MUSIC REVIEW : Delays Hurt Vivid CalArts Program

Monday evening the CalArts Spring Music Festival moved downtown for a link-up with the Green Umbrella series at the Japan America Theatre. In the process, it somehow converted strong performances of intriguing and potentially complementary repertory into a frustrating marathon.

Even so magical a piece as Lou Harrison’s and Richard Dee’s 1973 Suite for Violin and American Gamelan struggled for its best effect when it began at quarter past 10--and music had occupied less than half of the preceding 135 minutes.

Violinist David Abel provided prodigies of lyric nuance on its behalf, however, and pertinently focused energy in the limber hoedown movements. John Bergamo guided six percussionists at William Colvig’s characterful gamelan in fluid accompaniment.

The other big piece for the evening was Ge Gan-Ru’s “Wu” (Rising to Height) from 1986 for piano and chamber orchestra. The 38-year-old Chinese composer has crafted an imposing one-movement neo-Romantic concerto in the Lisztian mold, multifaceted in temper and form. It has both tunes and engaging color combinations, and some pounding, propulsive climaxes--probably a few too many.

Bryan Pezzone delivered the amplified solo part with vigorous flair, plucking elegantly pointed zither effects from the piano innards and driving the bravura spasms with incisive power. David Rosenboom conducted a 16-member ensemble in evocative, interactive support.

The concert began--late--with the cluttered, post-minimal mechanics of James Tenney’s 1989 “Tableaux Vivants.” Rosenboom led a mixed sextet in a well-defined reading despite some odd resonances and chatter from the thin audience. The inertia of the industrious 15 minutes seemed wholly the product of the composer’s stochastic process.

The program was unified by connections to the North American vernacular and/or world musics, sources joyfully championed by Colored Fish, a fusion band of CalArts students Gernot Blume, Pedro Eustache, Dan Morris and Julie Spencer. They launched the second half with a short set of original pieces, propelled by a potent percussion array, at least in these performances where the amplified balances slighted the jittery flute and reed flights of Eustache.