Renee' Baker, Conductor
Sunyata Orchestra
Chicago Tribune
Howard Reich
May 4, 2015
SUNYATA: TOWARDS ABSOLUTE EMPTINESS
May 3, 2015
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
On Sunday evening,
Baker presided over a still more ambitious enterprise, leading her vast
Chicago Modern Orchestra Project – including singers, dancers, concer...t
choir and instrumentalists – in "Sunyata: Towards Absolute Emptiness."
As its title suggests, "Sunyata" metaphorically traces a spiritual
journey, its protagonists searching for peace and tranquillity amid the
vicissitudes, conflicts and suffering of everyday life. Inspired by
early Buddhist writings, Baker's score alternated between extremes: from
harsh to ethereal, aggressive to sublime, gnarly to simple, questing to
serene.
At its core stood a
septet of singers performing in various combinations, their vocal lines
interweaving in intricate yet lucid counterpoint. Gospel melody and
free-flying jazz, hummable tunes and brilliant scat singing coursed
through "Sunyata," the vocalists representing practically an orchestra
unto themselves.
They shared the
stage with a traditional chamber ensemble of strings and winds, plus the
free improvisers of The Bridge (an ongoing collaboration of French and
American musicians) and a duo of clad-in-white female dancers offering
Eastern-inspired choreography. All the while, the young voices of the
Pritzker College Prep Concert Choir chanted buoyantly from the back of
the house, thereby placing the audience at the center of a swirl of
sound and ideas.
Add to this Richard
Norwood's evocative lighting design, which bathed the performers and
stage props in shafts of white light, and you had about as close to a
transcendental experience as mere mortals can provide in a 90-plus
minute concert work.
Yes, there were
passages that stretched on too long, moments (especially at the
beginning) where one wasn't quite sure where "Sunyata" was headed and a
series of concluding climaxes that blurred the closing pages of the
work.
Yet there was no
question that Baker had taken listeners on a spiritual odyssey via word,
tone, image and gesture. As particular phrases bubbled up from the
music-making – "true path of righteousness," "finding my beauty in the
now," "the path to my perfect state" – it was easy to get swept up in
the hopefulness and yearning of it all. The grandly stated vocals of Ann
Ward and Dee Alexander, among others, heightened the intensity of the
experience, as did Mitchell's flute solos and Douglas Ewart's saxophone
orations.
Though a bit of
tightening is called for, "Sunyata" deserves to be staged and seen
again, one hopes with as much craft as on this occasion.
Reich is a Tribune critic.
Twitter @howardreich
Renee' C. Baker, Dirigent
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