E.A.R. Unit Celebrates Local Composers

A sense of homecoming, as well as an abiding seriousness, hovered over Wednesday night’s concert by the California E.A.R. Unit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Born and mostly bred at CalArts, the plucky new music group devoted this program--three L.A. premieres and three world premieres--to works of composers with some link to the academic haven in Valencia.

Mainly, the night belonged to the quietly mighty Mel Powell, now 75, the influential composer and founding dean of the CalArts music school. Being a miniaturist, Powell’s two new works invested considerable expressive strength into small, economical packages. In “Sonatine,” the materials seemed to expand in the mind of the beholder, and it showed off Powell’s uncommonly sensuous deployment of serial techniques--especially when played with flutist Dorothy Stone’s sensitivity.

The alternately reverential and rebellious “Sextet” dealt with the broader palette of six voices, issuing short phrases and halting cadences, with ensemble cohesion that waxes and wanes.

A subtext here might refer to composers with once and current jazz careers, what with Powell’s early jazz resume and the modern jazz world prominence of flutist-composer James Newton, who taught at CalArts before taking his current position at UC Irvine. Newton’s moving “Violet” was inspired by a trip to South Africa and reflections on the reciprocal influence of African and African American music. Add to that the Eurocentric chamber music tradition. In the center, two xylophones--played smartly by Amy Knoles and Arthur Jarvinen--maintain a bustling, but never rigid rhythm, over which the others fling fragmented statements.

Steven Mosko’s “Rendering,” played with aptly cool head and hands by pianist Lorna Eder, is an appealingly fractured mosaic of minute statements, while Randall Woolf’s “Quicksilver” banks on cascading, tumbling phrases and dervish-like energy, featuring Stone and violinist Robin Lorentz. Jeff Perry’s “Wave Breaking” created friction and a dialogue of contrasts, between its electro-acoustic timbres and pulse-driven versus freer rhythms.

As the Unit’s shows go, this concert was a no-nonsense affair, tightly knit and venturesome without need for props or high jinks. The music, persuasively, was the message.