MUSIC REVIEW : New Music From New Century Players

A year ago, the last time the CalArts music department came downtown as part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella series, the spotlight was cast on the department’s celebrated diversity--its equal interest in classical, jazz and world music. It was a different story under the Green Umbrella on Monday night at the Japan America Theatre. This time out, music department dean David Rosenboom conducted the CalArts-based New Century Players in a full, satisfying evening of mostly conventional, Western concert works.

Conventionality, of course, is a relative term when it comes to New Music. The oldest work here was “In the Beginning V (The Story),” a multimedia venture by Rosenboom dating from 1980, which closed the program. Text-reliant philosophical residue, superfluous film interludes and a minimalist drive-train made the work strain under the weight of overambition and, yes, a kind of inverse conventionality by dint of how quickly New Music changes. Time definitively flies in this world.

More memorable music came in the form of introspective, trend-resistant compositions of the last five years. In the course of the concert, four works were performed that took advantage of the New Century Players’ sizable ensemble, often using the resources sparingly as a broad palette of possibilities rather than a sonic mass.

This was particularly true of Tamar Diesendruck’s “How/Feel,” in which subtle distribution of sounds and pairings of instruments are sprinkled throughout the ensemble until the culminating finale. In “How/Feel,” the title’s slash is a significant piece of punctuation, as the composer examines the dualities of organized/spontaneous elements, concrete/fluid sound worlds and rushing/rustling energies.

Michael Jon Fink’s “Temptation to Flower,” an ink-still-wet piece written expressly for this group, is a lustrous lament--now tender, now vaguely ominous. As the work slows to a crawl, with metaphysically tinged, yawning long notes, the influence of the late, great Morton Feldman becomes apparent.

The Feldman connection reached an ethereal pitch after intermission, with “The Immutable Silence,” by his widow Barbara Monk Feldman. Scattered, almost distracted, little musical events are placed in the air impressionistically, cohering into a constellation of freeze-frame moments--a la Morton Feldman. Attention to detail and instrumental color is all in this beautifully non-linear, vaporous dream of a work.

For most intents and purposes, this was an enthralling New Music encounter, performed with aplomb and dedication and rooted in substantial ideas. Even Rosenboom’s finale--however out of context it felt in this program--came across at its best as system music with a sensuous alter ego, alternately driving and cloud-like.