An unusual trio with new music makes for a superb concert
By David Williams
West Virginia Gazette
October 30, 2014
Musicians who have an interest in chamber music but work outside the usual ensembles of string instruments or string instruments plus piano don’t have centuries worth of repertoire from which to choose for putting together a program.
For ASS3MBLY, a trio for the unusual combination of flute, percussion, and piano, the available repertoire is much less, with maybe a few pieces from the last century. Or maybe from the last decade. No matter, though, as the trio presented a superb concert of three works composed this year and a major work by Joseph Schwantner composed all the way back in 2012. Flutist Lindsey Goodman, percussionist Scott Christian and pianist Anne Waltner, the members of ASS3MBLY, each commissioned one of their colleagues to compose a piece...
Christian commissioned John Allemeier, who responded with “Bolamkin” for alto flute, vibraphone and piano. The concert was the premiere of the piece. The work is based on an old murder ballad about a mason who is stiffed of his pay for the dwelling he built for a nobleman. The mason breaks into the nursery of the lord’s young child and murders his wife (that is the two sentence explanation of a song that probably had 30 verses).
Allemeier started the piece with the vibraphone playing a music-box-like theme, tinkling gentle bell sounds. A sinister low piano and flute riff rumbled to life under that. Goodman played some popped attacks on the alto flute that sounded almost electronic while Waltner struck brittle chords. The climax of the piece built from a passage that was densely layered with Christian’s chromatic scales in contrary motion against swirling melodies in the flute and rumbled piano. The ending was magical, the alto flute played the vibraphone’s motif from the beginning while a lovely vibraphone passage faded to silence...
By David Williams
West Virginia Gazette
October 30, 2014
Musicians who have an interest in chamber music but work outside the usual ensembles of string instruments or string instruments plus piano don’t have centuries worth of repertoire from which to choose for putting together a program.
For ASS3MBLY, a trio for the unusual combination of flute, percussion, and piano, the available repertoire is much less, with maybe a few pieces from the last century. Or maybe from the last decade. No matter, though, as the trio presented a superb concert of three works composed this year and a major work by Joseph Schwantner composed all the way back in 2012. Flutist Lindsey Goodman, percussionist Scott Christian and pianist Anne Waltner, the members of ASS3MBLY, each commissioned one of their colleagues to compose a piece...
Christian commissioned John Allemeier, who responded with “Bolamkin” for alto flute, vibraphone and piano. The concert was the premiere of the piece. The work is based on an old murder ballad about a mason who is stiffed of his pay for the dwelling he built for a nobleman. The mason breaks into the nursery of the lord’s young child and murders his wife (that is the two sentence explanation of a song that probably had 30 verses).
Allemeier started the piece with the vibraphone playing a music-box-like theme, tinkling gentle bell sounds. A sinister low piano and flute riff rumbled to life under that. Goodman played some popped attacks on the alto flute that sounded almost electronic while Waltner struck brittle chords. The climax of the piece built from a passage that was densely layered with Christian’s chromatic scales in contrary motion against swirling melodies in the flute and rumbled piano. The ending was magical, the alto flute played the vibraphone’s motif from the beginning while a lovely vibraphone passage faded to silence...