks about three or four - photographed at one of Simien's concerts. You'll have no trouble knowing which kid I'm referring to: He's wearing a red Spider-Man T-shirt, holding a gold-bead necklace, and boasting what might be the most infectiously joyful smile you've ever seen.

"That's the zydeco smile, man!" says Simien, with a laugh, when I reference the child's photo during our recent phone interview. "You get that, man! You get that when you hear the music. You just start smiling, and people start dancing ... . That's what that music does to you!"

23 Oct 2013

Photos from the Eagles Concert, October 21 at the i wireless Center

By Matt Erickson

Photos from the Eagles concert at the i wireless Center on October 21, 2013. For more work by Matt Erickson, visit MRE-Photography.com.

Photo by Matt Erickson, MRE-Photography.com

22 Oct 2013

Photos from the Communion Tour Concert, October 17 at Codfish Hollow Barn

By Matt Erickson

Photos from the Communion Tour concert at Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn on October 17, 2013, featuring The4onthefloor, Willy Mason, Dustin Smith & the Sunday Silos, and Hugh Bob & the Hustle. For more work by Matt Erickson, visit MRE-Photography.com.

The 4onthefloor:

Photo by Matt Erickson, MRE-Photography.com

22 Oct 2013

No Joke: Har-di-Har, October 26 at Rozz-Tox

By Jeff Ignatius

Har-di-Har. Photo by Taylor Creery Photograpy.

There are many unusual things about the married-couple musical duo Har-di-Har, including the way songs swerve, shift, collapse, explode, die, and rise again with little warning. But it's unlikely that you'll get to hear their strangest songs when they perform at Rozz-Tox on Saturday.

Some odd bits first:

• The name Har-di-Har is drawn obliquely from the theme music of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and that information is as helpful as any of the other explanations given by the band.

• The pair shares a drum kit, with Julie Thoreen playing the "hands" and Andrew Thoreen the "feet."

• People who purchase a USB drive with the band's two EPs will get all future Har-di-Har releases uploaded to it for free at a live show.

• The Thoreens decided to pursue music before they'd played a single show as a band.

• Har-di-Har's Facebook page calls its music "psychedelic dream pop intricately composed and played the way three-legged contests are won."

"We cannot do anything the way other people do it," Julie Thoreen said in a phone interview last week.

15 Oct 2013

Steps Forward and Back: The Quad City Symphony's Season Opener

By Frederick Morden

The first Masterworks concert of the Quad City Symphony's 99th season was a checkerboard of strengths and weaknesses. Huge, transcendent moments filled the Adler Theatre in the October 5 concert, but when things got quiet, discrepancies in tone color, balance, and rhythm appeared.

Under the direction of Music Director and Conductor Mark Russell Smith, the orchestra explored four diverse approaches to composition in reverse chronological order. Commissioned by the Quad City Symphony, the world premiere of American composer Michael Torke's Oracle opened the program, followed by fellow countryman Aaron Jay Kernis' Musica Celestis, featuring only the strings. The mid-20th Century's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, by British composer Benjamin Britten - with humorous narration by local media personality Don Wooten - completed the first half. After intermission, pianist Jonathan Biss joined the orchestra for Johannes Brahms' Concerto for Piano No. 1.

The concert was an elegantly designed program that included a variety of contemporary works balanced by a classic masterpiece, but - except for Torke - it was not a good selection of music for this orchestra. In the tutti sections, when all the instruments were played, the mixture of timbre was profuse. Yet as the scoring broke down into smaller instrumental combinations, the differences in individual colors became more problematic. The result was tonal incompatibility both among the same instruments and between instrumental families.

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