The recent concert and celebration honoring emeritus composition professor Arthur “Art” Kreiger provided an excellent retrospective on his more than forty-five years of music making. Kreiger retired at the end of the previous spring semester. With the exception of the final piece, the program was performed exclusively by Connecticut College faculty, several of whom performed music that Kreiger wrote for them during his tenure at the College.
The concert opened with Companion Stars, played by Joshua Thomas on soprano saxophone accompanied by electronic sound. Thomas premiered this piece almost five years ago in 2013. The combination and contrast of electronic and acoustic sound is emblematic of Kreiger’s style and was prominent throughout this piece and many of the others selected for the concert. I felt that here the contrast between electronic blips and instrumental lines worked well, given the excellent tone Thomas produced on a rather difficult to play member of the sax family. This was especially apparent in a section where Thomas produced low tones closely in synch with the electronic sound.
This was followed by Electronic Miniature, another piece with connections to Conn as it originally premiered at the 2014 Ammerman Center Biennial Symposium on Arts and Technology, a conference he has been associated with since its founding in 1986. Adapted from a series of exercises Kreiger wrote for students in his electroacoustic music class, this piece was a masterclass in the use of Evans Hall’s sound system. It was very evident that the piece was written for this particular hall, and I particularly enjoyed hearing the environment he created by taking advantage of the hall’s acoustics; a mere turn of the head changed the timbres of the piece. This was the only exclusively electronic piece on the evening’s program.
Next soprano Jurate Waller, violinist Theodore Arm and pianist Patrice Newman presented Four Settings of William Carlos Williams, an early piece of Kreiger’s from 1978. A rather modern sounding song cycle, the piece mainly consisted of alternating statements from violin and vocalist both with piano accompaniment. In the second song, Newman simultaneously hit a piano string with her right hand while continuing to play with the normal key system on her left, creating a rather unique and still audible sound from the instrument. Waller gave a particularly dramatic interpretation of the third song, “This is Just to Say,” which delivered a good comic contrast to the mundanity of its subject material.
Afterwards Patricia Harper performed Close Encounters, a 1997 work for flute and electronic sound. Harper played nearly non-stop for the entire piece, so the entire eight page score was laid out end-to-end on four music stands, a rather rare visual spectacle. As Harper progressed through the piece, she provided the audience with a visual indication of the amount of time remaining as she slowly walked from the right to left side of the stage. I felt the piece allowed her to demonstrate the viability of the instrument when it comes to playing a variety of dynamics and advanced techniques, such as flutter tonguing, all of which were well executed.
Rounding out the first half of the concert, percussionist Peter Jarvis played Occasional Demons, a piece for timpani and electronics, which he premiered in 2005. This was a rather unconventional timpani piece because of the constant loud dynamics and high level of energy on display throughout; usually we expect to hear some dynamic and emotional contrast in any percussion solo work, particularly those written for timpani because it has a great deal of versatility. However, Kreiger has created an effective work for the instrument by setting out to create “an overtly physical performance.” Jarvis certainly delivered pummeling almost nonstop on the kettle drums, although in the middle of the piece, his headphones, which were attached to a metronome, came undone meaning that the metronome was audible in the (few) remaining quieter sections.
The concert continued with Double Knot, performed by tubist Gary Buttery, who premiered the piece in 2003 in Evans Hall, accompanied by electronics. This was a rather demanding piece that required Buttery multiple times to rapidly ascend from the lowest to highest notes of his instrument including at the very end of the piece. He executed these passages very skillfully. I also appreciated Buttery’s projection into the hall. I felt that this piece demonstrated the greatest amount of lyricism in Kreiger’s music, as so often the electronic blips make it difficult to determine what to pay attention to. However, the firm and loud sound of the tuba was easy to follow.
Next Newman returned to the stage to perform By the Water’s Edge, the second and final instrumental work on the program. Somewhat reminiscent of the Moosup Pond in Connecticut, the location of Kreiger’s home, the piece certainly sounded like it could be interpreted as such. Newman worked her way through Kreiger’s harmonies, his open fourths and fifths, with brilliant virtuosity.
This was followed by cellist Christine Coyle’s performance of Kindred Spirits. This was the newest work on the program as Coyle gave its premiere this past February at the most recent Ammerman Symposium. I had some prior exposure to early renditions of the piece, so it was an unsurprising improvement to hear it with an actual cellist. Hearing this latest piece in contrast with the preceding ones suggested a change in Kreiger’s style. Whereas earlier pieces like Companion Stars and Close Encounters open with a solo from the instrumentalist, and often go back and forth between instrumental and electronic sound, this was not the case in Kindred Spirits. Electronic sound opened the piece quickly joined by Coyle. The electronics seemed subordinate to the cellist, but less so than in the other pieces and I felt that the increased mixing of the two worked well in this piece.
Finally, percussionist Christopher Graham, the only performer on the program who is not a member of the music faculty, performed Precious Metals, a 2012 work employing the percussive sounds of the Peking opera gong, Chinese cymbal, suspended cymbal, wind gong and deep washing tub accompanied by electronics. All of the percussion instruments utilized were made of metal, and this choice drove a clear contrast between their clangs and echos in the hall and the more conventional hard percussive sounds of the backing track. Like Occasional Demons, Precious Metals had a lot of energy although it did not reach the intensity of the former piece.
Having previously heard only a few of Kreiger’s works during Music Department concerts, it was interesting to appraise a greater variety of his works. I do wish he and the Music Department would present his works or the works of other contemporary composers more often as right now the only concert that serves as an outlet for contemporary music written by non-student composers, the New Music Chamber Ensembles concert, is sparsely attended and rarely features electronic music. It’s rather sad to see a person with Kreiger’s level of talent and expertise depart from the College, but ultimately all good things must come to an end.
