The Carolina Summer Music Festival pushed the envelope a bit last night, introducing edgy chamber music by JacobTV, a leading Dutch composer, not in a conventional concert hall but at Krankies Coffee on Third Street. The idea was to imitate a practice that has become increasingly common in New York and other cities. It worked and should be tried again soon.
A mixed crowd of about 80 teachers, students, artist types and fans of classical music crammed into a joint where listening to music and drinking a beer go together naturally. They heard, enjoyed (or grappled with) music of an incredibly wide-ranging kind.
Sounds anchored in classical, jazz or pop traditions found new life in an often-jarring setting of soundtracks featuring the recorded spoken words of a singer. This seemed to prompt alto saxophonist Taimur Sullivan to deliver a familiar musical language in unfamiliar ways in Billie, for alto sax and soundtracks, in which the sultry and resigned voice of Billie Holiday is heard on recordings.
Something similar occurred in Lipstick, for flute/alto flute (Elizabeth Ransom) and audio derived from cathartic American talk shows and from an interview with Holiday. Would the playing run counter to or in sync with the words? Ransom kept us on the edge of our seats guessing at which way the music would turn.
Would the words and/or their delivery affect the character of the playing? They certainly did in Grab It!, for tenor saxophone (Sullivan) and soundtracks. The words expressed rage, fueling playing of incredible virtuosity and energy.
JacobTV's String Quartet No. 3, for string instruments only, couldn't have been more different than the pieces featuring one instrumentalist only. It was performed by violinists Jacqui Carrasco and Marjorie Bagley, along with cellists Scott Rawls and Alexander Ezerman.
In the quartet, a sustained, felicitous lyricism gives way to sputtering fragments of a highly rhythmic nature. The musicians became driving rockers one moment -- and champions of far earlier styles the next. Call it musical schizophrenia of the most engaging kind.
kkeuffel@wsjournal.com
727-7337
The Carolina Summer Music Festival runs though Aug. 28. For tickets, go to www.carolinasummermusicfestival.org, or call 721-7350.
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