By Omari Ausby
Orchestral music is one of the main works of art that in Western Society maintained the soul that was continuously growing and changing. Periods from Medieval times to the Romantic period, music here at home became part of our very nature. From Mozart to Beethoven, and Bach to Handel, our music has grown drastically and shaped how we as a society interpret and embrace fantastic works of art. Being a student of music and in a society where sound is always changing, I’ve come to learn so much from my culture and others, and the chamber music performance that I had a pleasure of witnessing showed me exactly that.
Today’s musical composers are amazing with what they can do with instruments, and as a pianist, I enjoy that with a sense of patience and freedom we can create self-sustaining memories through sound. I recently attended a performance and was taken on to a journey that I can never forget. I’ve seen performances before at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and at Lincoln Center and they were amazing. A lot bigger than the small performance I recently attended, but I knew right then and there that without music life would be meaningless. At Eight Strings & a Whistles I got to witness incredible musicians give an incredible performance for some incredible composers. The performance was at a Church in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village and the venue was pretty good. It’s been a while since I stepped foot into a church, totally my fault, but being in that space listening to instrumental music was amazing. It was incredible to be able to connect spiritually with the music at St. John’s church. The acoustics within the space seemed open and full filling, and even though it was three musicians performing, the space grasped every feeling and emotion that I truly expected to come from the sound. I really enjoyed the overall welcoming feel of the space, even though I might’ve been the only student there, I felt that and it felt welcoming.
Eight Strings & a Whistle was a very interesting performance from beginning to end. There was never a point where I wasn’t interested in the music that was played. With each of the melodies in the first sonata to the second felt like it was going through a series of call and responses. I remember in listening to the melody in the Tower Sonata in Five Movements by Claire Polin that not only did the piece feel as if it was set in minor, but it had a series of mysterious feeling of open-ended questions, that as you go through the full five movements, there will be a response to whatever that question may be. Even though I did not like the Tower Sonata, the same way I liked Waves Within a Tide by Ingrid Stölzel. I really enjoyed the line of questioning that came about while listening to the piece. Waves Within a Tide also had a poem, which I thought was interesting, and what was interesting about the poem is that it’s not about sitting on the beach or at a lake house or something enjoying the fresh air. It’s about our personal
melodies and our own internal melodies that we have flowing through us every day. It’s just a wave of music that gradually builds and builds that with each flowing step can be released instantly through communication and sound. Ingrid Stölzel was there as well, I remember her reading the poem and even though she gave a disclaimer about not being a poet, her reading was actually very helpful for me and my ability to even peek just slightly in her mind and see what she saw when creating this piece. It’s really interesting to hear what she came up with and wrote specifically for her work, it really put things in perspective .. I really enjoyed that given what the poem was saying the melodies that were created gave us all in the audience some internal imagery. Like the flute was associated with the wind and the viola was associated with the calmness of the waves and then the stillness of the air around us. Then the cello was used as a crashing force that was gravely used to create a sense of instant change in the weather or it’s drastic and quick or calm and steady change. I greatly loved how the first three pieces were associated with the feel of outside and inside feeling, also loved the thinking that greatly came from each piece as well. Like for me the parts of each piece had a sense of where there is a main melody that is there and then there is a melody used in response to the first melody and the there is an additional melody that is used almost as if its addition response or a counter argument
to the first original subject.
The last three pieces didn’t feel as if they had any close connection in overall design or melody but the piece created by Zoe Yost called A Midsummer’s Daydream was very interesting especially with the use of melody. What I immediately pictured once hearing the music was sitting on a bench and letting my mind wander. Wandering specifically into many different scenarios and stories that have no plot, that have no story, that have no direction but literally gave me a sense of pure freedom. All and all the entire performance was fantastic and I would definitely go and see more and just listen to the tempos and melodies and more.
Sitting there in the church and being in a space with people who are genuinely lovers of music was amazing. The energy wouldn’t have been what it was without the help of the musicians. So elegant with each strum of each note from the string section and then to be able to have concise breath control and play the flute in what felt like an intense set is crazy. I really enjoyed the level of communication amongst the musicians, it didn’t just feel like a performance, it was more like a jam session between fantastic instrumentalists who knew the material and were willing to present the story of other composers. Like I had expressed earlier that the composed work that was presented felt like a conversation between producer and audience member, I felt that there was a conversation amongst themselves. Yes I know that as a band to make sure you’re on point regardless of what the sheet music reads, you’ve got to communicate with each other. However, what I noticed in the seat that I was in, and watching the faces of the instrumentalist, was that there were words exchanged. Through their instruments I could tell that there was something that drove them to deliver an amazing performance. Not a single miss note and not a single wasted movement made me appreciate the music more. It was totally a different
experience especially being classical music with sounds of imagery and changing patterns. The experience of having to interpret the mind of each composer is poetic because their form of expression is now something that we can relate too. With modern popular music every story no matter how good or bad it is, the image is painted perfectly for us. With the use of good lyricism and will put together verbal phrases an artist can tell a clear concise story and we would know that the struggle is real. With classical composers that generally don’t have poems or some kind of symbolic imagery to get their audience to have a focused idea on the music, lovers of music in all its genres really get to sit down with the sound and analyze the details and really get into the conversation that composers create with their music. Ingrid Stölzel definitely had that goal in mind because I felt that there was a story within her piece, especially, I felt that her piece could be used to influence other stories as well.
In my time in college, day by day I’ve learned music inside and out. I’ve learned how to expand my knowledge in music through its history, through its sound, and its genres. It’s a highway with many different twists and turns but it is rewarding. It’s rewarding to know that even though there is mainstream music that has taken over the narrative of the content that is being produce. There is music that can take real listeners on a journey within themselves and feel once more. That day I can’t get back but the memory is still locked in and with every waking moment I am still inspired by the idea to just keep creating, to keep writing that there will always
be someone who will enjoy sitting in my mind of loving the music. The Eight Strings and a Whistles performance was an amazing experience for me and I would love to go again to another performance.
