COVER
Music
of Belinda Reynolds
Innova
653
www.innova.mu
1. COVER
(1996-98)
[9:38]
New Millennium Ensemble
2. SOLACE
(1999-2000) [9:17]
American Baroque
3. YAWP
(1995)
[7:37]
Sergio Puccini, guitar
4. PLAY
(2003)
[6:43]
Teresa McCollough, piano;
Thomas Burritt, Peggy Benkeser; percussion
5. TURNS (2000)
[9:40]
Citywinds
6. DUST (2001)
[6:44]
Claricello
7. CIRCA
(1996)
[7:49]
American Baroque
total: [57:31]
The
Emotional Realism of Belinda Reynolds
By
Kyle Gann
Belinda ReynoldsÕs music is impressive for its craftsmanship. I hate to
say that — Òwell-craftedÓ was the faint praise we used to damn a thousand
late-20th-century pieces that no one wanted to hear again. A piece
distinguished for nothing beyond its craftsmanship soon becomes of interest
only to musicologists.
But ReynoldsÕs music has much more to say for itself. She comes from a
generation for whom the musical world became young again, a generation free to
play rather than support pretensions. After decades in which the
construction of music seemed more akin to science projects than inspiration,
minimalism burst in and wiped the slate clean. Tonality returned, the
steady beat re-emerged, pop music was given its danceable due. The minimalists
gave deafening all-night concerts with only a few pitches; that
attention-challenging aesthetic wasnÕt going to wash well outside the
psychedelic Ô60s of Manhattan and San Francisco. But the younger
composers picked up what they needed from minimalism, its steady beat, its
playful counterpoint, its delight in ever-changing rhythmic pulses. These
they brought back to the world of chamber music, reinvigoratingit. They
wrote music that was once again vivacious, atmospheric, mesmerizing,
followable, fun.
In all these aspects, Reynolds — Texan by birth, San Franciscan by
adoption, and a member of the Common Sense ComposersÕ Collective — is
much of hergeneration. What raises her above the rest is the level of her
attention to detail. Each work gives the feeling that every beat has been
calculated for maximum effect. The energy never flags. Just before
each phrase ends, another rhythm enters to grab the attention. The music
is not complex in the usual sense, but every point of the surface is filled in,
and the variety is kaleidoscopic. The music is likable for materials that
many composers use today: its tantalizingly ambiguous tonality, its whirlwind
of syncopated rhythms. But it is gripping because her detailed technique
creates a fine-tuned emotional realism.
Take Cover
(1996/'98). The piece starts in a mystic E minor, then goes to C minor, then B
minor, G major, A-flat major, and so on. No two tonalities are defined
the same way; the E minor is set off-balance by a frequent A-sharp, the B minor
has a persistent G in the bass. No two key changes are alike: the first
comes after a climactic crisis point, the second is a subtle modulation, the
next is little more than a change of emphasis, the next is a dramatic shift to
a new footing. Within each passage, similarities return. ThereÕs
something about the way quarter-notes and dotted quarter-notes alternate, a
tendency to build meters from varied accretions of 2 and 3, a cycling through
each tonality to gradually bring new pitches into prominence. These
internal processes are the theme of the music. ThereÕs no tune to follow,
but you hear the same things happen in each new context. No oneÕs ever
asked you to listen quite this way before. ThatÕs why, though itÕs just a
conventionally notated tonal piece for flute, cello, and piano, the music
really is new and original.
It is also organic in a way that most postminimalist music isnÕt. The
processes of minimalism have tended to encourage, for many composers, a
mechanical approach to composing. Not so in Cover: the continual variety, the
differing emotive impact of each new shift, makes the piece feel like itÕs
thinking, like thereÕs a psychological process going on. There are even
allusions to the pieceÕs beginning that sound like attempts to focus and
regroup, and after the last one, the piece suddenly dies with only a
split-second warning. ItÕs difficult to name another artist who has
achieved such psychological fluidity in the postminimalist style. And Reynolds
does it because she never takes the easy way out, never Òcomposes with a rulerÓ
(to use Charles IvesÕs phrase), never winds the music up and lets it run, but
individually calculates every dramatic twist and delicate turn.
Solace
(1999-2000) provides similar pleasures at a more leisurely rate. This is
one of two works here (Circa being the other) written for a Baroque music ensemble
— Baroque flute and oboe, viola da gamba, harpsichord — and
Reynolds preserves something of the character of the Baroque idiom by recasting
its ornaments and scales as postminimalist patterns. From an austere open
fifth the music builds up slowly, in waves of recurring phrases that lead to
polyphonic textures in Baroque 16th-notes, and even to cadenzas for the individual
instruments.
The opening notes of Yawp for guitar are classically postminimalist, but listen
how carefully Reynolds avoids any note becoming predictable, and builds up a
counterpoint of rhythmic layers from what is basically a steady pulse.
The most recent work, Play (2003) evolves from a game that Reynolds plays with
the children she teaches, making melodies from the letters of words. The
marimba part is built on the word CABBAGE, the piano chords on BED and EDGE,
and these motives run through the work in a set of double variations. At
first the piece does sound childishly simple, but it is enlivened by an array
of underlying rhythmic tics, like groupings of five and seven beats within the
basic 4/4 meter.
Turns for
woodwind trio (2000) starts out as simply as possible in steady 8th-notes, but,
before you realize it, moves into three tempos at once, with triplets in the
bassoon against duplets in the clarinet (and later vice versa), and a more
wilful theme in the flute. In this piece, the theme does come back, in the
clarinet and then the flute again. In Dust (2001), an elegy for clarinet and cello in
memory of September 11, the different, smoothly fused sections are marked, as
in many of ReynoldsÕs scores, by emotive terms - ÒDeferential,Ó ÒReflective,Ó
ÒResolute,Ó ÒSoar,Ó ÒCalm.Ó These correspond to new rhythmic characters,
moving from the mournful quarter-notes at the beginning to an acquiescent flow
of 16th-notes at the end.
Like Solace,
Circa
(1996) starts out with a spare perfect fifth, but one articulated by the
harpsichord, and, like Cover, the piece is an exercise in illusion. It asks
the ear to accept each new texture as a static permutation of the same notes,
but actually, each passage subtly transforms itself through gradual shifts of
harmony and register, lending a sense of inner motivation to the more dramatic
key and momentum changes that keep occurring. Simmering without coming to
a boil, Circa
finally cools back to the interval with which it opened. Like all of ReynoldsÕs
works, it is not exactly serene or undramatic, but has a natural restraint
covering a sense of underlying urgency that is entirely her own. Others
have employed the basic materials of minimalism to create a music of rhythmic
intricacy, liveliness, and elegance. Hardly anyone has done so with as
much natural emotional realism as Reynolds.
Kyle
Gann, a composer, has been new-music critic for the Village Voice since 1986,
and teaches at Bard College. His books include The Music of Conlon Nancarrow,
American Music in the 20th Century, and Music Downtown: Writings from the Village
Voice.
Over
the past ten years I have developed a way of writing that invites the
performers into the composing process of my music. This approach grew out
of my involvement with the Common Sense ComposersÕ Collective. I have
found that collaboration creates a tighter, more vibrant piece of music than
when I compose in an isolated environment. Likewise, there is some
ineffable joyous sense that is imbued to a work that the performers helped
create. A sense of shared ownership comes into the music, and the players
feel more freedom and confidence in performing the piece.
It
is in this spirit that I embarked upon doing a CD of my own music.
Throughout the process of rehearsing, recording, and editing the pieces each of
the players brought to the project his/her unique talents and
personalities. Similarly, I was blessed to work with equally talented
engineers, editors, and producers whom were able to fully realize the quality
of the performances in the finished recordings. Thus, it is because all
these expert artists came together that I have an album that reflects not only
my artistic vision, but also stands as an example of my beliefs in the power of
collaboration in the artistic process. For this I am truly lucky. I hope
you will feel the same.
-BLR
Raised
in a Texan Air Force family Belinda Reynolds now considers herself an
Ôadopted nativeÕ of California. Ms. Reynolds completed her Doctorate at
Yale University and received her M.A. and B.A. from the University of
California, Berkeley. She has worked with a number of performing
organizations throughout the Americas and Europe, iincluding Da Capo Players,
California EAR Unit, Essential Music, Seventh Chapter Brass (Australia),
WIREWORKS (Germany), ELECTRA (Amsterdam), and Ensamble Rosario
(Argentina). Her music has been featured in such festivals and venues as
Lincoln CenterÕs Great Performer Series and the Spoleto USA Music
Festival. She has received grants and awards for her work from the
International League of Women Composers and the New England Foundation for the
Arts, among others. As an organizer, Ms. Reynolds is Vice-President of
the composersÕ collective, Common Sense. Now in their tenth year, the
main objective of the group has been to explore alternative ways of conceiving
and presenting new works. Their CD, Shock of the Old received the CMA/WQXR 2003
Record Award. Ms. ReynoldsÕ is also very involved in music
education. Her duets for children, For Me With You, has received international
acclaim from the pedagogy community and was featured in the journal for the
Suzuki Association of the Americas. She is also the creator of the
innovative commissioning program, CUSTOM MADE, which enables student
musicians and teachers to commission pieces written just for them. Ms.
ReynoldsÕ works are published by HeShe Music, Dover Editions, and Kithara
Editions.
Founded
in San Francisco in 1986, American Baroque brings together some of AmericaÕs most
accomplished and exciting Baroque instrumentalists, with the purpose of
defining a new, modern genre for historical instruments. The groupÕs
adventurous programs combine 18th-century music with new works, composed for
the group through collaborations and commissions of American
composers. American Baroque has been recognized through grants and
awards from the Aaron Copland Foundation, Chamber Music America, the Mikhashoff
Foundation for New Music, and the Zellerbach Family Fund, and won first prize
for the 2000 ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming. The ensemble has
done numerous recordings, including SHOCK OF THE OLD, which features works from
its collaboration with Common Sense ComposersÕ Collective. The CD, (on
Santa Fe New Music) received a CMA/WQXR 2003 Record Award for one of six Òbest
new chamber musicÓ albums for that year.
Peggy
Benkeser has
been a catalyst for new music in Atlanta since her arrival from Illinois in
1985. As co-founder and artistic director of Thamyris, New Music Group
she commissioned and premiered over 85 new compositions from composers
including Alvin Singleton and Steven Mackey. Ms. Benkeser currently
performs with Hammers and Sticks, is active as a performance artist and writer, and is
a teaching artist for the Georgia Council for the Arts and Cliff Valley School.
Active
in the creation of new music for the marimba, Thomas Burritt has commissioned several new
works for repertoire by composers such as Stephen Barber and Joseph Harchanko.
Burritt is currently principal percussionist with the Barbwire Music Ensemble,
and has recorded for guitarist Eric Johnson and recording artist David
Byrne. Dr. Burritt is currently Assistant Professor of Percussion and
Director of Percussion Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
Citywinds, San FranciscoÕs premier new
music wind quintet for 14 seasons, has been frequently featured on concert
series in and beyond the Bay Area. Hailed as Òan excellent ensembleÓ by
Kronos Quartet violist Hank Dutt, Citywinds is renowned for presenting new and
unusual works in a truly Òlistener-friendlyÓ way. Recipient of a Chamber
Music America Commissioning Grant for a new work by award-winning composer Chen
Yi, Citywinds maintained a long tradition of commissioning new quintets by both
established and emerging composers with a range of cultural influences.
The quintet was on the California Arts CouncilÕs Touring Roster, and also
toured and performed residencies nationally. In 2002, the ensemble
collaborated with Contemporary Music Ensemble Korea in a program of commissions
and premieres; a similar collaboration occurred in 2004 with Melody of China
and a group of young composers. CitywindsÕ performances have been heard
on numerous radio programs, including KQEDÕs West Coast Weekend, KPFAÕs ÒMusic of
the WorldÓ, as well as on The Discovery Channel.
In
1998, Lara Turner
and Jason Gresl
formed Claricello
to explore the sonic and musical possibilities of clarinet and cello in an
interactive format that engages audiences and blends multidisciplinary elements
into the performance. Currently Ensemble-in-Residence at Saint MaryÕs
College in Notre Dame, Indiana, Claricello continues taking advantage of a variety of
concert opportunities, performing contemporary classical works as well as their
own arrangements. Claricello has been featured on the Pendulum New Music Series in
Boulder, CO and at the Loon Lake Live! Chamber Music Festival in Upstate New
York. In 2004 they were resident artists at the Banff CentreÕs Chamber
Music Program and recently were guest performers at the first WorldBass
Clarinet Convention in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Pianist
Teresa McCollough,
has developed an international reputation for her dynamic and expressive
playing. Her solo CD Teresa McCollough: New American Piano Music (Innova 552), has received
critical acclaim and been played on radio stations around the world. Her
most recent project, Music for Hammers and Sticks (Innova 630) featuring new
commissions for solo piano and percussion was released in 2004.
McCollough teaches at Santa Clara University, where she is Associate Professor
of Music.
New
Millennium Ensemble
is a mixed sextet of winds, strings, piano and percussion. Winners of the 1995
Walter W. Naumburg chamber music award and a CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming,
the group is fully committed to the promotion of new American music. They
have appeared at Merkin Hall, Miller Theatre, the Ethical Culture Society,
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, on WNYCÕs Around New York, and at Harvard,
Columbia and Princeton Universities. Past performances include
appearances at the Radio Le—n Festival in Monterrey, Mexico, the American
Academy in Rome, the Eastman School of Music, Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society,
and Alice Tully Hall. Three of the members of New Millennium Ensemble are featured in this
recording of COVER
by Belinda Reynolds. They are Tara Helen OÕConnor, flute; Gregory
Hesselink, Ôcello; and Margaret Kampmeier, piano.
Sergio
Puccini was
born in Rosario, Argentina, in 1958 and began playing the guitar at age ten. As
a soloist and guest artist he often plays concert and recital programs through
the Americas and Europe with such groups as San Francisco Camerata Americana,
the Orquesta Nacional de Mœsica Argentina, and the Czech-Moravian Chamber Orchestra.
Interested in both new music and classical standard repertoire Mr. Puccini has
done premieres of works by important composers such as Faye-Ellen Silverman,
Paul Nash, and Elmer Bernstein. Further engagements include premieres of Concierto
para Guitarra y Orquesta by Salvadorean composer Germ‡n and the premiere of ÒConvergenceÓ
(Guitar Concerto)
by Belinda Reynolds. Since 1990, Mr. Puccini has been serving as Dean of
the Instituto Provincial del Profesorado de Mœsica de Rosario (IPPM) in
Rosario, Argentina.
COVER
Album
produced by Belinda Reynolds
Mixed
and mastered by Gonzolo X. Ruiz
1.
COVER
(1996-98)
New
Millennium Ensemble:
Tara
OÕConnor, flute; Greg Hesselink, cello; Margaret Kampmeier, piano
Commissioned
by Continuum Contemporary Music (Toronto)
Produced,
engineered, edited, and mixed by Judith Sherman
Engineering
and editing assisted by Jeanna Velonis
Recorded
March 24, 2003 at the American Academy of the Arts, New York, NY
2.
SOLACE
(1999-2000)
American
Baroque:
Stephen
Schultz, Baroque flute; Gonzolo X. Ruiz, Baroque oboe;
Roy
Whelden, viola da gamba; Katherine Shao, harpsichord
Commissioned
by American Baroque
Produced
by Belinda Reynolds
Engineered
by Martins Hildebrants
Edited
and mixed by Gonzolo X. Ruiz
Recorded
September 6, 2003 at Skyline Studios, Oakland, CA
3.
YAWP
(1995)
Sergio
Puccini, guitar
Commissioned
by David Nadal and Kithara Editions
Produced
by Sergio Puccini
Engineered,
edited, and mixed by Gabriel Data
Recorded
October, 2003 at All Audio Studio, Rosario, Argentina
4.
PLAY
(2003)
Teresa
McCollough, piano;
Thomas
Burritt and Peggy Benkeser; percussion
Commissioned
by Teresa McCollough
Also
appears on the CD, HAMMERS AND STICKS (Innova 630)
Produced
by Belinda Reynolds
Engineered,
edited, and mixed by Tom Carr
Recorded
June 2004 at the Center of Performing Arts Recital Hall,
Santa
Clara University, Santa Clara, CA
5.
TURNS
(2000)
Citywinds:
Esther Landau, flute; Bruce Foster, clarinet; Charles Moehnke, bassoon
Commissioned
by the California Association of Professional Music Teachers/MTNA
Produced
by Belinda Reynolds
Engineered
by Martins Hildebrants
Edited
and mixed by Gonzolo X. Ruiz
Recorded
October 26, 2003 at Skyline Studios, Oakland, CA
6.
DUST (2001)
Claricello:
Jason Gresl, clarinet; Lara Turner, cello
Commissioned
by the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble
In
memory of the events of September 11, 2001
Produced
by Belinda Reynolds
Engineered
by Martins Hildebrants
Edited
and mixed by Gonzolo X. Ruiz
Recorded
December 20, 2003 at Skyline Studios, Oakland, CA
7.
CIRCA (1996)
American
Baroque: Stephen Schultz, Baroque flute; Elizabeth Blumenstock, Baroque violin;
Roy
Whelden, viola da gamba; Katherine Shao, harpsichord
Commissioned
by American Baroque and Common Sense ComposersÕ Collective
Originally
on the CD, SHOCK OF THE OLD (Santa Fe New Music, SFNM000513)
Produced,
engineered, and mixed by Jack Vad
Edited
by Stephen Schultz
Recorded
January 26, 1999 at St. StephenÕs Episcopal Church, Belvedere, CA
Special
thanks go to: Djerassi Artists Colony, The MacDowell Colony, Dan Becker of
Common Sense ComposersÕ Collective, Philip Blackburn of Innova, John Kennedy
and Matthew Walters of Santa Fe New Music, Bryan Matheson of Skyline Studios,
and all the numerous friends, colleagues, and performers I have had the immense
pleasure to have in my life.
Dedicated
to the memory of Barbara Shearer (1936-2005)
Pianist
and beloved teacher for many of us in the music worldÉ
CONTACT
Belinda
Reynolds, HeShe Music
4348
26th Street
San
Francisco, CA 94131-1810
www.heshemusic.com
¥
American Baroque:
www.americanbaroque.org
¥
Peggy Benkeser:
¥ Tom
Burritt:
¥
Citywinds:
¥
Claricello:
www.claricello.com
¥
Teresa McCollough:
www.teresamccollough.com
¥ New
Millennium Ensemble:
www.newmillenniumensemble.org
¥
Sergio Puccini:
www.sergiopuccini.com
innova is supported by an endowment
from the McKnight Foundation.
Innova
Director/design: Philip Blackburn
Operations
Manager: Chris Campbell
www.innova.mu