Here & There

We went to a wonderful concert by the new-music chamber group Third Angle at the Old Church in Portland: music by George Crumb and his son David Crumb, who teaches at the University of Oregon. Both go in for quiet subtle effects and strange sounds, imaginative and finely crafted. Violinist Ron Blessinger and pianist Susan Smith played David's affecting September Elegy (2002) and George's confidently avant garde, soothing Four Nocturnes (1963). David's attractive Improvisations (really variations) on an English Folk Tune premiered. The second half was George's 2002 Unto the Hills: beloved Appalachian songs sung straight (and beautifully, by Diane Reich) with exquisite, delicate, abstract percussion accompaniment: music clearly written for the sheer love of it. Mark Goodenberger conducted four scrupulous percussionists from Central Washington University, playing everything under the sun, with Jeffrey Meyer at the altered piano. Hard-core and first-rate. Live music is local you have to be there each play in one theatre at a time goes forward past receding future sucking remembered fading the web is nowhere specific I am here writing now you are reading somewhere else another time only after the we everywhere "forever" no place contains us a few people see the play closes sans documentary nothing art happens once time slows observes goes home life over over slow wink my show in limbo incompletely cast I can compromise still missing two or three my son Alfred coming to play Tobyus what I most want not to give up reading other plays Frayn "Here" possible I would rather do "Butter Boy" new surprising meantime poems to jury for the festival in April heavy fog finally melts sun low southwest full moon tonight