I recently went to two very very different entirely acoustic performances. It’s amazing to me how rare this is these days.
On Friday night I attended a marvelous performance at the Rubin Museum of Art by Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan and Michael Harrison. The Rubin is dedicated to presenting work the way it’s meant to be heard, and this is the second series by Mashkoor Ali Khan that I’ve seen there that used no amplification. The natural vibrations of North Indian music are particularly magical when everything is acoustic.
Then on Sunday I went to see/hear my friend Megan Schubert and Jeffrey Gavett sing Stockhausen’s Am Himmel Wandre Ich… in Sakura Park way uptown. This concert was not only acoustic, but it was outdoors, and it was raining torrentially. Plus the gazebo it was being performed under seemed to be the home of several dozens of birds.
All things considered, including the rain, I have to say I enjoyed myself at the Stockhausen much more than the raga concert. These are the sorts of events that I idealized in my head before I moved here. Wildly avant-garde music presented in a strange venue and sparsely attended by a devout few.
The music itself, the rain, the communal aspect of all trying to huddle under a gazebo, the sounds of birds, and the curious onlookers in the distance all made for a brilliant and beautiful evening.
It’s not often I get to see purely acoustic concerts. I went to a performance of Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes a few months back at Issue Project Room, a quite small venue. There were only a few people there, maybe 20-25 and we were probably 15 feet away from the pianist. For no discernible reason, this was amplified, distractingly so in fact.
I think too often we fall back on amplification to make up for less than ideal performance situations. But the Stockhausen concert on sunday would have been completely ruined by amplification, I’m glad they decided to let the music and performance be what it is. Amplification is another valid tool, but then again, so is acoustic sound. Let’s have a return to sound as it should be: Acoustic or Amplified, let the decision be a decision, not a default.
Tags: 2009, Art, Friday, John Cage, Mashkoor Ali Khan, Megan Schubert, Michael Harrison, Music, Performances, Raga, Rain, Rubin, Stockhausen
