Hub New Music

In a small, brick room resembling a vault in Seattle's lost corners of Capitol Hill, I joined an audience of maybe 15 persons for a performance of new music by mixed ensemble "Hub New Music".  As part of "Spontaneous Combustion"s mid-winter 3-week program, the group was invited with Michael Avitabile on flute, Jesse Christensen on Cello, David Dziardziel on Clarinet, and Zenas Hsu on violin.    It was a very intimate venue in an almost dead-space, where each instrument could be heard quite clearly.

The first piece, David Drexler's "Forgotten at Dawn", a score selected for the Spontaneous Combustion last year's call for scores, made good use of various string & cello techniques, with clear battuto col legion and on-bridge playing blended with the other instruments which swapped unison notes for a "who's got it this time" effect.  The Ensemble came together with a hollow balance, strings complementing winds and vice versa, with players who have been playing together long enough to resonate as a cohesive whole.

The second set, by Northwest composer Laura Kaminsky, depicted scenes from the Colorado Rocky Mountains, punctuated by the interruption of 9/11, which colored the set for the composer mid-through conception.  While there were some nice effects, I found myself disagreeing with the composer's endings; namely, that she either ended a piece of the set before I felt the development reached its peek, or adding a snippet where I felt the ending would be more effective.  For example, "Slate Riverbed" finished with a wholesome partnership of cello and clarinet, but where the mood and timing of clarinet would have been a satisfying ending, the composer chose to add a couple of extra notes in the cello that felt tacked on.  Furthermore, while "Boulders/Avalanche" had a very effective, tumbling beginning with gritty cello arpeggios, it recapped this thematic element near the end with none of satisfaction, nor even conclusion.  While I respect the composition and its method, I could not fully agree with its all the elements of its execution.

Robert Honstein's "Soul House", while drawing from a hum-drum programmatic subject, had some very satisfying and melodic pieces in the set.  For a world premiere of only 15 people in attendance, I thought it deserved a bigger audience.  Indeed, the conclusion of the first, "Bay Window", with its violin and cello harmonic arpeggios in varying speeds, drew goosebumps from my arms.  "Stairs" consisted of rising scales and major thirds for a whole tone series, bouncing, which was fun and creative.  I disagreed with "Alcove", with its static unison and pizzicato, which I felt lead nowhere, but my friend Jacob actually preferred this piece over the others.  "Hallway" was very loud and noisy - perhaps too much so for the small, dead interior.  I felt similarly about rising and falling "Driveway, which seemed to have little purpose though it had more motion than the former.  "Landing" felt like a technical study more than anything else.

"Cooper Beach", on the other hand, with a lovely 3rd ostinato passed from violin to flute to clarinet, had much harmonic purpose, with full but not cliche chords which pulled towards a goal.  The final piece, "Secret Place", started with a rising melody similar to "Ave Maria", and proceeded in a very carol-is set of unwinding chords.  While I agreed with the fluid harmonics, which kept returning to the melodic center, I cringed at the end.  As the violin rose in the melody to the highest pitch-perfect notes of the register, I felt deeply that it needed to decline in pitch to balance the obvious harmonics of the rest of the piece.  Unfortunately, it merely continued to rise to a conclusive tonic at the very top of the range of the violin, which felt so cliche that I thought it was a pity.

I wish "Hub New Music" all the best, and I hope to see them come to Seattle again in the future.