Composer/conductor Victoria Bond’s newest score, There Isn’t Time, makes its debut on Tuesday, June 29 (8 pm) as part of a concert by the twelve-member Partch ensemble. The event takes place at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Bing Theater as part of LACMA’s “Art & Music†series, presented in conjunction with the exhibition, John Baldessari: Pure Beauty, opening June 27. The balance of the evening is devoted to music by the ensemble’s namesake, iconoclastic American composer Harry Partch. All works are performed on the unique handmade instruments Partch devised in order to realize his singular sonic and dramatic visions. These instruments are as visually arresting as they are musically compelling, making for an unforgettable concert experience.
Victoria Bond has a longstanding connection with Partch’s music. As a young soprano, she worked directly with the composer, singing a principal role on the premiere recording of Partch’s masterwork Delusion of the Fury. For Bond, Harry Partch and John Baldessari form a natural pairing. “They share a lot of attributes: both were rugged individuals who chose a path away from the mainstream, defying an easy category,†says Bond. “Just as Baldessari’s art stretched beyond the boundaries of paint and canvas, Partch’s music expanded what we think of as classical music.†Accordingly, Bond named her piece and each of its four movements after paintings by Baldessari. There isn’t Time was commissioned by LACMA for this occasion.
Born in Oakland, CA, Harry Partch (1901-74) was among the most important musical pioneers of the 20th century. He blazed new trails in the realm of microtonal music, in which the octave is divided into increments smaller than the twelve pitches standard in Western music – in his case, up to 43 pitches per octave. These tuning systems could not always be reproduced on existing instruments, so Partch created an array of new ones, describing himself as “a philosophic music-man seduced into carpentry.†Highly sculptural in appearance, they were sometimes named for the found objects from which Partch devised them. With these instruments Partch created music of great sensual allure and emotional impact, encompassing music drama, dance theater, multimedia extravaganzas, vocal compositions, and chamber works.
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VICTORIA BOND’S THERE ISN’T TIME 2-2-2-2
In the spirit of Partch, whose scores often included stage directions for the players, There Isn’t Time makes use of ritualistic movement. The opening section, Lines of Force, choreographs the musicians as they approach the stage and take positions at Partch’s Cloud Chamber Bowls (made from glass carboys used in radiation research), Diamond Marimba, Kithara, Bass Marimba and Harmonic Canon. The second movement, Falling Clouds, is played by a quartet of musicians, two on each side of the Cloud Chamber Bowls. Spaces Between, the third movement, symbolizes the contraction of space between rhythmic attacks with the closing-in of the physical space between the players themselves. The finale, Story in 24 Versions, is a set of two dozen variations on an original theme, with quotes from Partch’s Oedipus and Castor and Pollux, which appear on this program as well.
The seven Partch works on the program range from early explorations to the first expressions of what would become his mature style. His earliest acknowledged pieces employed microtonality in order to mimic the gliding curves of human speech; he called them ‘tone declamations’ rather than ‘songs.’ From this period come the Potion Scene from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet for adapted viola and voice, and By the Rivers of Babylon, which adds kithara and chromelodeon, the latter being a reed organ altered to Partch’s tuning system.
Partch, who lived as a hobo during the Great Depression, jumping trains and taking casual work when he could find it, was always fascinated by vernacular speech, and set much of what he heard to music. His 1943 work San Francisco – subtitled “A Setting of the Cries of Two Newsboys on a Street Corner,†reflects that interest. By contrast, in Sonata Dementia (1950) the singer’s part consists of common phrases used hilariously out of context. He called it “a satire on the world of singers and singing, music and dance; on concerts and concert audiences, where the occasional perception of an understandable American word is an odd kind of shock.â€
Partch was captivated by Greek mythology. During the early 1950s he wrote a tragic opera, King Oedipus, followed by a lighthearted instrumental piece, Castor and Pollux. Dance Pantomime, an instrumental interlude from King Oedipus, receives its Los Angeles premiere on this program. It occurs just following the protagonist’s horrible self-mutilation, and accompanies the now blind monarch’s supplications to Creon while his motherless daughters look on. Castor and Pollux, is subtitled by Partch “Satyr-Play Music for Dance Theater.†Partch felt that after the prolonged period of composition and production of Oedipus it was “almost a necessity to give vent to feelings and ideas, whims and caprices, even nonsense, that seem to have no place in tragedy.â€
ABOUT VICTORIA BOND
Los Angeles-born Victoria Bond is the only woman composer/conductor to receive commissions from major organizations and also hold music director positions with leading ensembles. Her extensive catalog includes works written for the Houston, Shanghai, and Richmond Symphony Orchestras, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, American Ballet Theater, Pennsylvania Ballet, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and the Audubon String Quartet, among others. As a conductor, she has led more than a dozen major orchestras and opera companies throughout the U.S., South America, Europe, and China. She is the winner of the 2009 Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and is a frequent speaker on the New York Philharmonic’s Pre-Concert Talks.
VICTORIA BOND’S THERE ISN’T TIME
After spending part of her childhood in New York, Bond attended Hollywood High and UCLA, then transferred to USC, where she studied composition with Ingolf Dahl and voice with William Vennard. As a soprano, she recorded with Bethany Beardslee and appeared on the premiere recording of Harry Partch’s Delusion of the Fury. Her conducting studies began at Aspen, where she trained with Leonard Slatkin and James Conlon. Upon graduating from USC, Bond assisted film composers Hugo Friedhoffer and Paul Glass in creating filmscores for Universal and Metromedia Studios. She was then accepted into the Juilliard School of Music to study composition with Roger Sessions. She continued studies in conducting, assisting Pierre Boulez and working with an array of distinguished teachers, including Herbert von Karajan. She became the first woman to be awarded a doctorate in conducting from The Juilliard School.
ABOUT PARTCH
Partch is a unique ensemble that specializes in the music and instruments of American Maverick composer Harry Partch. It is the only such group that tours on a regular basis. Since its formation as Just Strings in 1991, the ensemble has gone on to commission and premiere pieces by Larry Polansky, Mamoru Fujieda, John Luther Adams, Mari Takano, Sasha Bogdonawitsch and others. In 1995 they toured Japan under the auspices of the American Embassy’s prestigious Interlink Festival, giving three weeks of concerts and lectures on new music. In 2005, with the completion of their twelfth Partch instrument, the group began performing under the name Partch.
Since 2004, the ensemble has appeared annually at Disney Hall’s REDCAT theater. Other appearances include Sacramento’s Festival of New American Music, Minnesota Public Radio’s American Mavericks, the Songlines series at Mills College, and the Gordon Getty Concerts at the Getty Center. Dance collaborations include Molissa Fenley’s new choreography of Castor and Pollux, and a residency at Salt Lake City’s Repertory Dance Theater (RDT). Festival appearances include the Carlsbad Festival, April in Santa Cruz Festival of New Music, LA’s Grand Performances, and the 36th Annual Composer’s Symposium (Albuquerque). In 2009, Partch traveled to Mexico on a NEA-sponsored cultural exchange to represent Los Angeles at the Guadalajara International Book Fair. Partch’s discography includes recordings on the Bridge, Innova, Mode, and New Albion labels. Partch is the resident ensemble of MicroFest, Los Angeles’ yearly festival of microtonal music.
Art & Music Event Ticket Info:
Tickets: are $25 (general adm.); $18 for members and seniors 62+; $5 for students w/ID. Tickets are available https://tx1.lacma.org , at the LACMA box office, or by calling 323/857-6010.
Date: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 at 8pm
Location: The Bing Theatre at LACMA · 5905 Wilshire Boulevard · Los Angeles, California 90036
