Melissa and I attended the 22nd Annual Premieres Concert by the Stony Brook Contemporary Music Players at Merkin Hall on November 12, 2009. We were there to see a piece by my friend Douglas Boyce. His piece, Displacements, was a lighthearted deconstructionist piece highlighting the chances that make every performance of a piece different. The players walked around the stage and the music was entirely unpredictable and unexpected in unusual ways. It took advantage of a 12 speaker system to project sound from different directions.
Boyce’s piece was preceded by Margaret Schedel’s Muted Mahogany, in which a number of vibraphone players were directed by a joystick-controlled sound. The piece reminded me of science fiction and it reminded Melissa of the wind at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. It also used the 12 speaker system nicely.
Schedel’s piece, in turn, was preceded by Stanley Walden’s delightful and also very modern Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano, in which the various instruments combined to make interesting sounds in unusual ways. Compared to what followed it, the piece was “old modern” rather than “new modern” — but no less fun.
Melissa left singing the “Meow Mix” commercial jingle and that is actually an indication of the concert’s success. It left us all feeling happy on a day in which New York was bracing to meet the edge of a massive Atlantic storm.
We were able to thank the three composers for their pieces and all were very nice to us.
Tags: boyce