Gwendolyn Brown
June 19, 2017
“Ojai at Berkeley,” in partnership
with Cal Performances, is an extension of Southern California’s annual
Ojai Music Festival. The concert series ran Thursday through Saturday,
hosting a broad selection of talented musicians trained in a wide
variety of musical acumens. The program is musically directed by Vijay
Iyer, a UC Berkeley alumnus and accomplished pianist and composer.
There were four events in total as
part of the festival, each one offering a unique musical reinvention of
genre — samplings of Iyer’s original work, pairings with fellow esteemed
composers and musicians and collaborations across mediums were all
included under the umbrella of “Ojai at Berkeley.” On Friday night in
Zellerbach Playhouse, attendees were treated to “Afterword, an opera,” a
new piece from innovative composer George Lewis. The following
afternoon, Iyer himself took the stage in Zellerbach Hall for “Vijay
Iyer and Friends: Confluence,” in which he performed with a group of
other musicians in an exploration of the intersection between Carnatic
music and jazz.
George Lewis’ “Afterword, an opera”
Composer George Lewis’ “Afterword, an
opera” is based on the afterword of Lewis’ book, “A Power Stronger Than
Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music,” which traces the
founding and history of the Association for the Advancement of Creative
Musicians, or AACM. The AACM is a well-known organization that seeks to
promote the production of original, avant-garde music created by Black
musicians — including improvisatory jazz and experimental classical
music. The story is told by three singers — soprano Joelle Lamarre,
contralto Gwendolyn Brown and tenor Julian Terrell Otis — and the work
is not only musically unconventional, but politically relevant.
George Lewis’ compositions are, in a
word, formidable — deliberately discordant and cacophonous, a creaking
jumble of piercing flute and distressed violin that is deceptively
precise.
***
The choice to tell the story of
experimental African-American music as an opera was certainly not
arbitrary — the juxtaposition of a such a traditional, classical style
and a narrative exploring the groundbreaking achievements of musicians
of color was brilliantly executed — the disparity never quite
acknowledged, but nevertheless powerfully present. Opera is well known
for both its musical stringency and its racial and economic exclusivity,
but Lewis is able to subvert these traditions with his unusual
orchestrations and progressive subject matter.
The three characters sing again and
again that they long to empower themselves and honor their ancestors
with original compositions, yet they are confined to expressing these
desires in traditional operatic style, reflecting the restriction from
self-expression and cultural celebration that they must overcome within
the narrative. It’s a politically potent artistic choice, one that Lewis
leverages to his advantage; in the act of challenging opera’s
limitations, “Afterword, an opera” becomes as inventive and
revolutionary as the AACM itself.
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