One of the traditions Michael Tilson Thomas created as he is leading the
San Francisco Symphony is the annual "Mavericks" concert in the summer, an
event trying hard to be as non-traditional as possible.  And, sometimes
even more than possible.

The beginning was the best:  MTT's first Maverick concert, in 1996, had the
surviving Grateful Dead, with the conductor at the piano, improvise on the
music of Henry Cowell.  Now, that was *something*!

Colorful and terribly international, tonight's edition, right in the
middle of the unrelated Stravinsky Festival, opened with six bare-breasted
timpanists, pounding out Russell Peck's "Liftoff!" on a large number of
percussionable instruments.  They were also without shoes, these men.  Oh?
What were you thinking?

The piece goes from soft drumming to the barbaric kind, it says in the
program notes, and that is the truth.  With only their pants on, the
musicians did not sweat...  and, as far as I know, the audience didn't
either.  I mention that because those program notes by Tom Hemphill refer
to his experience of audiences at "Liftoff!" performances who "sweat and
breathe heavily." Personally, I did neither.  (I *was* when Mickey Hart,
Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Vince Welnick, and Mickey Thomashevsky did their
little number three years ago.)

Instead of breathing heavily as tonight's concert went on, in fact, I was
cursing softly under my breath when the fabulous Kronos Quartet wasted its
(and the audience's) time with a strangely pointless (neither "new" nor
good) collection of short pieces:

The late Anibal Carmelo Troilo (a pre-Piazzolla bandoneonist) weighed in
with "Responso," something sounding more like music from Vienna than from
La Plata.  Aleksandra Vrebalov, from Novi Sad (and lately, San Francisco)
was represented with "Panonia Boundless," which wasn't; in fact, it sounds
like a weak Hungarian-Gypsy piece.  Korean Hyo-Shin Na's "Song of the
Beggars" was neither East nor West nor in-between.

Terry Riley's "Cortejo Funebre en el Monte Diablo" has a prerecorded set
of sounds, and not even the shadow of his early innovation and integrity.
The late Rahul Dev Burman, a highly successful Indian pop music composer,
tried to "get classical" with "Tonight is the Night," but -- similarly to
the Korean composer -- ended up nowhere.  (His sarod teacher, Ali Akbar
Khan, is still going strong, right here in the Bay Area, and wouldn't be
a "maverick" concert to feature *him* with SFS!)

Things looked up after the intermission, with well-established
anti-establishmentarianisms from the venerable Lou Harrison ("Grand Duo
for Violin and Piano," with the grand and fabulous Julie Steinberg and
David Abel).  selections from Meredith Monk's "Facing North," and the
highlight of the evening:  Aaron Jay Kernis' "Simple Songs," with soprano
Susan Narucki and a chamber ensemble from the Symphony.

Kernis conducted the piece himself; he wrote it it 1991, for Narucki, and
that was clever of him:  she can sing pretty much anything (I draw the line
at the unredeemable Nemtin treatment of the Scriabin "Humanity" she sang
here recently) and the audience would experience the heavy breathing all
that percussion couldn't evoke.

Still, the very talented Kernis-Narucki duo started out on shaky ground.
The first song uses text by Hildegard of Bingen, and Kerniss' vocal line
was written in such a way than not a word could be understood of the poem
"Holy Spirit."

Relief came immediately, with a gorgeous introduction to the second poem,
Psalm 1 ("Blessed Are") and a true *song*, with none of the problems of the
opening piece.  Ryokan's "First Days of Spring" and Rumi's "You Are the
Notes" again fused music and words beautifully, the lyrical accompaniment
to the Rumi poem especially noteworthy.  The work ends with Psalm 131
("Lord, My Mind is Not Noisy"), creating the high point of the evening,
thanks in a very large part to Narucki's fabulously effortless singing
of some very difficult vocal music.

MTT, introducing the work, mentioned that Kernis is working on a "major"
orchestral work for the SFS.  I bet my bottom dollar there won't be any
bare-chested musicians in that one, especially if it's not part of the
Maverick concert.  Not that there is anything wrong with that...

Janos Gereben/SF
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