When you listen to five brass players and one percussionist, you're hearing a musical machine tailor-made for delivering new music.
That lineup describes the New York-based Meridian Arts Ensemble, which gave a stunning performance of contemporary music Friday evening at California State University, Sacramento's, 32nd annual Festival of New American Music.
The ensemble, no stranger to this festival, first played here in 1992. But you wouldn't know Meridian to be a long-standing group upon hearing the powerful and edgy approach it uses to tackle new music.
Trumpeters Jon Nelson and Brian McWhorter, horn player Daniel Grabois, tubist Raymond Stewart, trombonist Benjamin Herrington and percussionist John Ferrari played like hungry, young musicians. One got the feeling, instantly, that these are musicians whose only comfort is unexpected, demanding music.
The ensemble began with Lei Liang's "Ascencion," a frenetic work that explores the sonic virility of each instrument. Some of the melodic lines here were mere utterances, and sometimes each musician was asked to utter, too. The work was girded by powerful and rhythmic percussion, which showcased Ferrari's great talents. At times during this bracing piece, the instruments would come together in unison for great tonal effect – as if musical time had moved backward to when atonality had not been born.
Next came the slow and ponderous "Passed Time" by Edward Jacobs. Scored for only five horns, the sonorities were tightly spaced and the moods shifted quickly.
"Magnetic North," by Stanford composer Mark Applebaum, proved an engaging and curious work. The piece is conceived as an absurdist concerto for brass and percussion. The operative word in "Magnetic" is "play" as a musical verb. And it is used in a decidedly dadaist way. Here, the musicians were asked to take apart and reassemble their horns, rip pieces of paper and tin foil, and drop ping-pong balls, all of it in the service of the music. Ultimately, the piece's power to playfully entertain overwhelmed the music itself.
The second half of the concert began with the world premiere of Andrew Rindfleisch's "In the Zone." It was the most traditional work on the program. The work gives a sincere nod to the late Renaissance, especially the Canzone. And so, counterpoint and polyphony were masterfully married to music that conjured the baroque, yet sounded powerfully modern at the same time.
The final work, the six-movement "Corpus" by David Sanford, was the most expansive and ambitious work on the program. The episodic music ranged from free-form jazz to hypnotic and muted trumpeting. Fittingly, it also proved an apt showcase for these outstanding musicians.
Call arts critic Edward Ortiz at (916) 321-1071.
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