-
-
Ad Space
(728 x 90)
Published on 5/15/08
Survey
Sign up today!
“We’re kind of plunging headlong into this without putting a whole lot of thought into it,” says Aaron Travers, joking about the way his Tiny Mahler Orchestra planned its first season. Yet the group clearly gave it enough thought to land a major catch: Detective novelist Sarah Paretsky, the author of the V.I. Warshawski series, takes part in its concerts this weekend, playing a narrator in Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale. Travers and three other composers formed Tiny Mahler to bridge contemporary music with the standard repertoire, and take it out of the so-called new-music ghetto. Instead of culling an audience from those who already listen to contemporary music, they want to draw in people willing to listen to everything.
“We’re hoping that it’ll open up the literary world to what we’re doing,” says Travers of casting Paretsky for this concert, which he’ll conduct. Paretsky steps into a role that’s been recorded by Jeremy Irons, Anthony Hopkins, Vanessa Redgrave and Sting. In the Faustian tale of a violinist who sells his soul to the devil, only to think better of it, the narrator gets to chew a little scenery. Paretsky has been taking vocal lessons, and has sung in the University of Chicago’s annual Revels program. This marks a chance for her to interact with musicians in a tricky, highly rhythmic piece.
To stand out from other organizations, the ensemble tries to program pieces with clear connections to one another, Travers says. Their previous concerts featured contemporary works that referred to earlier pieces, and their holiday concert placed Christmas carols by Brahms and Britten beside Jewish-inspired works by Shostakovich and Ernst Bloch. This time out, they pair Soldier’s Tale with another work using narration, Frederic Rzewski’s De Profundis.
That piece calls for a single pianist, who also narrates. The text is from a letter by Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas—a relationship that notoriously led to Wilde’s imprisonment. The letter dates from his third prison term. “It’s not really a love letter,” Travers says, “but it’s kind of philosophizing about his predicament, about the idea of sorrow. He was trying to find ways to connect sorrow with love.”
According to Travers, although both the Stravinsky and the Rzewski works share a tragic sensibility, the composers achieve it via different means. “The Stravinsky is almost humorous,” he says, while De Profundis, as its title indicates, is more sober.
To play Rzewski’s piece, Travers called an old college friend. Thomas Rosenkranz and Travers both attended the Oberlin Conservatory and the Eastman School of Music; Rosenkranz now teaches at the University of Hawaii. “I heard him play the Rzewski for his doctoral recital [in 2005],” says Travers, who was so bowled over by the performance he decided to tap Rosenkranz for this show.
Like many ensembles trying to establish themselves, the Tiny Mahler Orchestra has encountered some difficulties, Travers admits. Without a proven track record, a group has to work harder to convince donors and foundations to contribute. Finding appropriate, affordable venues that are also affordable is another challenge, Travers says, but the Hyde Park Union Church and Northwestern’s Alice Millar Chapel seem to fit his group’s needs. “We’ve gotten ourselves into a few little bumps so far,” he says.
For now, Tiny Mahler is working hard to achieve what all the successful local chamber-music and contemporary-music ensembles have done: find an audience. But with smart programs like this one, a few high-profile guests like Paretsky to draw attention and that vital word of mouth, the Tiny Mahler Orchestra is taking the right steps. Having stumbled over a few of those “bumps,” the orchestra might stride into a solid future.
Sarah Paretsky and the Tiny Mahler Orchestra perform Friday 15 and Saturday 16.
Comment