Philadelphia Report

Peter Burwasser

The bulk of the new music scene in Philadelphia derives from predictable sources. The three most significant music schools in the city, the Curtis Institute of Music, and the musical faculties at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University, provide superb and ample compositional talent. There is also a wealth of new works coming from suburban campuses including Swarthmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr and Princeton.

Performers, too, come from traditional bastions. One of our finest ensembles, Network for Music, draws its forces almost exclusively from the ranks of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which is rife with musicians eager to play new repertoire. Network usually programs music for mixed ensembles, but departed from that pattern for the concert that opened this season. "Flying Solo" was an afternoon of often overtly virtuosic performances by a string of great players. Violinist Hirona Oka began with a pair of characteristically soaring, if meandering, unaccompanied works by Augusta Read Thomas, Pulsar and Incantation. Other highlights in the nine part program included a jazzy and exuberant Halfway There, with Adam Unsworth playing his own composition and producing eerie sounds not often heard from a French horn, and a lovely performance of Persichetti's Parable XV, by English horn player Elizabeth Masoudnia.

There is also a fervent, if struggling, antiestablishment milieu in cheesesteakville, best exemplified by Relâche, an eight member group now a quarter of a century old. Relâche's early days shared much in common with the New York downtown crowd, and folks such as Evan Ziporyn, Elliot Sharp, Michael Gordon and others were regular guests. New York accordionist Guy Klucevsek was a founding member.

These days, they are more inclined to cull material from the ivory towers, which they now deem more inclusive. A concert in the fall, for example, included a commissioned work by Temple faculty member Cynthia Folio. When the Spirit Catches You is a fascinating and moving depiction of the composer's daughter's struggle with epilepsy, depicted with rich texture and vivid dynamic control. The partially improvisatory music is meant to be played with projected images of artwork created by epileptics, plus an actual EEG of a patient having a seizure. The effect is haunting, but Folio's music is strong enough to succeed on its own. The concert also included two works of a more upbeat nature, the highly entertaining and appropriately named High Octane, by Delaware composer Mark Hagerty, and a pleasingly jaunty dance work by Guy Klusevsek, Suite from Mixed Company, both also commissioned by Relâche.

All of those performances featured the ensemble's customary verve and vibrant tonality, but an event earlier this year really tested Relâche's chops. Playing without a conductor (as usual), they performed a score by Joby Talbot (who also composed the score to the recent film Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) to accompany a screening of Alfred Hitchcock's 1927 silent film The Lodger. For ninety minutes, the band underlined the early thriller with astonishing precision. Next season's presentation of Buster Keaton's The General should be another high wire act, perhaps worthy of a train trip down south for the NYC crowd.