WOMEN COMPOSERS ARE FEATURED AT NORTHRIDGE : MORE IN FESTIVAL

The Saturday concerts at Cal State Northridge honoring women composers from around the world had their blind spots. For one thing, only one composer not from North America was represented.

But there were also revelations. Priscilla McLean’s “Variations and Mosaics on a Theme of Stravinsky” is a confident personal interpretation of Stravinskyan styles. Lawrence Christianson and the CSN Symphony capitalized grandly on its strong scoring, as they did on Mercedes Otero’s equally vivid, fragmentary “Gravitation.”

John Alexander’s Northridge Singers contributed handsomely to the cause with a pert, balanced performance of Ruth Henderson’s neo-modal Missa Brevis. They lacked weight for the lyric poise of the “Sanctus” and “Benedictus,” but made intensity serve the “Agnus Dei” and sang the spunkier movements nimbly.

Jane Frasier revealed a similar style in “Joy, Peace and Singing,” a reflective setting of Isaiah 55:12 for women’s chorus and flute. Elizabeth Vercoe’s slick pop parodies in “Irreveries From Sappho,” and Chelsey Kahmann’s buoyant “Holidays Are Come,” however, seem aimed at the glee club market. Noreen Green led the Women’s Chorale in suitably light accounts.

No dates were provided, but these pieces are probably all of fairly recent composition. The afternoon concert, however, offered two works from the earlier part of this century.

Florence Price’s Sonata in E minor is the logical heir to Dvorak’s American-period style--broadly scaled music of tuneful grace and surging power. Pianist Althea Waites presented it with technical assurance and probing artistry.

Oboist Greg Steinke’s slender, buzzy tone didn’t give much sonic presence to Ruth Crawford-Seeger’s forward-hearing “Diaphonic” Suite No. 1. He did shape phrases and articulate structures nicely, which served Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux’s taut, serial “Horizon II” well.

Three atonal Etudes by Nancy Van de Vate provided nice work for the viola, but pieces by Lynn Steele and Victoria Bond proved pale, modest things of little impact. In that context, local composer Deon Price’s pops-flavored “Big Sur Triptych” and “Alley” Trio made a strong impression.

There was nothing pale or modest about Deborah Kavasch’s strident melodrama, “Medea.” Still, we expect more of extended vocal techniques than just amplified rasping and extra-wide vibrato, and more of drama than simplistic symbolism.