Music Reviews : Pamela Jordan Sings at Monday Evening Concert

For years, the adjective of first recourse to describe Monday Evening Concerts has been venerable. Respect for its illustrious past had come to outweigh joy in its present accomplishment.

A greening of Monday Evening Concerts, however, has become apparent in recent seasons. The latest installment of the venerable--er, exciting--series at the County Museum of Art was a case in point: a tight, stimulating program, built around the talents of soprano Pamela Jordan and conducted by Stephen Mosko.

At the center of the concert was the local premiere of “Speeches for Dr. Frankenstein” by Bruce Pennycook. The Canadian composer has set passages from a poem by Margaret Atwood as a semi-dramatic, schizophrenic monologue, backed with a powerfully evocative tape accompaniment.

Jordan sang the wide-ranging, unabashedly emotional lines with fervent conviction. Rare in contemporary music, she had the score memorized, freeing her for occasional gestures and movements, with telling, uncredited lighting. Jordan’s powerful delivery spared neither herself nor her listeners, risking exaggeration but making an urgent statement on personal identity and creation.

A USC alumna now based on the East Coast, Jordan also put her sure dramatic instincts and suave vocalism to work for the “Pound Songs” by Dorrance Stalvey, director of music programs at the museum. This mini-cycle--three songs framed by an accompanied, spoken introduction and coda--works as another internal drama, expressively set in fluent lines and supported with deft, striking instrumentation.

Mosko led a potent, moving performance by MEC stalwarts Dorothy Stone, flute; Julian Spear, clarinet; David Stenske, violin; Erika Duke, cello, and M.B. Gordy, percussion. The colorful but not overwhelming accompaniment provided a well-shaped and purposeful environment for Jordan’s reveries, all tautly integrated.

The concert closed with Berio’s wild and wonderful “Folk Songs.” Jordan managed to follow Cathy Berberian’s model in characterization, while allowing them a full measure of spontaneity, in a fresh and joyful performance, backed with equal zest by Mosko and friends.

In the interstices of this soprano recital/tour de force lurked the local premieres of two instrumental works by UC Berkley composer Richard Felciano, who attended the performance. Pianist Delores Stevens and harpist Lou Anne Neill made an effective case for his moody “Lontano,” dealing smoothly with its assorted sound images and role reversals. As revealed by Mosko and a mixed sextet, Felciano’s “Shadows” seemed little more than an academic exercise in accumulating ennui.